The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World by Holger H. Herwig

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    T HE FEDERAL STRUCTURE OF THE GERMAN LAND FORCES IN 1914 forced me to trace down all the various army, corps, brigade, division, and regiment primary materials for this book. The task was made much easier by the cheerful and professional assistance that I received from a host of archivists in all parts of Germany: the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, III Geheimes Hausarchiv, and IV Kriegsarchiv, at Munich; the Generallandesarchiv at Karlsruhe; the Hauptstaatsarchiv at Stuttgart; and the Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv at Dresden. The Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv at Freiburg proved a veritable treasure trove with the new record Group RH 61: Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, consisting of some three thousand Prussian and German army files previously thought destroyed by Allied bombing raids on Potsdam in 1945.
    For French archival records, I am grateful to my research assistant, Dr. Stephanie Cousineau of the University of Northern British Columbia, who gave up what little free time she had from teaching to research the files of the Service Historique de la Défense at the Château de Vincennes; the Historial de la Grande Guerre at the Château de Péronne; and the Document Service of Le Mémorial de Verdun. As well, she checked countless of my inelegant French translations and cheerfully collected French books and pamphlets either out of print or recently reprinted (and generally unavailable outside France).
    Truly yeoman service above and beyond the call of duty was carried out by the staff of the Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan Services of the University of Calgary. For two years, they chased down 153 of even the most obscure requests that I made of them—and never complained (much less faltered) even once. Conversely, I wish to thank their (to me anonymous) colleagues at the University of Alberta at Edmonton, who sent to Calgary virtually all the memoir literature for both French and German military and political leaders as well as the weighty tomes of the German official history, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918. Die militärischen Operationen zu Lande , and its French counterpart, Les armées françaises dans la grande guerre , all in record time.
    Special thanks are due three people who made this book happen: Rob Cowley, founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History , who first proposed the topic to me; Jonathan Jao, editor at Random House, who expeditiously approved and encouraged the project; and Linda McKnight, my literary agent at Westwood Creative Artists in Toronto, who as always crossed all the t ’s and dotted all the i ’s of the contract. They were a pleasure to work with.
    The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada has funded my research since 1990. Without this steadfast support, research at the numerous German archives would not have been possible. And finally, I once again owe more than I can express to my severest critic and dearest wife, Lorraine Parrish Herwig, who read far too many drafts of this work. As always, what errors remain are all of my own making.

ABBREVIATIONS

AFGG
 
Les armées françaises dans la grande guerre , 11 tomes , 111 annexes (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1922–37)
AOK
 
Armeeoberkommando (German army command)
BA-MA
 
Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg
BEF
 
British Expeditionary Force
BHStA-GH
 
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Geheimes Hausarchiv, Munich
BHStA-KA
 
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv-Kriegsarchiv, Munich
CD
 
Cavalry division
GD
 
Guard division
GHQ
 
General Headquarters (British)
GLA
 
Generallandesarchiv, Karlsruhe
GQG
 
Grand quartier général (French military headquarters)
HGW-MO
 
History of the Great War: Military Operations , 23 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1922–48)
HHStA
 
Haus-, Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Vienna
HstA
 
Hauptstaatsarchiv, Stuttgart
IB
 
Infantry brigade
ID
 
Infantry division
IR
 
Infantry regiment
Joffre
 
Joseph Joffre, Mémoires du maréchal