Figure 9
Country
Peacetime
Strength
Wartime
Strength
Infantry
Divisions
Cavalry
Divisions
Russia
1,445,000
3,400,000
114.5
36
Serbia
52,000
247,000
11.5
1
Montenegro
2,000
Colonial
France
827,000
157,000
1,800,000
80
10
Britain
248,000
190,000
162,000
6
1
Belgium
48,000
117,000
6
1
TOTAL
2,622,000
347,000
5,726,000
218
49
Germany
761,000
7,000
2,147,000
87.5
11
Austria-Hungary
478,000
1,338,000
49.5
11
3,485,000
137
22
TOTAL
1,239,000
7,000
The Military Strength of the European States in 1914
SOURCE: Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 92.
Allied pressure grew on a given sector, they could
quickly rush troops from one front to the other—or
could mass troops for an offensive, gaining a numerical advantage on a local basis. Germany was able to
put 2 million men and 600,000 horses in the field in
only thirteen days, faster than any other power. But
these advantages were fleeting. France had to be
knocked out of the war quickly for Germany to win
the war.
Early Battles
The Western Front
STRATEGY
The Schlieffen Plan called for a massive, rapid
German strike with overwhelming force against
France. For Germany to succeed, France had to be
defeated in just over a month—before Russia could
mobilize its massive reserves and transport them
across large distances to the German border. The
French strategy for the thirty years after 1870 had
focused on an initial defensive stance, followed only
later by counterattacks. Toward this end, France
built up great fortresses and defensive lines on its
border with Germany. Because of the strength of
these defenses, the Schlieffen Plan instead pointed
the German invasion force through neutral Belgium.
French military planners were aware of the possibility of an invasion through Belgium and built
up defenses along that border as well, but they
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seriously underestimated the number of divisions
that Germany would dare to throw into the invasion on that side of the front. Moreover, in the early
twentieth century, with the Russian alliance and the
entente with Britain secured, French military strategists who favored a major offensive at the beginning
of the war rose to prominence. In 1911, General
Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, a strong proponent
of the offensive strategy, was appointed Chief of the
French General Staff. He introduced Plan 17 as the
basic French war plan. It shifted troop deployments
to the northeast in preparation for an initial offensive toward Alsace-Lorraine that he hoped would
be decisive in the war. In retrospect, this appears to
have been an enormously risky strategy that nearly
led to French defeat.25
Germany also pursued a risky strategy, deploying
nearly all of its troops on the right flank of an invading force, leaving only about 15 percent of its forces
on the Western Front to defend the German border
with France and only a small force on the Eastern
Front to defend against a Russian invasion. Both
sides, for many different reasons, believed deeply
in an offensive strategy. Joffre thought that a successful offensive taking French troops quickly onto
German soil would open the path to Berlin and force
Germany to sue for peace. Germany’s entire war
strategy depended upon knocking France out of the
war quickly.26
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Figure 11
Country
Personnel
Large Naval Vessels
Tonnage
Russia
54,000
4
328,000
France
68,000
10
731,000
Britain
209,000
29
2,205,000
TOTAL
331,000
43
3,264,000
Germany
79,000
17
1,019,000
Austria-Hungary
16,000
3
249,000
TOTAL
95,000
20
1,268,000
The Naval Strength of the Powers in 1914
SOURCE: Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 85
After the last fort fell on August 16, the guns were
sent to the fortress complex at Namur, where they
arrived on August 21. After only three days of devastating bombardment, Namur also surrendered. It
was a remarkable display of German and Austrian
engineering and an early example of the crucial
role that artillery was to play in the war. Despite
the Germans’ ultimate victory, the taking of the
Belgian fortresses required more valuable time and
resources than the Schlieffen Plan had allocated.
The Plan had called for a single division to take the
fortresses, but it instead required eight divisions
and much more time to complete the task. However,
Joffre decided not to send any French troops to help
in the defense of the area. He wanted to keep them
all for his offensive in the northeast.28
Once the fortresses fell, the German Army pushed
the Belgian army back through Brussels toward
Belgium’s border with France. A series of engagements between the French and the Germans
beginning on August 14 and ending with the beginning of the Battle of the Marne on September 6
became known as the “Battle of the Frontiers.” This
series of engagements involved over two million soldiers, making it the largest battle in human history
to that date.29
France mobilized 1.5 million men in the first few
weeks of the war, and when the fighting began, France
fielded roughly as many troops (78 infantry and 10
cavalry divisions) as the invading Germans (76 infantry and 10 cavalry divisions). On August 14, France
launched four simultaneous attacks toward the provinces of Lorraine and Alsace, both of which had been
annexed by Germany from France at the conclusion
of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71. Although the
French greatly outnumbered the Germans on this
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Portrait of French General Joseph-JacquesCésaire Joffre. Joffre was appointed Chief
of the French General Staff and introduced
Plan 17 as the basic French war plan,
shifting troop deployments to the northeast
in preparation for an initial offensive
toward Alsace-Lorraine that he hoped would
be decisive in the war.
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