Read The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World for Free Online

Joffre (1910–1917) (Paris: Plon, 1932), 2 vols.
KTB
 
Kriegstagebuch (war diary)
Moltke
 
Helmuth von Moltke, Erinnerungen Briefe Dokumente 1877–1916. Ein Bild vom Kriegsausbruch, erster Kriegsführung und Persönlichkeit des ersten militärischen Führers des Krieges , ed. Eliza von Moltke (Stuttgart: Der Kommende Tag, 1922)
OHL
 
Oberste Heeresleitung (German Army Supreme Command)
RID
 
Reserve infantry division RIR Reserve infantry regiment
SHD
 
Service Historique de la Défense (formerly Service historique de l’armée de terre), Château de Vincennes
SHStA
 
Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden
WK
 
Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918. Die militärischen Operationen zu Lande (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1925–56), 14 vols.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

    Historians of the German armies in World War I for decades were restricted to archives accessible in the Federal Republic of Germany. These mainly centered on documentary records for the federal armies of Baden, Bavaria, and Württemberg, housed at Karlsruhe, Munich, and Stuttgart, respectively. Unlike those of the Prussian army at Potsdam, they were not destroyed by the Allied bombing offensives of World War II and hence witnessed a great deal of first-class research. I began by working through these materials.
    For XIV Army Corps of the Grand Duchy of Baden, which provided most of the units fighting in Alsace, I consulted its war diary (Kriegstagebuch , or KTB) at the Generallandesarchiv at Karlsruhe (GLA). Deputy Commander Hans Gaede’s XIV Corps reports to Grand Duke Friedrich II are in 59 Weltkrieg 1914—Schriftwechsel Gaede 316. A summary of fortress shelling is in 59 Denkschrift der Beschiessungen der Forts 1914, General v. Bailer 365. Brigade commands are in 456 F58 Brigadebefehle 27. A special collection of war letters and diaries was most useful: S Kriegsbriefe und Kriegstagebücher 52, 53. Of greatest value were the war diaries of the various regiments and their battalions in Alsace, under the general file 456: F37 Inf. Regt. 111; F38 Inf. Regt. 112; F39 Inf. Regt. 113; F42 Inf. Regt. 169; F43 Inf. Regt. 170; and F58 Inf. Regt. 40. All service records were cross-checked in the regimental muster rolls: 456 D Kriegsrangliste. At the military-political level, the reports by Baden’s acting military plenipotentiary to the Army Supreme Command (OHL) were most useful: 222 Politische Berichte des Großherzogl. Gesandten in Berlin und München über den Kriegsausbruch 34816.
    Research into Duke Albrecht of Württemberg’s Fourth Army, which was closely linked in all but name with the Prussian army and in 1914 was composed largely of Prussian formations, and into Württemberg XIII Army Corps, which fought under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria in Lorraine, was conducted at the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart (HStA), Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. The reports of its military plenipotentiary to General Headquarters are in M 1/2 Berichte des Militärbevollmächtigten beim Grossen Hauptquartier und des stellv. Militärbevollmächtigten in Berlin August–September 1914, vols. 54–58. The war diary of XIII Army Corps is in M 33/2 Gen. Kdo. XIII A.K. 1914–1918, Kriegstagebuch 28.7.14–21.1.15, vol. 884; and its operational orders in ibid., vol. 9. Württemberg war losses were tabulated by the War Ministry in M 1/11 Kriegsarchiv, Kriegsverluste, vol. 1048; the War Ministry also recorded all matters pertaining to war equipment in M 1/4 Kriegsminsterium, Allg. Armee-Angelegenheiten 1524. A special postwar collection of studies, M 738 Sammlung zur Militärgeschichte, dealt with issues such as communications during the war (36) and battalion histories (23). Given the near-total destruction of the records of the Prussian General Staff in 1945, of special value was a compendium of fifty situation reports by the chief of the General Staff to the Württemberg War Ministry: M 1/2 Kriegsministerium 109, Mitteilungen des Chefs des Feldheeres Nr. 1–50,