The Marne - Part 4: Lt Colonel Richard Hentsch

As we have seen, the overall outcome of the battle hung in the balance as late as the 8th September, and the communications on both sides were poor and confused. Whereas Joffre was close to the action, the German Staff Headquarters was a long way behind the lines in Luxembourg. Churchill writes that the euphoria greeting the reports up to 3rd September had turned to panic by 8th. At this point, Moltke, in a highly stressed condition, resolved to send a relatively junior liaison officer, Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch, to visit each headquarters. Hentsch's motoring tour was to prove famous as one of the pivotal events of the entire war.

Richard Hentsch

It appears that Hentsch was given only vague orders to assess the situation at the front, and he made a personal decision to visit all the army headquarters, rather than merely those of Bülow and Kluck. To junior officers accompanying him, he expressed concern that Moltke had not given him his orders in writing, but he thought (and was correct) the the various general would accept his instructions. He began his travels in the Argonne, and at 4 p.m. on 8^th September he made a first telephone call to Luxembourg, to report that in the centre of the front he found both Fourth and Fifth Armies in satisfactory condition. 

Moltke the Younger

He moved on to the HQ of Hausen’s Third Army, which earlier in the day had made significant advances around Chalons-sur-Seine. Hausen himself did not appreciate that the advance of the morning had run out of steam, and still believed that he was close to breaking through Foch’s line. Accordingly Hentsch sent Moltke another reassuring message at 8pm, and moved on. 
It was in the small hours when Hentsch reached the headquarters of Bülow’s Second Army at the Château de Montmort, a few miles south of Rheims. The radio message he sent at 2am was the crucial communication that changed the tide of the battle. Hentsch had found that Bülow was acutely alarmed about his situation. His right wing was cracking under pressure from Franchet d’Espèrey and Foch. The French heavily outnumbered Bulow's forces, whose effective fighting strength had fallen from 260,000 men to 154,000 during the course of its journey through Belgium and southwards. Bülow had heard nothing from Kluck, but reported there was at least an eighteen-mile gap between First and Second Armies. This gap was still widening, and the French and British were advancing towards it. At some point in discussion with Hentsch, either Bülow or one of his staff used the word ‘Schlacke’ – ‘ashes’ – to describe the threatened fate of Second Army. 
This was the content of the 2am message that was taken to Moltke, who was still at his desk. Records show that he writing to his wife at the time, already in a distressed state:‘I cannot find words to describe the crushing burden of responsibility that has weighed on my shoulders during the last few days, and still weighs upon me today. The appalling difficulties of our present situation hang before my eyes like a dark curtain through which I can see nothing. The whole world is in league against us; it would seem that every country is bent on destroying Germany'. He must have been in a whole lot worse state after reading Hentsch's message.  

In the following exchanges, Hentsch almost certainly exceeded his authority. Bülow had asked him to use Moltke’s authority to order Kluck to close up on his flank and reduce the perilous gap. Hentsch, addressing one of the senior generals of the German army, told the

Gen Karl von Bulow

Bulow this was impossible when Kluck’s army was heavily engaged, and facing in the opposite direction. Even as they were speaking, a message arrived reporting further attacks and gains by the French in the centre of Bulow's front approaching Montmirail. As matters were clearly deteriorating,  Hentsch, (a mere lieutenant-colonel), at this point told Bulow that he had Moltke’s personal mandate to authorise a withdrawal by First and Second Armies. He proposed that such a movement should commence forthwith, so that Kluck and Bülow’s forces should reunite at Fismes on the Vesle river some thirty miles east, just short of Reims. Bülow appeared relieved by this proposal despite its huge implications for the battle, and the war. 

Gen Alexander von Kluck

On leaving Bülow, Hentsch set off to motor fifty miles to Kluck’s headquarters at Mareuil, approx 50 miles NW of Paris. He drove through chaotic and crowded rear areas of two embattled armies and a terrorised and fleeing civilian population. He found Kluck in attacking mood, and unwilling to withdraw and line up with Bulow (the two generals did not get on). Hentsch persisted. He realised the severe danger posed by the now thirty-mile gap between the two German armies, even though the allies had not appreciated the extent of it.  He invoked Moltke’s authority again, to insist that First Army must disengage from its battle with Maunoury, and start falling back towards the river Aisne, between Soissons and Compiègne, and Kluck reluctantly complied. 

Heavy rain had fallen during the night, worsening conditions, but on the morning of 9th September, the French infantry advancing on Montmirail met no opposition. They found Bülow’s soldiers gone, leaving behind all the detritus of an army, together with an astounding number of empty wine bottles – broken glass apparently carpeted the road. In a major tactical error, reflecting their disarray and demoralisation, the Germans failed to destroy the Marne bridges. 

The Hentsch episode was a turning point, a decisive moment of the First World War.