The taxis were instructed to drive at night so they were not seen by German observers. Many of the men who rode in the taxis were ecstatic, as Max Hastings wrote, “Most had never ridden in such luxury in their lives.” One has to remember that the automobile was still a relatively new invention at this time. By the end of the taxis two days of transport duty they had brought three battalions to the battle, roughly 3,000-5,000 men in total. This being the first transport of soldiers by automobile in history.

Taxi Impact on the Battle

Despite being heavily publicized at the time and still persisting as a common legend in France today the impact the taxis made on the battle was minimal. As stated before the taxis brought at most 5,000 soldiers to the battle, but in total there were more than 1 million soldiers on the French side alone. That means that at most the taxis only transported 0.5% of the total number of French troops. To diminish the taxis impact even more the majority of soldiers transported by them were held in reserve and did not see any combat during this particular battle. Also do not think that the taxi drivers were doing all this as a “goodwill” effort, they had their meters running the entire time and the French government was sent a bill afterwards.