The battle did not take place in trenches but on pristine meadows[REX]

The cabs transported 5,000 soldiers to bolster a French and British attack on the German army rolling like a grey fog towards Paris. The arrival of the taxi passengers tipped the balance in one of the decisive battles of history. Against the odds, the relentless German advance through Belgium and northern France was halted.



According to the French war ministry, the total taxi bill to transport the 7th Infantry Division to the Battle of the Marne, 30 miles east of Paris, was Fr 70,102, approximately £280,000 today. There was another bill, though: The battle saw some of the most concentrated slaughter of the war, with nearly half a million casualties.



At La Mus©e de la Grand Guerre, France's excellent First World War museum on the Marne battlefield, near Meaux, one of the original scarlet taxis is on display. In the animated wall map of the Marne battle, the arrival of reinforcements from Paris is shown through the icon of a taxi.



Alas, the legend of The Taxis of the Marne is only partly true. Renault Landaulet taxis were indeed commandeered from the streets of Paris, many of them from the G-7 cab company, which still exists. Each could seat five men. On the orders of the French army, the first convoy of about 250 taxis left La Villette, the meat market on Paris's outskirts, and headed out on National Road 2 in single file. The convoy was probably the largest procession of motorised vehicles in history to that date. The troops inside were delighted to be taxied to the front. Most had never ridden in a motorcar before.

Field Marshall Joseph Joffre was decisive in the battle [GETTY]

To the French troops tramping the road to war, the convoy of taxis left an indelible impression. One infantryman recalled: "The Moon had risen and its rays reflected on the shiny peaks of the taxi-drivers' caps.



"Inside the cabs one could make out the bent heads of sleeping soldiers. Someone asked: 'Wounded?' and a passing voice replied: 'No. Seventh Division, from Paris, going into Line'. " So, what is wrong with the Taxis of the Marne legend? Where the legend falls down is the contribution the cabs' passengers made to the fight. In a battle involving two million men, 5,000 mattered little, especially as most of the taxied troops were held in reserve. The taxi-borne reinforcements were a flea bite, although the episode was artfully used by the French government to promote the idea that a "union sacr©e" of soldiers and civilians had joined together to fight the good fight.



The French authorities can hardly be blamed for propagandistically "bigging up" the story of the Paris taxis. Before the Battle of the Marne the French capital looked certain to fall to the Germans, who were no more than two days' march away.



In the city Joseph Gallieni, the military governor-general, ordered demolition charges to be laid under the Eiffel Tower. The Government ran to Bordeaux, followed by a million refugees, among them the author Marcel Proust. "I could not keep myself from weeping", wrote Proust on leaving the beautiful city of his heart.



A sense of foreboding deepened with the appearance of a German plane over Paris; the pilot threw bombs on the boulevards and a note demanding surrender. If the taxi troops were not responsible for the Miracle on the Marne what was? Four things gave the Allies victory on the Marne. First, the Germans blundered. The Schlieffen Plan, Berlin's invasion blueprint, envisaged that the First Army would go around Paris to the west. Instead, the First Army pivoted and swung east on the heels of the retreating French.



The second major factor was spotter aircraft. A French plane reported that the German armies had wheeled to the east of Paris and presented their open flank. General Joseph Joffre, the white-haired French commander, saw his opportunity: The Germans had marched headlong into a trap. On September 5, Joffre's strike force, his "mass of manoeuvre", of three French armies and the British Expeditionary Force, attacked.

The 5,000 troops from Paris were used to promote the idea of soldiers and civilians uniting [REX]

This clash between global superpowers occurred on the very cusp of military eras

Sir John French, the pessimistic and petulant British commander, originally refused to take part in Joffre's plan, blaming his Gallic allies for the BEF's losses over the preceding fortnight. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, paid a personal visit to Sir John and ordered him into the line. Another caller, Joffre himself, was apparently more persuasive; Sir John, tears rolling down his cheeks, promised Joffre: "All man can do our fellows will do."



Although tiny, the BEF was the third decisive factor. The BEF and French Fifth Army under General Franchet d'Esp¨rey, known as "Desperate Frankie" to the admiring British, inserted a wedge between the main German forces.



The Germans also forgot that the law of pantomime ("It's behind you!") applies to war. They were attacked in the rear by the French Sixth Army.



The final trump card of the Allies was Papa Joffre. Unlike Helmuth von Moltke, his anxious, flappable opposite number who was head of the German Army, 62-year-old Joffre was imperturbable and decisive.



In the midst of the world's battle, Joffre enjoyed a good lunch, a better dinner, and a superlative night's sleep. Then, he acted with the deliberation of a cobra. He purged the French Army of faint hearts, from top to bottom. Underperforming generals were, in the bon mot of the time, "Limoged", sent to the training facility at Limoges.



Ordinary soldiers of insufficient moral fibre were shot. Edward Spears, a British staff officer, witnessed the execution of a French soldier for the crime of abandoning his post. The general in charge of the execution explained to the condemned man that his punishment would serve as an example. "Yours also is a way of dying for France," the general emphasised.



Whereas Joffre gripped the Battle of the Marne by the neck, Moltke never did.



Astonishingly, the German Chief of Staff remained 150 miles from the action in his Luxembourg HQ. With wireless and telephony in their infancy, Moltke had little knowledge of the situation at the front.



There were days of impotency. Between September 5 and 9 the Supreme Army Command issued no orders relating to the battle.



The fighting on the Marne was different to how we imagine the First World War. Troops charged over pristine summer cornfields and deep-shadowed meadows untouched by shot and shell. This clash between global superpowers occurred on the very cusp of military eras. Sabre-wielding officers and aeroplanes, cavalry and heavy artillery, woollen caps and machine-guns all anachronistically commingled. French "poilus" (soldiers), wearing bright red trousers, made easy targets for German machine guns.

Civilians and soldier were supposed to be shown fighting the good fight together [REX]