page_title: British Expeditionary Force (World War I)
section_title: 1914
hierarchical_section_title: British Expeditionary Force (World War I) / Area of operations / 1914
caption_attribution_description: Map showing the course of the "Race to the Sea" during 1914 following the Battle of the Aisne. Allied front line and movement is shown in red, German front line and movement shown in blue. Three of the battles that occurred during or after the "race" are shown boxed. Based on a map from A Short Military History of World War I - Atlas, edited by T. Dodson Stamps and Vincent J. Esposito, 1950.
context_page_description: The British Expeditionary Force was the six-division British Army sent to the Western Front during the First World War. Planning for a British Expeditionary Force began with the 1906-1912 Haldane reforms of the British Army carried out by the Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane following the Second Boer War.
  The term "British Expeditionary Force" is often used to refer only to the forces present in France prior to the end of the First Battle of Ypres on 22 November 1914. By the end of 1914—after the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres—the existent BEF had been defeated, although it helped stop the German advance. An alternative endpoint of the BEF was 26 December 1914, when it was divided into the First and Second Armies. BEF remained the official name of the British armies in France and Flanders throughout the First World War.
  Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, who was famously dismissive of the BEF, allegedly issued an order on 19 August 1914 to "exterminate ... the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army". Hence, in later years, the survivors of the regular army dubbed themselves "The Old Contemptibles".
context_section_description: The British Army first engaged the German Army in the Battle of Mons on 23 August 1914, which was part of the greater Battle of the Frontiers. The massed rifle fire of the professional British soldiers inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans who attacked en masse over terrain devoid of cover. The British held up the German advance until the evening when they began retiring to a second defensive line in the retreat from Mons during which they were engaged in the Battle of Le Cateau. Following the British defeat at Le Cateau, the BEF retreated unmolested by the Germans for a further five days, eventually retreating a full 400 km in thirteen days.
  The Allied retreat finally ended at the River Marne, where Entente forces prepared to make a stand to defend Paris. This led to the First Battle of the Marne, which was fought from 5 to 10 September 1914. This battle would prove to be a major turning point of the war: it denied the Germans an early victory. From 13 September the First Battle of the Aisne took place, with both sides starting to dig trenches. Then for a three-week period following the development of trench warfare each side gave up frontal assaults and began trying to encircle each other's flank. This period became known as the Race to the Sea: the Germans aimed to turn the Allied left flank, and the Allies sought to turn the German right flank.
  By the end of First Battle of Ypres both sides started to dig in and trench warfare replaced the manoeuvre warfare that had featured during the Race to the Sea. The continuous trench lines of the Western Front now stretched 400 miles (640 km) from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier. The British Army held a small portion of this 400 mile front: from just north of the pre-war Belgium border to the River Somme in France, varying in length from 20 miles (32 km) in 1914, to over 120 miles (190 km) in 1918, in the area commonly known as Flanders.
caption: The Race to the Sea, Allied front line and movements are shown in red, German front line and movements are shown in blue
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