Battle of Lorraine

Part of the Battle of the Frontiers on the Western Front of the First World War

Western Front, 2 August 1914

Date	14–25 August 1914
Location	Lorraine 49°00′N 06°00′E / 49.000°N 6.000°E / 49.000; 6.000Coordinates: 49°00′N 06°00′E / 49.000°N 6.000°E / 49.000; 6.000
Result	German victory

Belligerents

German Empire

France

Commanders and leaders

Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen

Strength

6th Army (6 corps)
7th Army (3 corps)
Total: 345,000 men

First Army (5 corps)
Second Army (5 corps)
Total: 590,000 men

Casualties and losses

66,500

Unknown

The Battle of Lorraine was a battle of World War I fought in August 1914 between France and Germany. This followed Plan XVII, which proposed a French offensive through Lorraine and Alsace into Germany.

Belgian military planning was based on the assumption that other powers would uphold Belgian neutrality by expelling an invader. The likelihood of a German invasion did not lead the Belgian government to see France and Britain as potential allies nor did it intend to do more than protect its independence. The Anglo-French Entente (1904) had led the Belgians to perceive that the British attitude to Belgium had changed and that they would fight to protect Belgian independence. A General Staff was formed in 1910 but the Chef d'État-Major Général de l'Armée, Lieutenant-Général Harry Jungbluth was retired on 30 June 1912 and not replaced by Lieutenant-General Chevalier de Selliers de Moranville until May 1914.

Moranville began planning for the concentration of the army and met railway officials on 29 July. Belgian troops were to be massed in central Belgium, in front of the National redoubt of Belgium ready to face any border, while the Fortified Position of Liège and Fortified Position of Namur were left to secure the frontiers. On mobilization, the King became Commander-in-Chief and chose where the army was to concentrate. Amid the disruption of the new rearmament plan, the disorganised and poorly trained Belgian soldiers would benefit from a central position to delay contact with an invader but it would also need fortifications for defence, which were on the frontier. A school of thought wanted a return to a frontier deployment, in line with French theories of the offensive. Belgian plans became a compromise in which the field army concentrated behind the Gete river, with two divisions forward at Liège and Namur.

German strategy had given priority to offensive operations against France and a defensive posture against Russia since 1891. German planning was determined by numerical inferiority, the speed of mobilisation and concentration and the effect of the vast increase of the power of modern weapons. Frontal attacks were expected to be costly and protracted, leading to limited success, particularly after the French and Russians modernised their fortifications on the frontiers with Germany. Alfred von Schlieffen Chief of the Imperial German General Staff (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL) from 1891–1906, devised a plan to evade the French frontier fortifications with an offensive on the northern flank with a local numerical superiority and obtain rapidly a decisive victory. By 1898–1899, such a manoeuvre was intended to rapidly pass through Belgium, between Antwerp and Namur and threaten Paris from the north.

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