Battle of the Frontiers

Battle of the Frontiers
Part of the Western Front of World War I
Map of operations on the frontiers
Date 7 August – 13 September 1914 Location Lorraine, the Ardennes and Belgium Result German victory
Belligerents
Belgium France United Kingdom	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
King Albert I Joseph Joffre John French	Helmuth von Moltke
Strength
1,250,000 117,000 70,000	1,300,000
Casualties and losses
329,000 (6 August–5 September) 29,597 (August–September) 4,500	206,515 (August) 99,079 (1–10 September)

The Battle of the Frontiers was a series of battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium shortly after the outbreak of World War I. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive interpretation of the German Aufmarsch II deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The German concentration on the right (northern) flank, to wheel through Belgium and attack the French in the rear, was delayed by the movement of General Charles Lanrezac's Fifth Army towards the north-west to intercept them and the presence of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on his left flank. The Franco-British were driven back by the Germans, who were able to invade northern France. French and British rearguard actions delayed the German advance, allowing the French time to transfer their forces to the west to defend Paris, resulting in the First Battle of the Marne.

Belgian military planning assumed that other powers would eject an invader and an alliance between France and Britain was not solidified by a potential German invasion, despite the Anglo-French Entente (1904), that had led the Belgians to perceive that the British attitude toward Belgium had changed and that it was seen as a British protectorate. 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 Belgian railway officials on 29 July.

The Belgian army was 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, 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 further forward at Liège and Namur.

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