12th September
Western Front
The Battle of the Marne ends with an Allied victory. Allies suffer 263,000 casualties while Germany suffers 256,000 casualties.
Battle of the Aisne begins:
From 12th September 1914 the German Army began to “dig in” on the high ground of the Chemin des Dames ridge on the north bank of the river Aisne. The Germans dug defensive trenches with the intention of securing the position and preventing any further possibility of withdrawal. This battlefield area witnessed the beginnings of entrenched positions and the change from a mobile war to a static deadlock between the opposing forces. From this date the entrenchments would gradually spread along the whole length of the Western Front, would become deeper and more impregnable and would characterize the siege warfare fighting of the Western Front for the following three and a half years.
During the First Battle of the Aisne (12th - 15th September 1914) the German right wing could not be dislodged by the Allied forces of the French Sixth Army, the British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army. The consequence of the Germans establishing entrenched positions on the Chemin des Dames ridge was that the Allied armies were unsuccessful in making a frontal assault on it. They were, therefore, compelled to look for open ground on either flank of the German position. A French assault on the German First Army's exposed right flank (i.e. the northern flank) caused the Germans to move their Seventh Army from Alsace to protect this exposed right/northern flank.
Troyon: Germans compelled to raise siege.
Luneville rec-occupied by the French.
Belgian sortie from Antwerp threatens German communications.
Eastern Front
Galicia: End of Battle of Grodek and Rava Russka: total defeat of Austrians; Grodek captured.
Poland: Austrians try to cross the San under heavy fire.
Naval and Overseas Operations
East Africa: Germans defeated near Kisi.
Political etc.
A contest for world circumnavigation by airplane, with a prize pool of $1.2 million ($28.6 million today), is called off due to the war.
W. Churchill: “It is our life against Germany’s. Upon that there must be no compromise or truce. We must go forth unflinchingly to the end.”
Ship Losses:
Killin ( United Kingdom): The cargo ship was captured in the Indian Ocean 410 nautical miles (760 km) north east by north of Madras, India by SMS Emden ( Kaiserliche Marine). She was scuttled the next day. Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
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