Enveloping Paris from the west as well was indeed a part of the original Schlieffen plan, but that plan hadn’t been quite as successful as the Germans had hoped it would be. Which was not too surprising, because they had committed fewer troops than originally intended by Von Schlieffen, and the reason for that was, that they also needed to fight Russia.
As a result, when the Battle of the Marne started, the front line ran north-south from Ypres in Belgium to a point some 50 to 60 miles north of Paris, and from there, mostly east-to-southeast towards the Franco-German border. Sending an army westward and then south to arrive west of Paris, would have been a high risk operation, exposing that army to counterattacks on both flanks. In the original Schlieffen plan, a much larger area to the north would have been overrun, and the encirclement of Paris would have involved forces arriving from that direction.
So while I agree that the German High Command probably planned and hoped to win the war that way when it started, I’m not sure that encircling Paris from the west was still their intent in early September. Accounts of the situation and events and especially of the various plans are not always consistent, and I may have misinterpreted some of them, but it seems that the German idea was to break the French lines east of Paris, and thus separate the French armies in the east of the country from the capital, which would then be captured. The actual encirclement would only have been partial.
Why exactly that plan went wrong, can probably be attributed to various courses. The Germans may have underestimated the strength of the Paris garrison, or may have been misinformed of the whereabouts or even the existence of the French Sixth Army, that had just been formed. This account by Von Kluck, the commander of the first German Army, casts blame on Von Bulow’s Second Army for not protecting the right flank of the advance, and it’s illustrative of the overall difficulty in coordination and communications. Of course, it was written by a man who had to defend himself for the failure of the entire operation. Another factor may have been that troops had recently been transferred to the eastern front, because the Russian threat seemed bigger than it turned out to be - the Germans didn’t know beforehand that they would be as successful as they were at Tannenberg.
Just seen in Twitter: today, the 22nd September 1914 the U9 Sank three Cruisers: HMS Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy. All in about an hour. Remarkable feat.
The commander was Otto Weddigen. He first torpedoed HMS Aboukir, causing heavy flooding. It was evident she would sink. (Took 30 mins.) the British commander, Captain Drummond, ordered his two other Cruisers to pull alongside the foundering ship to aid in rescuing the crew, thinking it had hit a mine!
The rest had been made easy for the German commmander. Next Weddingen fired two torpedoes from 300 metres at HMS Hogue. The Sub had to surface, but was able to avoid destruction by the fast sinking second Cruiser (10 mins).
After firing two torpedoes at the last Cruiser, hitting with one, Weddingen turned his Sub around and fired his last torpedo at HMS Cressy, which took 15 mins to sink.
1459 sailors died, the rest were rescued by (Neutral)Dutch vessels and returned (illegally) to service.
Everyone British who could be, was blamed. From the Admiralty, the Admirals who were not present and who did not “lend” Desrtoyers, to the commander of all 3 ships, Captain Drummond. Zigzagging at 12-13 knots as prescribed, was not done as the Cruisers could not maintain that speed!
The result was that Armoured Cruisers were never again asked to do the patrol and stopping major ships in dangerous seas was banned.
@wittmann:
Just seen in Twitter: today, the 22nd September 1914 the U9 Sank three Cruisers: HMS Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy. All in about an hour. Remarkable feat.
The commander was Otto Weddigen. He first torpedoed HMS Aboukir, causing heavy flooding. It was evident she would sink. (Took 30 mins.) the British commander, Captain Drummond, ordered his two other Cruisers to pull alongside the foundering ship to aid in rescuing the crew, thinking it had hit a mine!
The rest had been made easy for the German commmander. Next Weddingen fired two torpedoes from 300 metres at HMS Hogue. The Sub had to surface, but was able to avoid destruction by the fast sinking second Cruiser (10 mins).
After firing two torpedoes at the last Cruiser, hitting with one, Weddingen turned his Sub around and fired his last torpedo at HMS Cressy, which took 15 mins to sink.
1459 sailors died, the rest were rescued by (Neutral)Dutch vessels and returned (illegally) to service.
Everyone British who could be, was blamed. From the Admiralty, the Admirals who were not present and who did not “lend” Desrtoyers,  to the commander of all 3 ships, Captain Drummond. Zigzagging at 12-13 knots as prescribed, was not done as the Cruisers could not maintain that speed!
The result was that Armoured Cruisers were never again asked to do the patrol and stopping major ships in dangerous seas was banned.
This U-Boat was a warship killer. She would later sink another RN Cruiser and a Russian Auxiliary Minesweeper. Her merchant GRT was low at 8,600 tons. This U-Boat would survive the war and the actions of September 22, 1914 will never get forgotten.
I thought it remarkable the ship survived.
The commander, Weddigen, didn’t though. He was transferred to another U Boat and that was sunk.
Thanks for an interesting story, Wittmann. I’ve been a bit to busy myself to tell more of the Great War, but I intend to return to this thread soon.
I believe on the Western Front at this time a series of flanking movements from both sides begun which continued until Flanders. This series of local actions has become popularly known as The Race To The Sea.
Have any of you read the account of the SMS Seeadler? Its the most unusual merchant raider of the World Wars.
@ABWorsham:
Have any of you read the account of the SMS Seeadler? Its the most unusual merchant raider of the World Wars.
I’d never heard of her. I’ve just looked her up. I thought at first you were talking about the German cruiser of the same name, but then I saw the article on the sailing ship that served as a commerce raider in WWI. 16 merchant ship captures is an impressive record; from what I can recall, it’s an even higher figure than the Graf Spee scored in WWII. Thanks for this interesting bit of naval history.
Thanks Worsham.
It is an excellent story. Looks like it should be a Civil War Commerce Raider!
@CWO:
@ABWorsham:
Have any of you read the account of the SMS Seeadler? Its the most unusual merchant raider of the World Wars.
I’d never heard of her. I’ve just looked her up. I thought at first you were talking about the German cruiser of the same name, but then I saw the article on the sailing ship that served as a commerce raider in WWI. 16 merchant ship captures is an impressive record; from what I can recall, it’s an even higher figure than the Graf Spee scored in WWII. Thanks for this interesting bit of naval history.
A sailing ship armed for offensive warfare in a World War that is movie worthy. The ship also survived a hurricane!
On the 27th October 1914, the British Dreadnought, Audacious
Was the first battleship to sink in WW1. She hit a mine off the North coast of Ireland of all places. She sank later that evening, but with no loss of life. Although a sailor on another ship half a mile away died when hit by a piece of shrapnel as she exploded and sank.
Audacious was a King George class Deadnought, 600ft long, weighing 24000 tons and armed with ten 13.5 inch guns. She was only commissioned the year before.
Her sinking was covered up until the end of the war.
@wittmann:
On the 27th October 1914, the British Dreadnought, Audacious Was the first battleship to sink in WW1. […] Her sinking was covered up until the end of the war.
Thanks for this item. The part about the cover-up is especially interesting. I wonder if the Admiralty would have tried to keep the sinking a secret if there had been heavy loss of life rather than no casualties?
Could they have? There was the sister ship to the Titanic close by, the Olympic. In an ironic twist, it heeded the distress call. It rescued many of the crew and tried to tow it.
I am on my phone, so can’t attach a link. Is quite an interesting read.
On November 1, 1914 the First World War naval Battle of Coronel took place on the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. German Kaiserliche Marine forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.
Evening Worsham. Thanks for posting that. I saw it on twitter this morning and was unaware of the battle. Was interesting to read about it.
I saw it was a Cruiser battle and that Cradock died along with 1600 sailors. Two of the modern German Cruisers were called Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
I think it said it was the first time the Royal Navy had lost a ship since 1815. Remarkable fact.
@wittmann:
Evening Worsham. Thanks for posting that. I saw it on twitter this morning and was unaware of the battle. Was interesting to read about it.
I saw it was a Cruiser battle and that Cradock died along with 1600 sailors. Two of the modern German Cruisers were called Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
I think it said it was the first time the Royal Navy had lost a ship since 1815. Remarkable fact.
Graf Spee knew that his victory over the RN at Coronel spelled his doom. Any chance he had of anchoring in home water had just vanished. The best he could do was to cause as much damage for the German cause before his time ran out. Coal was becoming a constant problem, and refueling in the busy Atlantic was dangerous unlike the wild open quiet South Pacific. Heavy shells were running extremely low from the victories at Papeete and Coronel. His cruisers were far beyond the need of a dry-dock overhaul.
While resupply his ships in a pro German Chilean after the battle he was presented a gift of flowers from the local governor, his reply was, “Thank you, they will look great at my funeral.”
I just picked up a book about WW1 in the Pacific called Spee Raiders. Its been a great read.
It is so weird (to me) to hear German and Pacific in the same sentence.
I am reading Osprey’s new release about Kursk’s Northern shoulder (Model). Lots of great pictures of tanks. Especially the Ferdinand!
@wittmann:
It is so weird (to me) to hear German and Pacific in the same sentence.
One still-surviving relic of Germany’s small and short-lived colonial empire in the Asia-Pacific region is the name of a particular group of islands off New Guinea: the Bismarck Archipelago. Another relic is Tsingtao Beer, which started being produced in 1904 by the Germania-Brauerei. Tsingtao (now Qingdao) was a German-controlled territory in China from the late 19th century to 1914, when Japan seized it. The beer is still being produced in Qingdao, under the old Tsingtao name.
The Battle of Cambrai began today, the 20th November, in 1917.
The British 3rd Army(Byng) pushed 3-4 miles into Germans lines, but were unable to surround Cambrai itself and break The Hindenburg line. The whole of The Tank Corps’ strength was utilised: 476 tanks. By the end of the day 179 had been destroyed or had broken down. The Cavalry Corps (Kavanagh) was poorly led and did not fulfil its objectives. The 4000 British casualties were low for such an operation, however.
Two weeks later the Germans would successfully counter attack.
