The First Battle of the Marne in the memoirs of the German Empire military elite

The First Battle of the Marne is one of the most debatable battles of World War I. The course and the outcome of the combats of 5-14 September 1914 gave a chance for both sides of the conflict to build different pictures of the event. For example, German propagandists' opinion about the given victory used to be upheld nearly till the end of the war. In view of this, the opinion of the participants of the war, especially of the German military elite in the postwar time seems to be interesting. In the article the image of the First Battle of the Marne in the memoirs of Generals Erich Ludendorff, Wilhelm Groener, Karl von Einem, Magnus von Eberhard, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Colonel Max Bauer and Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg is studied by means of a comparative-historical method and methods of imagology and of analysis and synthesis. The article is aimed at determining the prevailing trends in the assessing of the outcome and consequences of the First Battle of the Marne. The analysis of the memoirs of the German Army Command spokesmen has allowed making the following conclusions: 1. For various reasons not all authors paid their attention to the battle. Most of all it bothered the minds of Einem, Bauer and Groener. Tirpitz and Eberhardt were not interested in it. 2. Erich Lu-dendorff, Wilhelm Groener and Max Bauer gave several reasons for the defeat in the First Battle of the Marne, but emphasized one, which influenced the outcome of the battle most of all. Paul von Hindenburg was the only person, who marked a complex of factors which led to the defeat. And only Karl von Einem blamed Moltke. 3. Members of the Army Command in the prewar time (Groener, Einem, Ludendorff, Bauer) particularly emphasized the fact of the deviation from Schlieffen's Plan, which they believed in without reserve. 4. All authors did not take into account the allies' good command. They looked for the reasons of the defeat inside the German Army and its Command and found them in concrete personalities, neither the defects of the Command system nor the military plans were to blame. 5. The spokesmen of the German Empire military elite did not have complex judgments about the consequences of the First Battle of the Marne. Their evaluations and judgments were based on their own experiences and feelings, as well as on the German military documents. It is no accident that historians' opinion was different: they were able to make a full and objective picture of the Battle of the Marne on the basis of the entire set of documents.

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