But the Germans were not facing the French alone, and when they did not win outright in a month they had to send their next waves of reinforcements etc to the east, to meet the Russians. If Russia had not been in the field in WW I, France would have been smashed to rubble by the summer of 1915, at the latest. They didn't beat anybody.
In 1916, they only held because the Brits were standing beside them and soaked off German reserves on the Somme, ending the Verdun offensive. Which bled the French white, unsustainably so, but for help from the Somme and Brusilov offensives. And triggered the army mutinies of 1917. When the Russians dropped out, the Germans could and did hit the Brits in 1918, and beat them too. A similar scale breakthrough was not decisive for the same defense dominance reasons, and the depth provided by newly arriving Americans stopped them that time.
Pretending in any of that there was any military defeat of Germany by France alone, is simply pretending.
"Um, barely holding the line after losing a fifth of the country and millions of men is not "beating them". The French got killed in 1914. There was enough defense dominance in that era, from machineguns and modern artillery and from rail transport for defenders against feet for attackers, that they managed to avoid losing the entire country in a matter of weeks. They still lost much more of their army than the Germans did of theirs."
Yes, it is beating them.
The Germans had a strategic objective in the Schlieffen Plan. It was imperative they achieve it. They failed becaues the French Army stopped them at the Marne. The French won the campaign.
The Germans had a strategic objective at Verdun as well. And once again they failed. The French stopped them.
A comparison might be Jutland. The Germans sunk twice the British tonnage as the British sunk the Germans, but the Germans were driven back to port. The British won at Jutland.
Similarly, the Union won the battle of the Wilderness, and the Battle of Shiloh, despite having suffered heavier casualties than the Confederates. Because the Union achieved their strategic objective but the Confederates did not.
Germany vastly outnumbered France. It was a more powerful and more populous country. The Germany Army lost to the French Army at the battle of the Marne, and at the Battle of Verdun. The Germans chose the battlefield, and timed the stroke, and in both cases the French held the field.
Pretending that France didn't defeat the Schlieffen Plan and the Verdun plan is self-deception.