In comparison, the French army, with plenty of combat experience from the engagements at Ypres and Verdun, took its objectives with 1,600 casualties. British training was far from complete, and their strategy was also flawed thinly spread artillery, defective munitions (largely British-produced), and inexperienced troops led to a disastrous initial British assault – some 57,000 casualties. Yet after the French army was devastated at Verdun, the British were left to take the principal role. Originally, the French were to lead the attack, with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) providing support. The First Battle of the Somme (July 1 - November 18, 1916) was an Anglo-French offensive whose objective was to overstretch and wear down the German army on the Western Front. The combination of intense violence with very minimal visible progress made the Battle of Verdun emblematic of the fighting on the Western Front. Total casualties are estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,250,000 men. The final French offensive on December 15, combining a massive artillery assault and an infantry advance, resulted in 13,500 of the remaining 21,000 German troops being taken prisoner. From August to December, French counter-offensives forced the German army to retreat nearly three miles. Yet by July, the German force at Verdun was reduced to provide reinforcements for the British-led Somme Offensive. German infantry then advanced, driving the French back over two miles. The German offensive began with a 9-hour artillery bombardment on the French lines along the east bank of the Meuse River. The German strategy during the battle would be one of attrition, or wearing down French manpower through sustained attack. Knowing the French army had suffered enormous losses in 1915, German strategists believed that if they could force the French to attack with the same intensity as they had a year earlier, the French army would lose even more men and be forced to ask for peace, ending Germany’s difficult two-front war. The Battle of Verdun (February 21 - December 18, 1916) took place north of the city of Verdun along the Meuse River in northeastern France between the German and French armies and was the longest battle of the First World War at 303 days.
Yet it also set the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front. The pursuing French and British armies ultimately clashed with the Germans at this spot, resulting in the Battle of the Aisne. The Battle of the Marne was a victory for the Allies, marking the ultimate failure of the German Schlieffen Plan to reach Paris. The Germans eventually stopped their retreat north of the Aisne River, where they dug in, constructing trenches.
Though historians have recently challenged the veracity of the battle’s taxicabs, the story’s impact on French morale was undeniable. Thus, the reinforced Allies held their ground against German counterattacks and drove them into a retreat. The Germans still hoped to defeat the Allies, but the French were reinforced on the night of September 7 by 10,000 reserve infantry ferried from Paris, including about 3,000 men from the Seventh Army transported by six hundred taxicabs requisitioned by French generals in Paris.
While engaging the Sixth Army, the German forces ignored the attacks from a combined British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Fifth Army advancing from the south, opening a 30 mile gap in the German lines. Following the French army’s “Great Retreat” towards Paris, French Marshal Joseph Joffre ordered the French Sixth Army to advance. The Battle of the Marne (September 5-12, 1914) marked the end of the German advance into France from Belgium.
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