First Battle of the Aisne

It soon became clear that neither side could budge the other and since neither chose to retreat, the impasse hardened into stalemate, that would lock the antagonists into a relatively narrow strip for the next four years. On 14 September, Sir John French ordered the entire BEF to entrench, but few entrenching tools were available. Soldiers scouted nearby farms and villages for pickaxes, spades and other implements. Without training for stationary warfare, the troops merely dug shallow pits in the soil. These were at first intended only to afford cover against enemy observation and artillery fire. Soon the trenches were deepened to about seven feet. Other protective measures included camouflage and holes cut into trench walls then braced with timber.

hand and rifle grenades

(first used against British troops on 27 September), enabled the Germans to inflict great losses upon Allied troops, who had neither been trained nor equipped with these weapons. Searchlights, flares and periscopes were also part of the German equipment intended for other purposes, but put to use in the trenches.

A shortage of heavy weapons handicapped the British. Only their

60-pounders (four guns to a division) were powerful enough to shell enemy gun emplacements from the Aisne's south shore, and these guns were inferior to German artillery in calibre, range and numbers. Four artillery battery of 6-inch (150 mm) guns (a total of sixteen), were rushed from England. Although a poor match against the German 8-inch (200 mm) howitzers, they helped somewhat. Defensive firepower was limited to rifles and two machine guns allotted to each battalion

. The British regulars were excellent marksmen but even their combined accuracy was no match for the German machine guns and grenades.

British aircraft were used to report troop movements, although few were equipped with wireless. Aviators were able to recognise the advantage of observing artillery fire. On 24 September, Lieutenants B.T. James and D.S. Lewis detected three well-concealed enemy gun batteries that were inflicting considerable damage on British positions. They radioed back the location of the batteries, then droned in a wide circle, waiting to spot their own gunners' exploding shells.

Anti-aircraft fire

was desultory and inaccurate. The German Army used only percussion shells, which, according to Canadian sources, "not one in several hundred ever hit its aerial target, and fell to earth frequently at some point in the British lines and there burst."

Race to the Sea

For a three-week period following the unexpected development of trench warfare, both sides gave up frontal assaults and began trying to envelop each other's northern flank. The period is called "Race to the Sea". As the Germans aimed for the Allied left flank, the Allies sought the German right wing.

The western front thus became a continuous trench system of more than 400 miles (640 km). From the Belgian channel town of Nieuwpoort, the trench lines ran southward for many miles, turning southeast at Noyon, continuing past Reims, Verdun, Saint-Mihiel and Nancy; then cutting south again to the northern Swiss border twenty miles (32 km) east of Belfort.

Meanwhile, the

smokeless gunpowder

and several thousand surrounding acres had been cleared to provide unobstructed fields of fire.

At daybreak on 29 September, General

Scheldt River to the southern border of the Netherlands, while the rest of the Belgian army retreated to the West, to defend the last piece of Belgian territory in the Battle of the Yser

(16–31 October 1914).

Many of those killed at the Aisne are buried at Vailly British Cemetery.^[2]

There were two later battles on the Aisne; the second (April–May 1917) and the third (May–June 1918).