A general sketch of the European War

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A GENERAL SKETCH OF THE
EUROPEAN WAR

A

GENERAL SKETCH

OF THE
EUROPEAN WAR

BY

HILAIRE BELLOC

• *

THE SECOND PHASE

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, Ltd.

LONDON, EDINBURGH, PARIS, AND NEW YORK

First Published July igi6.

CONTENTS.

Introduction ...... 7

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

PART I.
The Battle Generally Considered . 23

(1) The Numbers 26

(2) The General Shape of the

German Line before the Battle,

and the Effect of that Shape . 44

(3) The Battle of the Marne was

"An Action of Dislocation."
What is "An Action of Dis-
location " ? . . . . .67

(4) The Elements of the Battle . 83

Criticism of this Theory . .100

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

PART II.
The Details of the Battle . . .111

(1) The Battle of the "Grand

Couronne" " . .... 120

(2) The Battle of the Ourcq and

of the two morins . . 1 57

The Real Composition of the
French 6th Army . . .178

6 CONTENTS.

(3) The Battle of La Fere Champe-

noise ...... 204

The Gap ..... 222

The Action .... 227

(4) The Rest of the Line . .251

The Role of the Left Centre :

The 5th Army . . . 255

The Role of the Right Centre :

The 4th Army . . .270

(5) The Stationary Right Wing . 283

The R61e of the Third Army

under Sarrail . . .283

THE AISNE AND AFTER.

The Aisne 303

Summary of the Sequel to the

Marne 361

Conclusion 394

INTRODUCTION.

IN " The First Phase " of the great war
— the opening volume of this series
— was described the general historical
position when the shock came between
the Germanic groups of Central Europe
and the older civilization of the South and
West, supported by the Slavs of the East.
The military portion of that book was
concerned with the story of the initial
Germanic success. It was pointed out
how, together with the numerical supe-
riority, the enemy enjoyed other advan-
tages : first, that he had carefully pre-
pared war for his own date, secretly, and
over a period of three years ; secondly,
that his guesses at the probable nature of
modern warfare, when it should take place
upon a large scale, were more often right
than wrong. With such advantages his
victory should have been assured.

8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

It was further pointed out that of its
very nature this victory must be an imme-
diate, brief, decisive thing. Delay, a
check (improbable or impossible as that
check seemed to be) would mar his
chances of victory, because both of his
forms of superiority would be affected
by it.

His numbers, though at the origin of
the campaign so immensely superior, were
limited to a certain fixed maximum — that
of his mobilizable efficient male popu-
lation. This, at the rate of wastage he
later established upon highly extended
fronts, must necessarily decline in the
field after eighteen months of war at the
longest, and perhaps earlier. Among his
opponents such limitation applied only to
the French Republic. Great Britain and
Russia entered the war with armies (in-
cluding reserves) far below the total of
their mobilizable population. They would
therefore have between them recruiting
fields far larger than those of France,
Germany, and Austria in the later stages
of the war, if time could be given for their
equipment.

His better guesswork as to the nature

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 9

of modern war was again an advantage
heavily in his favour at the outset of a
campaign, but one which, during the
course of a campaign, he would gradu-
ally lose. And that for two reasons :
First, that his foemen would learn in
practice which theories were right and
which wrong, and would in time be able
to supplement such branches of their
armament as bad theory had rendered
insufficient. Secondly, because, in the
course of a campaign, novel discoveries
would arise and novel situations, which
would leave him as much in the dark as
his opponent, and for the meeting of
which both would stand level.

I say, then, that a check to his plan
for an immediate and decisive victory
would, upon the material side of his
effort, be a serious thing for the enemy.
Such a check seemed not credible in
view of his immense initial advantages ;
but if by some miracle it should take
place, it would have, on the material
side, the character I have described.

Now it is well worthy of note — though
a more difficult point to grasp — that such

io A GENERAL SKETCH OF

a check, should it take place, would have
an even greater effect upon the moral
side. The point is somewhat subtle, but
none the less important for that, since
psychological facts such as this one are
of the utmost effect in war. I would,
therefore, beg the reader to follow it
narrowly.

The enemy, when he suddenly forced
war on France and Russia, proposed to
do something enormous. He was under-
taking a task which in magnitude was
comparable to the task of the armed
revolution of one hundred years ago in
France, or of the Mohammedan conquest
of twelve hundred years ago in Africa
and Spain. He believed — and had good
grounds for this belief — that on the
material side his success was certain.

But such vast efforts in the past have
always, where they have been successful,
appealed to something in the soul of those
attacked. Prussia, the leader of the Ger-
manies, had no such platform. In under-
taking a task of such dimensions the
Prussian could not pretend to bring to
the nations at war anything that other
men could possibly desire.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. n

He preached no religion conversion
to which would reverse the mind of
the foe from opposition to alliance. He
brought with him no type of culture
which any one foreign to him recognized
as superior. No political creed, such as
the social equality and simplicity in reli-
gion which were the fruits of Islam, or
the democracy promised by the French
armies of the Revolution, would flourish
with a Prussian victory over Europe. He
could promise no fruit to the conquered
proceeding from the conqueror's genius.
The victory Prussia designed for herself
was a victory purely mechanical.

Therefore — and here is the kernel of
the matter — Prussia, in attacking the na-
tions she proposed to conquer, was threat-
ening them with something which was for
them mere disaster. She proposed to
Great Britain loss of security, to France
loss of all self-respect and a future of
unbroken shame and increasing weak-
ness, to Russia something of the same
sort in a lesser degree, and the final sub-
jugation of all the smaller Slav states as
well.

As against these purely negative results

12 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

abroad Prussia had promised herself in-
creased wealth and what the muddled
German conception seems to have re-
garded as increased " face " or " name "
at home.

This last point is very difficult to
analyze, for the Germans themselves,
under the leadership of Prussia (which
has never produced a great thinker), were
not quite certain what they wanted apart
from an increase of material wealth. They
saw Great Britain possessed, somewhat
loosely, of tropical dependencies ; France
enjoying African colonies and an im-
mense historical prestige ; Russia, in the
past at least, and still in some degree
to-day, enjoying the power of suggestion
over the lesser Slav states of the Near
East. To obtain these fruits of national
character without the corresponding na-
tional soul, and merely by victory in
war, seems to have been the second
part of the Prussian scheme in conquest.
But at any rate the whole of the Prus-
sian plan of conquest was marked by this
sharp contrast between it and every other
similar great effort in our history : that
while the Prussian scheme promised a

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 13

mechanical advantage of sorts to the victor,
it promised nothing whatsoever to the van-
quished.

One might put the whole matter into
a short metaphor, and say that Prussia
was in the position of a man who sets
out to burn down his neighbour's house,
partly because he envies its antiquity and
fame, partly because it inconveniences his
approach to a neighbouring town, and
partly because he hopes, when it is burnt
down, to find a certain amount of valu-
able material in the ruins : but with no
power to rebuild.

Now when the issue of any quarrel is as
simple as this, it is quite clear that the
psychological effect of time is increasingly
against the aggressor.

The whole thing is so brutally stupid
that if it is effected suddenly, it has some-
thing of the character of a natural cata-
clysm. The victim is stunned by the
blow, and its full effect is already achieved
before that victim has summoned to
his aid a realization of its enormous
issues.

Determination is in the mass of men a
character of slow growth, and if some

14 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

overwhelming disaster catches a man
before his will has had time to turn and
fix itself against the approaching danger,
his mind almost instinctively takes the
misfortune in that same stoical but un-
productive mood with which mankind is
compelled to accept all inevitable suffer-
ing. He takes it as we take the death of
friends or the loss of fortune in old age.
Against such strokes mankind does indeed,
and sometimes rightly, remedy itself by
distant visions of compensation. It invokes
the mystical conception of an ultimate
divine justice which cannot fail (but
through ways never perceived, and in a
lapse of time indefinite) to restore all
things. But for immediate action in war
that mood of resignation is valueless. It
has bred great verse ; it has bred noble,
if false, religions ; it has never bred vic-
tory in the field.

I say, then, that if the Prussian effort
had at once succeeded (as it was designed
in detail to succeed, and as it seemed
certain to succeed) by an immediate and
decisive blow, the results of that Ger-
manic victory would have been reaped
almost in full.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 15

To compare great things with small, we
may illuminate this vast adventure of 19 14
by a consideration of 1870.

In that campaign Prussia had achieved
all her desire in precisely this sudden and
decisive way.

War was forced by a forgery of Bis-
marck's very comparable to the Prussian
diplomacy in July 19 14. It was forced
on just after the harvest, and also when
Prussia was at her maximum of pre-
paredness. Within three weeks the shock
of the armies had taken place to the
advantage of Prussia. Within six weeks
all the regular armies of the French were
either in captivity or besieged, and the
thing was done. It was a spring. For
Prussia knew that she could only win by
surprise.

We know the result in the particular
case of the French people. Their whole
national life was thrown into disarray after
the defeat. A profoundly unpopular and
grossly unnational parliamentary oligarchy
arose from the ruins. French letters, the
intense and constant religious speculation
of the French, French art, French every-
thing, reflected something not very differ-

16 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

ent from despair. There did, indeed,
remain a sufficient basis for some recon-
struction and for the distant hope of re-
venge. But our own generation will bear
witness, or those of it that tell the truth,
to the fact that the opportunities for such
action were not seized. The French saw
growing beside them a Prussia increas-
ingly strong, and yet they did not move.
At the end of the process, by the time
the men who had seen 1870 were grown
old, great areas of the national will in
France had abandoned the fruitful vision
of a re-creative war.

I say, then, that had the Prussian Staff
in 1 91 4 — possessing with its present allies,
dependents, material, and recruitment a
power tenfold that which struck in 1870 —
had that command, I say, effected its pur-
pose with as much suddenness as did the
Prussian Staff of that day, then the modern
opponents of this vast, swollen menace —
the French, the British, the Russian —
would have suffered more even than the
paralysis the French suffered through
1870. More — because they would have
been left without the possibility of further
alliance with great neutral powers for the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 17

restoration of their self-confidence and of
their national souls.

All Christendom was involved, and the
issue was, one way or the other, life or
death for its most ancient traditions of
culture. If the Prussian blow got home
it was death.

But let the blow be parried, even
though the strength for delivering it again
should remain almost unimpaired for many
months, and see what follows as a con-
sequence in this spiritual field. The mere
brutal effort has failed. The mind of the
victim has had time to grasp — though
with some it would come very slowly — the
nature of the peril. The vision of the
immediate consequences of defeat grows
clearer and greater too. Those whom
Prussia had proposed to destroy perceive
under what necessity they are to save
themselves. Those efforts which upon
the enemy's side were the product of
mere calculation begin to spring in his
intended victims from instinct and from
organic necessity. The determination to
resist, and, as a necessary corollary to resist-
ance, to destroy a mere murderer grows with

every passing week of successful defence,
n. 2

1 8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

At last the initial failure of Prussia, her
stumbling on the threshold, will breed
— has bred — in those whom she has failed
to overwhelm a moral basis for action so
broad that all the physical effort based
upon it is well founded, to whatever
height it may reach.

There must come in the process of this
defence at last (if it be sufficiently main-
tained) a situation in which every material
advantage the enemy enjoyed at the out-
set will be gradually whittled down to
par. The numbers on either side, in men
as in munitionment, will tend to grow
more equal. Superiority in these will at
last pass to those who had at first suffered
aggression. The mere fact of prolonga-
tion will turn the war more and more
against those for whom victory and rapid-
ity of action were synonymous. Mean-
while, that base temperament which relies
entirely upon calculable things, and which
is so exaggerated in the Prussian, will,
under the effect of disappointment, turn
to inhuman experiments. Poison will be
used, terrorism over occupied territory,
indiscriminate murder of civilians and
even neutrals by the submarine. These

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 19

outrages will, in their turn, breed a
stronger and a stronger determination
upon the part of the opponent never to
allow such inhuman powers an indefinite
lease of life. At last, when a certain
crisis has been passed, when the worst
atrocities — however futile in a military
sense — have been committed, and when,
conversely, the destruction of their per-
petrators is no longer in doubt, the whole
mind of those who were to have been
the victims of aggression is simply
taken up with a task of execution ;
and the aggressive power is, before
history, in the posture of a criminal
awaiting the scaffold. Nothing can save
him.

Such must be the consequence to the
assassin who stumbles as he strikes his
blow.

All this, then, must follow from the
parrying of the first and only deadly
stroke — if, indeed, such parrying be pos-
sible. For at first it seemed impossible
(save by a miracle) that such a stroke
should be parried at all.

As we know, the stroke was parried,

20 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the check was administered, the over-
whelming superiority of the enemy was
pinned for a sufficient time to permit the
defensive to develop. This amazing act
is, without doubt, that upon which pos-
terity will chiefly fix when it considers
the story of the great war.

A book such as this, written during the
course of a campaign, and forming no
more than a contemporary commentary
upon it, is necessarily tentative in many
of its judgments. It is incapable of
reciting the story as a whole. It be-
trays on its every page the fact that
it was written during the progress of
an event whose issue was still un-
known, and most of whose develop-
ments could only be guessed at. It is
peculiarly liable to weakness when it
attempts to estimate the varying weight
of varying episodes.

Nevertheless, I think one can write it
down in this spring of 191 6 with a fair
measure of confidence that human his-
tory as a whole will see one of its great
turning-points in the Battle of the
Marne.

It is the Battle of the Marne which is

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 21

the main subject of these pages. Round
it, and in connection with it, only can we
read the corresponding events in the East-
ern field of war and upon the sea. It is
the Battle of the Marne more than any-
thing else in this war which presents that
strange atmosphere of fate never absent
from the grave decisions of history — an
atmosphere which has persuaded mankind
to its belief in Providence, or confirmed
it therein. Therefore we must remember,
as we read the mere military details of
the fashion in which this vast action was
determined, that these are not all the
story.

Seen from some great height, and as a
whole, the thing had in it a quality not
quite explicable from material causes alone.
At its root, as we shall see, there lay a
curiously complete military blunder upon
the part of the Prussians, without which
so strange a sight as the turning back of
a great and perfectly organized army by
forces hopelessly inferior would have been
impossible. But this blunder, in its turn,
is so difficult of explanation, its commis-
sion by men who, though stupid, are yet
methodical, is so extraordinary, that in

22 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

reading it the mind is insensibly haunted
by the conception of a superior Will,
within whose action those of the op-
posed combatants were but parts of a
whole.

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

Part I.
The Battle Generally Considered.

I APPROACH now the main subject
of this book— The Battle of the
Marne.

I cannot attempt the task under the
conditions which even the most super-
ficial historian would desire and the most
easily contented reader accept.

For even the very elements necessary
for the most general historical statement
upon this vast matter are still imperfect.
That co-ordination of detail which is the
soul of history is still impossible, on
account of the almost complete absence
as yet of all officially recorded detail what-
soever. The position of bodies of men
40,000 strong is still in doubt. The
number of corps in each enemy army is

24 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

often doubtful. The time-table of the
critical hours is still debated. A wise and
even necessary policy of silence, in which
the French are the leaders, still withholds
from the student all the material wherewith
the picture might be filled in, much of
the material necessary to its very outline.
After more than a year and a half's delay
information is still absent. It will remain
absent for a long time to come, and will
be available only in successive and prob-
ably tardy instalments well after peace
shall have been signed.

The text of this book, revised in the
spring of 191 6, finds me with no more
material than I should have possessed
some months before, although, in the
hope of obtaining such, I delayed com-
pletion. The whole subject is still one
upon which the most careful inquirer
remains much where he stood in the
first weeks after the great action.

Nevertheless I shall attempt the task
with the extremely imperfect means at
my disposal, and that for two reasons.
First, because, in a current commentary
upon war, if it is to appear at all, diffi-
culties of this kind are inevitable, and

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 25

must be met as best they can. Secondly,
because, although we still know less of
the Battle of the Marne than of any
subsequent phase in the war (although,
for instance, we can describe it with far
less justice and precision than Lemberg
or Tannenberg), yet it is possible, by
piecing together things on which there
is direct evidence, and by admitting
doubt freely where such doubt exists —
but showing in what direction the exist-
ing evidence points — to give at least the
nature of this great battle, to establish its
decisive features, and in particular to fix
the mind of the reader upon the natural
divisions into which it fell. Thus, when
fuller detail is available, the picture so
presented will appear in the form of a
fairly exact though exceedingly imperfect
foundation for future study.

I am the more inclined to accept the
task because I believe that this — perhaps
the chief military event of Christian times
in the West — is, even in the minds of those
who follow the war closely, still hope-
lessly involved.

My chief business will be to resolve as
best I can the chaos of contemporary im-

26 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

pressions, and to show, in however general
a fashion, first (by the simplest diagrams)
what was the general type of the battle ;
next, the " elements " of its decision, the
three movements which combined to the
whole result. Lastly, the details of the
affair so far as we know them, and a pic-
ture of the battle as a whole, will conclude
and amplify the description.

While we cannot yet set down all the
tactical parts which would make even a
sketch consistent, we can already grasp
the nature of the action, and even separate
and define its great phases, and the reader
will see, when he has concluded this de-
scription, how the ill co-ordination of the
left, the centre, and the right of that
enormous line worked together for the
breakdown of the whole Prussian plan
of campaign.

I.

The Numbers.

The first element to be decided in the
examination of any action is the numbers
of men engaged in it, and their distribution.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 27

First, then, what were the total numbers
present upon either side ?

What were the forces opposed one to
another at the opening of the Battle of
the Marne and during its progress ?

That question, which is of such funda-
mental importance to history, it is still im-
possible to answer with accuracy. What
we can do is to answer it approximately,
and within such margins of error as will
roughly satisfy us upon the main matter
of proportion.

But first let me say a word to explain
why a complete and accurate answer to
the main question is as yet impossible,
and why a rough estimate within a
certain margin of error can alone be
given.

One of the principal objects of a com-
mand in war — perhaps the object of its
chief permanent activity — is numerical cal-
culation : the establishment of its own
forces (which it only needs industry and
accuracy to possess in minute detail every
twenty-four hours), and — what is much
more difficult — the strength of its op-
ponent.

Now it is equally the main object of

28 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

that opponent to prevent his enemy from
knowing not only where he stands, but
in what strength he stands, total and local.
Therefore a command has, in making its
estimate of the enemy, to arrive at that
estimate by a number of separate avenues
of calculation, which check and confirm
each other, but each of which is, by
itself, tentative and uncertain.

These main avenues are five in number,
and are as follows : —

I. The indications of corps actually in
contact with one during an action, or seen
by one's patrols just before action is
joined.

This kind of evidence suffers from four
drawbacks. First : (a) Because you may
identify the regimental number without
being able always to discover to which
category the regiment in question belongs,
or what place it has in the enemy's organ-
ization as a whole. Different services have
different ways of numbering. There is a
French Territorial category, for instance ;
there is a German reserve category ; in
the new English armies a perpetual addi-
tion of battalions all on the top of one
another, all attached to one regiment, as

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 29

recruitment proceeds ; in the Austrian
service those " Bataillons de Marche "
which so grievously confuse all calcula-
tion, permitting, as they do, one unit to
be, let us say, upon the Isonzo, and an-
other, let us say, in Galicia, both wearing
identically numbered uniforms.

(b) Because, when you have established
the presence of a unit from such and such
a division or corps, it by no means fol-
lows that the whole division or corps is
present. There may be only a fraction.

(c) Because it is obvious that the units
that you spot are only a minimum. There
may be others in almost any amount. You
are only certain of those you identify.

(d) Because there is continual mutation
and redisposition of forces in an army.
For instance, the Germans would have re-
ported elements of the 4th Corps in front
of Verdun on the 4th of September, and
also in front of Paris on the 7th, but they
could not tell by this evidence alone
whether the 4th Corps as a whole had
been moved, or whether it was being
used in two fractions, or whether a por-
tion had been moved. As a matter of
fact the whole of it was moved.

3o A GENERAL SKETCH OF

II. The second category of evidence is
that obtained from spies, the interroga-
tion of prisoners, the capture of docu-
ments, etc., and in general from the
secret side of the Intelligence Bureaus.
Its various parts differ enormously in
value, from the vague indications a peasant
may give you, to the precise information
conveyed by an official document obtained.
This category also suffers from inevitable
delay. Certain spies serving Germany,
for instance, may have noted the French
4th Corps present in its entirety with
Sarrail on the 3rd of September 1914,
but the news may not have reached the
German Command until after the Battle
of the Marne had been lost and won.

III. The third avenue of information is
the very obvious one of consulting the
peace organization of your opponent's
army. You infer, for instance, that if all
the Saxons are grouped under General von
Hausen, he will have such and such corps
under him wherever he appears. But the
accidents of war are such, and the per-
petual redistribution of forces is such,
that this kind of evidence is very doubt-
ful. It does furnish an indication, but no

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 31

more than an indication. It may con-
firm your judgment drawn from other
sources, but it does not give you a suffi-
cient basis by itself.

IV. Your scouting, especially through
the air, and the impressions gathered in
the course of an action, will give you a
check upon the matter of mere numbers.

For instance, your Air Service discovers
a column marching along a certain road
against, let us say, Vaux, in front of
Verdun. It reports that this column is
the equivalent of a division. When the
attack on Verdun is delivered and re-
pulsed you identify elements of the 15th
Division in the fighting. You conclude
that the whole of a division, and that
division the 15th, was in action against
you, not only from what your Air Service
has told you, but from your estimate of
the numbers attacking you when the
shock came.

V. Lastly, you can, a long time after
the battle (if your enemy publishes casu-
alty lists, and if those lists are complete
and accurate, especially if they give the
time and date of each casualty), piece
together, with infinite labour and great

32 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

chances of error, the composition of your
enemy's forces upon any particular date
upon a particular fighting front.

But this, again, is a method subject to
manifold inaccuracies. Apart from the
fact that the lists are probably not com-
plete (we know in the case of the Ger-
mans that they are not), and apart from
the fact that only the Germans and the
English publish such lists at all, there
is the enormous business of estimat-
ing through such an indication exactly
what each unit was doing. You would
find not a few examples, for instance
(if you knew the whole truth), of units
present in a short action which suffered
no casualties at all ; and you are puzzled
sometimes by a small group of casualties
attaching to a unit in one place, although
from other indications you had been
nearly certain that the bulk of the unit
was in another.

The upshot of all these methods com-
bined is that you can arrive at a mini-
mum, and only at a minimum, of the
forces engaged against you.

The French have communicated to
several writers upon the Battle of the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 33

Marne a complete list of the forces en-
gaged from the beginning to the end of
the action upon their side, and most of
the indications with regard to the enemy's
forces. But as these writers have dealt
with the battle from various aspects, and
as none of them are infallibly accurate,
there is a discrepancy here also. For
instance, two divisions of the German
Xlth # Corps — possibly three — seem to
have been in full retreat upon Chalons at
the end of the Battle of the Marne. But
most of the descriptions of the German
centre and of its shock against the French
centre, from the 6th to the 10th Sep-
tember, make no mention of this Xlth
Corps, and we are still in doubt as to
whether it ever made actual contact or not.
Probably it was coming up from the rear,
and was too late to join in anything but
the retreat. But quite possibly it was pres-
ent as a reserve, and, therefore, lending
great weight to the central army which
so nearly broke round and through Foch's
right upon the critical day.

* I shall throughout adopt, for the sake of clearness,
Babin's method of distinguishing German units by
Roman, French by Arabic, numerals.

"• 3

34 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

I can only give here the most general
estimate, giving a maximum for the French
side and a minimum for the Germans,
allowing full corrections due to muta-
tions during the battle.

So far as we can gather there were
present, including, of course, the large
masses the Germans had collected against
the eastern front beyond Verdun, where
they erroneously believed the French to
be in special force, a certain minimum of
sixty-six divisions, with at least seven
independent divisions of cavalry. But
that is not allowing for the Xlth Corps,
nor allowing for the presence of a certain
number of extra divisions, hardly less
than half a dozen (third divisions attached
to not a few of the German corps) taking
part in the invasion.* It does not allow,
for instance, for the reserve troops which
came in from the north towards the end
of the Battle of the Ourcq, and which are
not counted in this minimum. It only
includes there the five corps which were
actually present with Kluck, the IVth

* Normally a French or German corps consists of two
divisions. But in the invasion of France the Germans
often had a third reserve division attached to a corps.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 35

Reserve, north of Meaux, the three south
of the Marne at the beginning of the
action, and the corps of cavalry.*

Neither does such a minimum allow
for two divisions which we know were
summoned to the eastern part of the field
before the end of the battle, and which
we shall see later appearing (too late) upon
the Meuse behind Sarrail at its close.

We thus add certainly seven — more
probably nine — divisions to that first
minimum. It is possible that there were
one or two more from Maubeuge after
that place fell.

To call the German force as a whole,
therefore, the equivalent of seventy-
five divisions, apart from its independent
cavalry, is not to exaggerate.

So much for the estimate of the Ger-
man forces deployed for action during the
Battle of the Marne from the Vosges to
Meaux, and of the forces arriving during
the battle. It is necessarily less than the
total — perhaps much less. And the full
number is not yet known.

* For the various lists upon which this estimate is
based, the reader who desires to follow the matter in
detail may turn to the note at the end of this volume.

36 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

With the French numbers it is other-
wise.

Upon that Allied side we have, of
course, a much more accurate estimate.
We know that, apart from some six or
seven independent divisions of cavalry,
the French divisions which took part in
the action, or remained watching the
eastern frontier during the action, from
first to last amounted to fifty-one.

Roughly, therefore, so far as mere
counting of units goes, we are quite safe
and well within a wide margin of error,
if we say that the German effectives
present upon the whole line stood to the
Allied effectives which defeated them as
less than eight but more than seven
to five.

It is a matter of the greatest importance
to seize this general proportion, if we are
to understand what the battle will look
like in history ; for never before did such
superiority of force fully deployed, and
enjoying similar or superior armament to
its inferior enemy, suffer defeat from
numbers so much smaller than its own.
It is true that a very great factor in the
result Was the error of the enemy in

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 37

wasting great masses upon the East, and
lacking them, therefore, at the decisive
points west of Verdun, where the battle
was won. In other words, upon the
field where the fighting was active be-
tween Verdun and Paris, the forces were
nearly equal, and the great dispropor-
tion arose in the field south and east of
Verdun, where the Germans had kept men
massed to no purpose. But whenever a
superior force is defeated by an inferior
force, it is due to an error of this kind,
and the Germans paid the price of such
an error.

We must further remember that the
mere counting of units weights the scales
against ourselves and in favour of the
enemy. For the Allies had lost very much
more heavily in the great retreat than
had the Germans during their advance.

If we put the whole thing diagram-
matically, so as to represent the dispro-
portion of forces to the eye, it would
look something like that upon the sketch
overpage.

In this diagrammatic form we see the
way in which the issue of the Marne
depended upon the false grouping of the

38 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Germans against the east of the whole
line between B and C. The Battle of
the Marne proper was fought on the
curve between A and B, and it was
because of the false grouping of the
Germans between B and C that the
opponents between A and B were so

/

,*

^ r- ^ <^

^

<s

N <=,

\vc

^

Sketch i.

nearly equal, although the total German
force was so much larger than the Allied
force. We also see in this diagram, gen-
eral and rough as it is, that element
which is always present when a force by
its strategic retreat before inferior num-
bers draws on its enemy and lengthens

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 39

his communications. That element is the
weakening of the advancing opponent's
front as its communications lengthen.
He has to leave men behind to guard
those communications in some degree.
He has to use up increasing numbers of
men moving up and down the com-
munications as they lengthen. If his
advance is rapid, he is bound to have
a certain amount of stragglers and of
bodies that do not quite come up in
time, and if he has left a fortress behind
him, he must further detach a certain
number to contain that fortress.

All these elements were present after
the strategic retreat of Joffre and the
corresponding advance of the Germans
when the moment came for the French
counter-offensive. One had fragments of
the German force not yet quite got into
line because the advance had been so
rapid ; one had at least two, and perhaps
four divisions kept back until at least the
second day of the battle, containing the
besieged garrison in Maubeuge ; one had
the men upon the lengthening communi-
cations right away up through Northern
France and Belgium to the bases in Ger-

4o A GENERAL SKETCH OF

many, and one had the men who had to
be left behind to keep down Belgium
itself.

At this point there enters a most inter-
esting discussion which was only fully
developed at the opening of the Battle of
Verdun in February 191 6, and to which
I would draw the reader's particular at-
tention, because the problem has been
so well put by one of the ablest conti-
nental students of the war, the neutral
Swiss Colonel Feyler, whose name will be
familiar, perhaps, to most of those now
reading this page.

Colonel Feyler, in an article of the
highest importance and value, has de-
bated whether the Germans were not,
after all, wrong in trying to turn the
French position through Belgium instead
of boldly attacking upon the fortified
frontier of the east.

It is clear that if the Germans had,
without too much delay, mastered the
fortified French line between Verdun and
Belfort, their efforts after that would have
had very short and easy communications
behind them. They might have mastered
it by concentrating on the one fortress of

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 41

Verdun while it was still in its old
state, a ring fortress defended only by
limited, known, and permanent works.
Once they had the northern end of the
fortified line at their mercy, the Germans

PARIS'

Sketch 2.

would have been able to turn the whole
of it. Their progress would then have
been uninterrupted, they would have had
very rapid and immediate supply just
behind them, and would have had to
detach but a minimum of men for the

42 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

short communications through friendly
territory in the rear of their advance.
Their overwhelming numbers would have
assured them continuous success in such
an advance, and, above all, they would
not have had the wasted effort, which has
bled them right through the war, of
keeping down the neutral population of
Belgium, whose territory, in the plan
they actually pursued, was wantonly vio-
lated.

Against this idea of a direct attack on
Verdun at the beginning there was, of
course, the French conception, which the
war proved erroneous, that the per-
manent works of the ring fortresses upon
the east would hold out for a lengthy
period of time.

But the enemy had guessed rightly in
this matter. He had judged that his
siege train would be the master of any
restricted permanent works in a few days,
and we know as a fact that not only the
Belgian forts went down at once, not
only those of Maubeuge, but that Camp
des Romains fell after a three days' bom-
bardment ; that Troyon, though not
taken, was silenced in five, and only just

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 43

relieved in time, and that the same was
true of Liouville. If, therefore, the Ger-
mans had struck the whole line of these
permanent works or any part of it, but
particularly its northern end at Verdun,
with their siege train at the very opening
of a war, they could have counted upon
a similar success. The French would not
have had time to learn the lesson of push-
ing field fortifications out beyond the old
rings, and taking the heavy guns away
from the permanent forts, and putting
them under mobile conditions into these
exterior field works. Verdun would have
fallen, the eastern wall would have been
turned, and the gate of a direct advance
opened — an advance with no unprotected
flank.

Obviously another consideration affect-
ing the Germans was the fact that the
eastern frontier gave but a short line
upon which to deploy their great forces.
This is true ; but, seeing the masses
in which they attacked, and the imme-
diate success that should have attended
them, it would surely have been possible
to strike with at any rate the main
part of their army of invasion at the

44 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

barrier, and, once it was broken down,
to have extended their line up northwards.
It is the opinion of the eminent military
authority I have quoted that if they had
acted thus they might have won the war.

II.

The General Shape of the German
Line before the Battle, and the
Effect of that Shape.

Let us return to the fundamental state-
ment of all. German armies of inva-
sion, outnumbering the whole of their
opponents much as 15 outnumbers 10,
had reached, in the first days of Septem-
ber 1 914 (say by the 2nd or 3rd of that
month), a position sinuous in outline, the
fronts of which were in shape that of a
flattish sickle with a long handle, and in
direct extent, from extreme to extreme,*
rather more than two hundred miles.

How had they reached that shape ?
What was their object in marching to
that formation ? How far had they failed
to reach the situation they had ex-

* From Senlis, north of Paris, to St. Die, in the Vosges.

46 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

pected ? How, once in this sickle shape,
were they balked entirely of their goal,
thrust back, and pinned?

It is with the answers to these ques-
tions, and especially the last, that I am
here concerned.

First, then, how had the enemy reached
that " sickle shape " in his line which we
shall find to be the point of departure
whence all his defeat proceeded ? And
what was his intention in marching to
that formation ?

In order to answer this question we
have only to put upon the map the vari-
ous stages of his advance.

When the invasion began, when the
first contact was established between the
French Army and the German (which
was the beginning of serious warfare),
the German armies from Alsace to Mons
(and beyond), in Belgium, stood as do the
black dashes in Fig. 4. The French Army
(with its British contingent upon the ex-
treme left) stood as do the dotted dashes
upon the same. The German Army was
to the French Army immediately before
it — counting the British contingent — as
about two to one. The total numbers

THE EUROPEAN WAR.

47

ultimately opposed when the great shock
came were more like 7 J to 5. The differ-
ence was due to that strategy of " the
open square " described in my first vol-
ume, whereby the French armies actually
in touch with the enemy were supported
at some distance by large reserves. These
reserves — the "Mass of Manoeuvre" —

Sketch 4.

swung up on the eve of the Marne in
a fashion shortly to be described, and
changed the proportion from a bare half
to nearly five-eighths of the enemy. Five-
eighths is an inferiority sufficiently dis-
quieting. But it won.

48 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Note upon this Fig. 4 the position of
the town of Paris.

It is a cardinal principle, not only in
war but in every form of struggle, that
you must not only make your plan (if you
have the initiative in your hands, and are
sure of some superiority over the enemy),
but that you must also be provided with
derived alternatives to that plan.

You can never be sure that your enemy
will be forced by your action to exactly
the next move that you would choose.
You must always have in your mind the
formula : "If my opponent does not do
this thing — the most obvious under the
circumstances — but that thing (a less ob-
vious course), or that other, then I must
have ready ways of dealing with him in
the second and third case as well as in
the first." Examples of this plain rule
of combat abound in every game, from
chess to fencing, and from fencing to war.

Now the plan of the German General
Staff contained such alternative sets of ideas.

The obvious thing when you immensely
outnumber your enemy on a deployed line
is to outflank — that is, to get round him
—and coop him up, and so destroy him.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 49

If the French Army, being so small
compared to its opponent, kept well to-
gether, it seemed fated to be outflanked
by its superior enemy, and the original
German plan would be accomplished.

But there was an alternative possible.
It might be that the French Army
would be so affected by the political
danger of losing Paris, with all that it
meant to France, that it would as it
retreated spread out more and more, so
as to cover Paris, and try to save it. But
the French Army by this action would
necessarily become at last too thinly spread
out to hold, and be at last somewhere
dislocated. It might attempt in some
bewildered way, inferior though it was
in numbers, to save Paris at all costs.
In that case it would spread out by the
left until it was too thin, and till gaps
would appear in its line. Then the Ger-
mans could use their immense numerical
superiority to break through with a cer-
tainty of success.

Supposing the French were so far gov-
erned by purely military considerations —
in other words, supposing the financiers

and the politicians were so bound to obey
11. 4

50 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the soldiers — that Paris would be left to
its fate rather than imperil the army in
the field, then the German superiority in
numbers could be used to curl round the
left of the French Army between its ex-
tremity and Paris, and to envelop the
whole.

The disposition of the invading German
Army was well designed to hold both
these alternatives in view, and it would
be able to act upon either of them. For
it was swinging round in the direction of
the arrow upon Fig. 4, and more or less
pivoting upon the point P at the other end
of its line. Its rapidly marching largest
force was directed along the arrow straight
at Paris for ten days — a march calculated
to produce the maximum of political effect.
Should the French refuse to be moved by
that threat, should they refuse to weaken
their line, or to risk gaps in it for the sake
of saving Paris, then (I am speaking only
of the German point of view) the arrow
could be curled round, leaving Paris for
the moment, and involving the French
Army as a whole. The German entry
into Paris could wait until the German
victory in the field was assured.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 51

One may put the thing graphically in
the following diagrams.

Either at the end of the movement the
French, in their terror for Paris, and the
confusion produced thereby, would spread
out their inferior numbers westward to

s s /

/ ' s /

/ / / '

■ r 11 '

PARIS

f-1 I-.

«• 1

••-.J r.

"•-- "»

7>.

Sketch 5.

cover Paris, in which case a gap would
certainly appear somewhere or other
(as at A in Fig. 5) ; or they would
have the strength of mind to keep their
line full and intact to the end of the move-
ment, leaving Paris to its fate.

In the first case the Germans would

52 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

break the French utterly at the gap A
with their superior numbers. In the
second case the extreme left of the superior
German line would be free to curl round,
as in Fig. 6, and begin the envelopment
of the whole French Army. One or the
other of these fates seemed certain, unless
the French could in some way wear down

Sketch 6.

the enemy's numbers before suffering
defeat, or in some way increase their own.
At this point the reader of the first
volume in this series will naturally ask :
Since the Germans knew very well that
the French depended upon the theory of
the " Mass of Manoeuvre " — that is, upon
keeping reserves well behind the line,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 53

which should strike in when opportunity
offered — was not the German General
Staff aware that the forces retiring before
them as the German Army advanced
were but a portion of the whole French
Army ? Were they not naturally anxious
for what the other, reserved portion, which
had not yet come into play, might do ?
And would not they, therefore, first make
quite certain of where that reserve portion
was, how large it was, and in what fashion
it was likely to strike, before they com-
mitted themselves to the last manoeuvre
of curling round the Allied line, suppos-
ing Paris to be thus neglected ?

The answer to these obvious questions
would seem to be that the German Gen-
eral Staff were, of course, familiar with
the French strategic theories of the " Mass
of Manoeuvre," but, as the event will
show, that they made a triple error —
all dependent on one original error.
They began by greatly overestimating
the actual numbers of the French who
retreated before them from the Sambre.
They thought the retirement of a vastly
outnumbered fraction was the rout of the
whole. Consequently (1) they had no

54 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

idea of the largeness of the reserve that
might still come into play ; (2) they
could therefore not guess where it was,
nor (3) how it would act.

This German error was highly charac-
teristic.

You are deceived as to the strength of
a force in front of you when you under-
estimate its fighting quality. If you think
that such and such a power of resistance
can only be put up by your enemy when
he has 100 men, whereas as a fact your
enemy is of a calibre to put up a fight
of that kind with only 80 men, you are
leaving out of account, and erroneously
believing to be non-existent, a margin of
20 men, who may appear suddenly where
you least expect them, and make all the
difference to the result.

It would seem that this was the main
type of miscalculation into which the
Prussians fell.

They fell into many others in the course
of the great decisive action we are about
to study ; but that prime error of mis-
understanding the French temperament,
the French military quality, and, conse-
quently, the numbers they really had in

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 55

front of them — particularly, as we shall
see, on the eastern end of the line — was
the chief cause of their ruin. In all the
course of the war, even up to the moment
of writing, the German Higher Command
has not got over this fault of misunder-
standing the quality of its opponents.

It is satisfactory to note that the conse-
quence here was a moral consequence
following upon a German moral failing,
and a French advantage in the same
sphere. For it was the combination of
Prussian mechanical calculation and
French rapidity in judgment which pro-
duced between them the tremendous
effect called the Battle of the Marne.

The first thing that developed in the
sweep of the invasion was a sort of check
or crook in the simple German plan of
a clean sweep forward. This check or
crook, which bent what was intended to
be a plain curve into the sickle formation,
took place upon the left centre of the Ger-
man line in front of the right centre of the
French line. Its capital feature was the
defence of Nancy, an open town covered
by an army in the field, and depending
only upon rapidly made field works thrown

56 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

up in the open. Those works were mainly
thrown up along the crest of hills lying
to the east and north of Nancy, and called
Le Grand Couronne.

But to this check there also powerfully

PARIS

Qrand
Couronne

Intended form of the front
after advance.
Actual form of the, front
aficr advance due to resistance
offy&rdun and in front of I^ancy.

Sketch 7.

contributed the resistance of the new field
works round Verdun.

The French had learnt the lesson of
Namur and Liege with amazing ra-
pidity.

Their whole theory of war had been

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 57

based for more than a generation upon
the conception that a fortress defended
by isolated permanent works could hold
out for months against the modern siege
train. That conception, sound before the
development of aircraft, had by 19 14
become wholly erroneous. Liege and
Namur had proved that the modern siege
train, its fire corrected by aerial observa-
tion, could get the better of restricted
permanent works in a few days. The
materials for writing a history of what
happened at Verdun are not yet avail-
able, but the practical proof of what
happened is evident to all. During the
very few days between the fall of the
Belgian fortresses and the appearance of
the German troops before Verdun the
heavy guns of the latter fortress had
been moved out into temporary bat-
teries, concealed far forward of the old
circle of forts, and thus held up the
Germans in front of them just as the
troops in the open held up the Germans
in front of Nancy.

We shall see later how this resistance
before Verdun and Nancy deceived the
enemy into believing that very much

58 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

larger forces were here opposed to them
than was actually the case.

Meanwhile, farther west, the French
forces and the British contingent on their
extreme left fell back rapidly. The Ger-
man armies, pushing forwards by order
as fast as they possibly could, got into a
convex position, stretching from the Ar-

Sketch 8.

gonne to in front of Paris, and by the
first days of September, what with the
Germans ever pressing on as rapidly as
possible when the French retreated, and
getting awkwardly held up when the
French stood, there had thus been pro-
duced that " sickle " formation to which
I have alluded.

In the days 2nd to 5th September, the
German armies stretched from Senlis to

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 59

the Argonne forest, the curve bending
forward, and everywhere prepared to ad-
vance. But from the point where that
line curled round Verdun on past Nancy
and down to St. Die and the Vosges they
were held.

Now observe the result of such a for-

Sketch 9.

mation. The Germans had intended to
stand in a great general sweep like that of
the dotted line in Fig. 8. They were
standing, as a fact, like that of the thick
line in the shape of the sickle on the
same sketch. The result was that their
chief marching body, the extremity of
their line which had the task of envelop-
ing the French at A, had more work to
do in proportion than it would have

60 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

had to do if everything had worked
smoothly.

When you are enveloping your inferior
enemy the ideal thing is, lie towards him
in such a shape as the black line AB is
to the dotted line CD in Fig. 9. Your
free extreme marching wing at A curls
round with the arrow and envelops.

A

E

D

Sketch 10.

If from any cause your general sweep,
AB, is distorted into such a shape as AEB
in Fig. 10, your marching wing, A, is a
good deal handicapped. Either the people
at E must stand still while A comes
round at a good expense of time, or,
more probably, the formation will tempt
the Higher Command to order the people
at E to go forward and try to break

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 61

the inferior enemy in front of them.
More probably still there will be a com-
bination of the two. The people at A
will be told to try to curl round, accord-
ing to the original plan, in spite of the
long distance they have to go. The
people at E will be told to try their luck
anyhow, and see whether they cannot
break the enemy's line on their own
account, while A is threatening his flank.

That was the first result of the sickle
formation into which the Germans had
been twisted against their will by the
resistance of Nancy and Verdun : their
extreme left was condemned to an exces-
sive effort ; their centre was tempted to
a local and ill co-ordinated one.

There was a second result.

A general who has been trying to
envelop will almost certainly conclude, if
he has been badly held up at one point
of his line, that there the largest forces of
his enemy have been opposed to him.
The Germans, having thus been held up
on " the handle of the sickle " before
Verdun and Nancy, were convinced that
the greatest strength the French could
put forward had been put forward in that

62 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

quarter. They exaggerated the French
numbers in front of Nancy and Verdun.
Consequently they believed that the forces
towards the left of the French (the west
that is, near Paris — the German right)
were much weaker than was really the
case. As a further consequence they
concluded that both a direct attack by
their own centre on the supposed weak
French centre at the middle of the curve,
and a sweeping round the extremity of
the supposedly attenuated French line,
were both easy matters, and could be
undertaken simultaneously. Such would
seem to be the answer to the first ques-
tions— how the Germans got into the
" sickle formation," and what they in-
tended to do with it.

We are now in a position to answer the
second question : how this attitude into
which the German line had fallen just
before the Battle of the Marne conduced
to its defeat.

That question will be answered in much
more detail in the later pages of this book.
We are for the moment only concerned
with the first elements — the bare outline.

The Germans, exaggerating the strength

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 63

of the French to the east, and under-
estimating the strength of the French to
the west, and further believing that the
French had not really been able to keep
back a large reserve, or " Mass of Ma-
noeuvre," at all — believing that such resist-
ance as they had met could only mean
that the mass of the French Army was
already engaged — undertook light-heart-
edly what would otherwise have been a
very risky operation. They attempted to
envelop the Allied line, confident that its
extremity was weak, and that they could
march round it without peril of attack
against their exposed extremity. For they
thought that the French had hardly any
one left to bring up against that exposed
extremity. They further thought they
were strong enough at the same time to
try to pierce the centre of the French
line, or threaten to pierce it, while
the outflanking movement was taking
place.

One may put the whole thing very
simply in the following two diagrams.
The German Higher Command, finding
its army in the sickle formation AEB,
the handle of that sickle from E to B

64 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

having been forged by the French resist-
ance, took it for granted that the Allied
forces were in proportionate strength to
various parts of the line, something like
the unshaded area XY in Fig. n, and
that there was very little else threatening
them. They also thought the extremity
at X, where the British were, to be not

A fi/mm^

E^

* X &t&^^:

Contingent

Y

Sketch ii.

only thin but quite exhausted by the
retreat. They therefore were quite pre-
pared to swing round their big mass at
A in the direction of the arrow, so as to
encircle the Allied armies, and at the
same time to move forward the great mass
at E, with the object of threatening or
piercing the centre.
As a matter of fact, the real disposition

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 65

was not what the Germans imagined. It
was not like Fig. 11, with the French
mass on the right, depleted French forces
on the left, and no reserve.

It was, on the contrary, much more
like Fig. 12, with a fairly even distri-
bution all along the line, and also large
reserve bodies, as at F and G.

$

A

<. British ^^Tr

y Contitmcnt.

E

HkB

"\!

Sketch 12.

So when A began his turning move-
ment, and E his piercing as well, A found
himself badly threatened by the unex-
pected appearance of F on his flank, as
well as by the unexpected elasticity of the
British contingent in front of him. A,
threatened with a local defeat, called up
his men towards his right, bunching them
up more and more against F to save de-
feat. This drew the whole German line
11. 5

66 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

to the right, thinning it towards the centre
at E ; E, at the centre, saw the line to his
right getting perilously thin, tried to save
the situation by striking hard in front of
him, but lost his head in so unexpected
a development, and left a bad gap, H,
in his line. The situation at this moment
was that of Fig. 1 3 . The French took imme-

Sketch 13.

diate advantage of the gap which the Ger-
mans had thus opened at H, and broke into it.
The German line was " dislocated " by
German blundering. The Allies beat the
Germans by taking immediate advantage
of this " dislocation " in the enemy's line.
And the whole victory turns out, upon a

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 67

general examination, when its vast com-
plexity has been analyzed and resolved,
to be essentially an example of that rare
type of action, a defeat suffered by a
greatly superior force at the hands of a
greatly inferior force, not through sur-
prise nor through the sudden massing of
men against a weak spot, but from a
spontaneous dismemberment of the su-
perior force, of which dismemberment the
inferior force at once takes advantage.

The Battle of the Marne was, in one
phrase, "An Action of Dislocation."

This fundamental proposition I shall
first define before proceeding to a closer
examination of that tremendous event
which — in what delay of time I cannot
pretend to say — will prove to have deter-
mined all the future of the modern world.

III.

The Battle of the Marne was " An
Action of Dislocation." What is
" An Action of Dislocation " ?

The Battle of the Marne, I say, was in
type one of those general actions which

68 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

may be called " A Defeat suffered from a
Dislocation of the Line" or, more briefly,
"An Action of Dislocation ."

Let me define and explain this term.

It is clear that, even where superior
forces are face to face with inferior, the
cohesion or continuity of the superior line
— unless its numerical superiority be quite
overwhelming — is essential to success.

I have here (Fig. 14) six Black units

1.

2.

3.

4r.

5.

>•

cz

Z) CZ

1 1

Z) CZ

— 1

Sketch 14.

opposed to four White units. That is a
marked superiority. But if by any acci-
dent, or folly, or misfortune, a large gap
opens between two sections of my Black
units, and if White takes immediate ad-
vantage of this, though I am superior in
number, White will defeat me.

Suppose (as in Fig. 15) a broad gap is
allowed to intervene between two halves
of my six Black units, the left-hand

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 69

half and the right-hand half, and White
takes immediate advantage of this by
stepping into the gap, it is clear that he
will have got upon the flank of unit No. 4
and unit No. 3, as well as holding them
from in front ; and we know that troops
deployed for battle when thus struck in
flank are doomed, if the stroke can be
delivered with sufficient force. For upon
an unprotected flank a line is vulnerable

Sketch 15.

in the extreme. It is there " blind,"
weak in men, and with no organization
for suddenly turning to fight at right
angles to its original facing. White is
further immediately threatening the com-
munications of the Black units 3 and 4,
represented by the arrows. Such a situa-
tion compels the Black units 3 and 4 to
fall back at once to positions indicated by
the shaded oblongs on Fig. 15. If they

70 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

did not so fall back they would be de-
stroyed. But that leaves 5 and 2 similarly
exposed, so they in their turn must fall
back towards the shaded positions behind
them. But this would leave 6 and 1 also
exposed, so they also have to fall back.

In practice, of course, when such a gap
opens, and advantage is taken of it by the
enemy, the line thus imperilled does not
wait to fall back gradually bit by bit, but
receives the order to fall back at once and
altogether. It has lost its offensive power.
It is lucky if it can stop somewhere and
stand on the defensive before suffering
total defeat.

All this is elementary, and is summed
up in the simple phrase that " The line
which allows itself to be broken is de-
feated."

In the greater part of actions known to
history, where victory has thus followed
upon the breaking of a line, such a breach
has been due to the deliberately offensive
action of the enemy. The commander of
the line which was ultimately broken knew
perfectly well that his enemy wanted to
break it, and, when it broke, it broke not
through his ignorance so much as through

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 71

the superior weight of the blow which the
enemy was able to deliver. In other words,
the term " break " is, in most such actions,
an accurate metaphor. A line was drawn
up, and was intended to stand a shock.
The shock was delivered ; the line failed
to stand, and was violently, and against its
will, disjoined by the hammer stroke of its
enemy. Blenheim is the classical example.
You have a line (Fig. 16), as AB,

C E D

Sketch 16.

which intends to stand. You have an-
other line, CD, at one central portion of
which, E, a specially strong force is
mustered — in the case of Marlborough at
Blenheim, his cavalry towards the close
of the action. This concentration strikes
as hard as it can at the opposing point of
the line, and if the line breaks under the
blow AB is defeated.

72 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Napoleon was trying nothing else against
Wellington's line during all the afternoon
hours of Sunday, June 18, 1815, on the
field of Waterloo.

But that type of action to which the
Marne belongs, and which I have called
" The Action of Dislocation," though
equally an example of the disruption of the
line, is not, properly speaking, a " breach "
of that line, but rather what I have called
it, a " dislocation." The gap is not pro-
duced by the enemy's blow, but is created
by some fault of the Higher Command
before the enemy strikes and takes ad-
vantage of it. The line which is ulti-
mately pierced originally stood intact,
then was divided, and showed a hole
somewhere in its trace on account of the
mishandling of troops, and only after
that, and taking advantage of that, did
the enemy pour through the opening so
formed to his advantage, but not by his
own direct effort.

In other words, of those battles which
are decided by the penetration of a line
and not by envelopment, there are two
categories.

In the first category, where the line may

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 73

be said to be broken, the three stages of
the action are those in Fig. 17. (a)
When both lines are intact and facing
each other ; (b) When both are intact,
but one has concentrated for a blow upon
a particular section of the other ; and
(c) The state of affairs when this blow has
been delivered and has been successful.

The second kind of action, which I
have called " The Action of Dislocation,"

Sketch 17.

has also three stages, rather resembling
those of Fig. 18 : (a) Where the two
lines are intact and facing one another ;
(b) Where the one line, through the fault
of its own commanders, has suffered dis-
location, and only after that ; (c) The gap
formed by the dislocation taken advantage
of by the opponent, who, finding the way
open for him, pours through.

It is clear from the above that what I
have called " A Defeat through the Dis-

74 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

location of the Line " can only be pro-
duced by some very grave blunder upon
the part of the defeated general.

The discovery upon the part of the
victor that the gap has opened, and the
rapidity of the decision which enables
him to take immediate advantage of that
situation, are, of course, equally neces-
sary to the result. It is none the less
true that the main cause of that result is
not the positive action of the victor, but

Sketch 1 8.

the negative action of the vanquished. It
is upon his blunder that the affair really
turns.

An immediate consequence of this truth
is that a blunder so momentous, though
arguing, of course, incompetence upon the
part of those who commit it, will only
appear under conditions of some com-
plexity. The command which allows a
gap to develop in its line apart from the
pressure of the enemy is rightly con-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 75

demned as inferior, and the German
Higher Command, which lost the Battle
of the Marne to an enemy about two-
thirds of its own numbers, will always
appear before history as singularly deficient
upon that occasion.

None the less no command, not even
one hide-bound by that mixture of short-
sightedness and routine which its admirers
call "efficiency and organization," would
be guilty of so crass and obvious a fault
as opening a gap in its line under no
temptation, and without special unex-
pected happenings to bewilder it.

The gap only opens thus because the
Higher Command loses its head, gets
flurried, is unable to think rapidly in the
presence of a new situation, calls troops
hurriedly from one part of the field to
another, and does not with sufficient
promptitude rearrange its units.

A general who lets a gap thus develop
in his line may be compared to the bad
chess player who allows his queen to
be taken early in the game. It is a gross
mark of incompetence to allow it ; but
no one is so incompetent as to allow it
deliberately. It only happened because

76 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

his attention was diverted to some other
part of the board, and his mind could
not grasp the whole situation.

To take an elementary example.

The Higher Command of Black in Fig.
19, awaiting the attack of White, wrongly
imagines that White has been heavily re-
inforced upon his right at A. Almost
simultaneously he accepts the wrong in-
formation of a second concentration upon

_4v.

FvTI 1 11 11

1 1 1
A

B C

Sketch 19.

White's left at B. He hurriedly draws
men right and left, as along the dotted
lines, gradually depleting his central unit
3 as he reinforces 1 and 5. He has no
intention of leaving a gap in his centre,
but unless he spreads out 2 and 4, and co-
ordinates their extension rapidly with the
depletion of 3, he is in danger of finding
himself in some such situation as that in
Fig. 20, with his two wings reinforced
at the expense of his centre, a gap for

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 77

the moment appearing in this centre,
and unable to prevent White's unit C
taking immediate advantage of the tem-
porary dislocation and pouring through.

That is exactly what happened at the
Battle of the Marne.

The German Higher Command first of
all arrived at an exaggerated estimate of
the French right wing in front of Nancy.

beh ^nra '

* — ~

1 1

1 11

C

11 ■

H 1

y

Sketch 20.

While still under this illusion, they were
surprised by the actual appearance of un-
expected new forces upon the French left
wing in front of Paris. They began hur-
riedly and confusedly leaning their strength
westward to reinforce the bodies at the
right end of their line. They did not spread
out with sufficient rapidity the remainder
of their central bodies, nor hold them on
the defensive as they grew perilously thin

78 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

at one point ; a gap appeared ; the French
centre commander, Foch, took immediate
advantage of that gap, and struck through.

It must further be noted that, as the
very rare cases of a battle lost " through
dislocation " always depend upon the con-
fusion and bewilderment of the Higher
Command, through some complexity in
the situation which it has not the talent
to grasp, therefore there is a peculiar like-
lihood of such a type of battle developing
under conditions monstrous or novel, or
both. There is also an added likelihood
of their occurring when the mind of the
defeated party is not quick in character,
nor apt at grasping unexpected condi-
tions. It is further true that a blunder
of this kind is especially likely to be made
by men underrating from an illusion of
vanity the fighting power of their enemy.

All these three predisposing conditions
were present in the Battle of the Marne.

(i.) The German body of officers as a
whole, and even its Higher Command
(who in early youth had belonged to a
wiser and more sober Germany), was all
at sea upon the French character in gen-
eral and the character of the French

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 79

Army in particular. It had such a con-
viction (based upon printed matter, not
upon the senses) that the French human
material and social organization had
rotted, and that the German forces were
in all moral elements superior, that when
the great retreat from the Sambre de-
veloped, the Germans vastly exaggerated
the numbers actually present in front of
them, and consequently underestimated
the reserves that would appear for a
counter-offensive. To this same fault of
pride, which is often the mark of an
inferior intelligence, one must ascribe their
miscalculation of French strength at the
points where the French Higher Com-
mand chose to stand and not to retreat.
We shall see later of what capital impor-
tance this was in the matter of the extreme
right under Castelnau.

(2.) The German mind — it is, perhaps,
the most permanent characteristic of
that historically unstable thing — works
slowly. There is no disadvantage in
this characteristic where prolonged and
detailed work upon set lines has to be
performed — rather the reverse. A slow
mind suffers less from weariness and

8o A GENERAL SKETCH OF

from disgust than a quick. It will there-
fore often excel at long-laid plans, and
especially at the co-ordination of details
which can be worked out undisturbed.
But it is obviously handicapped as against
the quicker mind when a quite unex-
pected decision is thrust upon it, and
problems unknown to its tedious calcu-
lations press for immediate solution. No
mind is less agitated, but none is more
confused (and, therefore, in a human
struggle more at the mercy of a quick
and lucid opponent) than the mind of the
North German under conditions of un-
expected accident.

Now the conditions of the Marne were
conditions peculiarly trying to this tem-
perament. An exceedingly detailed plan
of action, worked out for years in its
most minute elements, and thoroughly co-
ordinated, the labour of a generation and
more, was broken upon September 6,
1 9 14. The huge tear which began to
spread in that elaborate mechanical fabric
had to be remedied somehow by a stroke
of vision at very short notice. Already
in forty-eight hours, by the 8th of Sep-
tember, things were doubtful. Before the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 81

dawn of the ioth the whole scheme was
in ruins.

(3.) But the last condition of the affair
was the most important. I have said that
the blunder of " dislocation " is more likely
to occur in proportion as the problem of
readjustment is novel and monstrous.

Now the conditions of the Marne were
essentially both. You had to consider
the regroupment of units not upon a
field of a few hundred yards, but over
120 miles of country. As you were draw-
ing your men towards the wings, your
imperilled centre was informed not by
its own eyes, nor even by sending off
a dispatch rider a mile or two, but by
a series of telephone messages which had
to be clearly framed and as clearly under-
stood, and which were the expression
not of a council nor of one man, but of
several commanders necessarily separated
one from another by great spaces. Your
readjustment of force was not the bor-
rowing of a battalion or even a division
from one part of the field, which you
thought more secure, for another which
you believed to be threatened. It was
the regrouping of whole armies.

II, 6

82 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

The Marne was in essence a battle of
dislocation as truly as the smallest such
example taking place in the pettiest of
antique sword play between two village
states. But the enormity of its scale
changed, for the human agents, the very
stuff of the thing. There was demanded
of men a new grasp of things a hundred-
fold more complex than their studies of
the past could teach them, and it was upon
this account, more, I think, than upon
any other, that the great action became
one of that rare type which, on a smaller
scale, would have been due to crude
blundering, but which, upon this scale,
was a peril to be feared by any general,
the " battle of dislocation."

It might even be tentatively proposed
that great national actions of the future
will show examples in this kind com-
monly ; and that a defeat through " dis-
location," a rarity in the past, will, under
the vast complexity of modern condi-
tions, become the chief anxiety of general
officers in the future.

Having said so much on the most
elementary and fundamental point in the
diagrammatic aspect of the great battle,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 83

let us turn next to a simple statement by
further diagrams of its three determining
phases. After this, and after the cor-
responding comprehension of the mould
in which the thing was cast, we can con-
clude with the detailed narrative of it.

IV.

The Elements of the Battle.

The Battle of the Marne is so extremely
complex an action, one fought upon so
vast a scale, and one the evidence on
which is still so vague and scanty, that no
grasp of it is possible unless one treats it
step by step, beginning with the most
elementary and general plans.

I have already in the Illrd Part of this
chapter characterized the general nature
of the action as one of " dislocation," and
attempted to define that phrase, and to
render clear the nature of this somewhat
rare type of battle.

I now proceed, before giving in any
detail the story of the Marne, to establish
what may be called in the study of any
action its " elements."

84 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

The plan of any general action, its
varying phases, and the final disposition
of troops which led to its result, can
always be expressed briefly in the form
of diagrams. The idea underlying the
moves on both sides is thus best rendered
in its simplest form, and such an over
simplicity of description is necessary as
a prelude if one is to go on to the com-
prehension of the fight in all its details.

The elements of the Battle of the
Marne were as follows : —

The " sickle " formation of the Ger-
man invading forces, which has already
been described at some length, was com-
posed of seven distinct groups, each called
an army, and each consisting of several
army corps, united under one " army
commander." Of these seven corps, Jive
formed the blade of the sickle and the
attachment of the blade to the handle ;
the remaining two formed the handle
itself. These armies were numbered from
the German right to the German left in
regular order — that is, from west to east ;
in a diagrammatic expression of them,
we have the succession apparent upon
Sketch 21. The 1st Army is that on the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 85

extreme right, the Ilnd next to it, then
the Illrd, IVth, Vth, in their order up
to and curling round Verdun, and then
the Vlth and Vllth, which stood checked
along the eastern frontier in front of
Nancy and the Vosges. The commanders
of these armies, with their numbers and

Sketch 21.

the nature of their troops, need only be
given when we proceed to the full story
of the battle.

In order to seize the elements of the
action, it is sufficient to grasp this ar-
rangement of seven armies forming the
great sickle 200 miles long, as shown
upon Sketch 21.

Such was the order and numeration of

86 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the armies of invasion at the moment
when that invasion had reached its ex-
treme development just before the French
counter-offensive of the 5th of September.

As against this line, note the Allied
line, which is marked upon Sketch 21
in white, as opposed to the German
black.

This Allied line I have roughly repre-
sented by white oblongs, save in the case
of the British contingent, which I have
shaded. Each of these oblongs stands
for an army composed of several army
corps : the British of three, the French
of from three to four. It will be noted
that the French system of numeration,
like that of the Germans, goes up from
right to left, and that the French armies,
five in number, end with the 5th upon
the extreme left or west, and go back by
the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st to the eastern
end of the line.

These five French armies, with the
British contingent, represent the original
force of which a portion (1 and 2) had stood
against the shock of the German Vlth and
Vllth on the eastern frontier ; while the
remainder, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, and

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 87

the British contingent, had fallen back
during the great retreat from Belgium.

Those who are familiar with the thesis
set forth in the first volume of this series,
will remember that the strategic theory
of the French — the plan upon which they
hoped to meet, though with difficulty,
the immense numerical superiority of
their opponent — was " the open strategic
square."

Without repeating all the description
of that plan, it is sufficient to recall here
that it consists essentially in the dividing
of one's forces into two parts. The first
part takes contact with the enemy, and,
if necessary, retreats before him. The
second part, which is often called the
" Mass of Manoeuvre," is kept back in
reserve, and only called into play when,
in the judgment of the general-in-chief,
the retirement of the first part has gone
on long enough, and has drawn the
enemy into a position where there is a
favourable opportunity for launching for-
ward this reserved second part, and be-
ginning the counter-offensive.

In the enumeration of the original
French forces and the British contingent,

88 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

which had thus been in contact with the
enemy from the first days of the war,
we are dealing only with the first of these
two portions. Its right had held the
enemy upon the east, its left had re-
treated before him upon the west. In
its entirety it had not numbered half the
invasion which it proposed to stem.

/' 61

/PARIS ,•; \

4

II.

hi. rv

Fortified Tone*

^,-~"

♦ +

«A«

VII.

Sketch 22.

Where, meanwhile, was the " Mass of
Manoeuvre " ?

The " Mass of Manoeuvre " was gather-
ing in two separate groups, which we may
now add to the elements of the battle,
and which had been brought up into line
exactly in time for that great counter-
offensive of the French which was to
begin upon the 5th or 6th of September.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 89

I have marked these two groups of the
" Mass of Manoeuvre " by two dotted
oblongs on Sketch 22, numbered in
dotted figures respectively 6 and 7. The
6th Army was formed in, and proceeded
from, the fortified zone of Paris, together
with troops rapidly swung round by train
from the east during the battle, on the
extreme left beyond the British contin-
gent. The 7th Army * was formed behind
the centre of the main line, and brought
up into that centre between the 5th and
the 4th.

The French line, therefore, just before
the great counter-offensive was under-
taken, consisted of eight elements, the
irregularity of whose enumeration was due
to the fact that they consisted of two
portions : an original portion regularly
numbered ; a new additional portion,
the " Mass of Manoeuvre," which had
swung up to fall into line just before the
blow should be delivered. And these
elements, from left to right — that is, from
west to east — were the 6th French Army,

* Also called the 9th. This confusion of titles will be
discussed later. See the long note at the end of this
part.

90 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the British contingent, the 5th French
Army, the 7th (or 9th), the 4th, the 3rd,
the 2nd, and 1st. In this final form the
Allied forces were no longer less than half
their opponents ; they counted between
five-sevenths and five-eighths of their
opponents.

The numerical odds, therefore, were
still enormously against them, but the
essence of using a " Mass of Manoeuvre "
is that you hope with it to be able to
effect a surprise. If your enemy mis-
judges your numbers, though you are
weaker than him, that surprise may be
his undoing.

With these preliminaries, which estab-
lish the positions just before the great
struggle began, we can proceed to those
main changes in the course of that
struggle which between them decided
its result.

First, let it be clearly grasped that the
German commanders were in a great
measure ignorant both of the strength
and of the position of these " Masses of
Manoeuvre " that had swung up. Indeed,
had there not been this element of sur-
prise in the Allied action, there could

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 91

have been no chance of the Allied suc-
cess, considering the numerical superi-
ority of the enemy.

The enemy, as we have already seen,
misjudged the density of the Allied line.
He thought — on account of the way he
had been stopped before Nancy — that the
bulk of the French troops was bunched
up in the 1st and 2nd French Armies in
the east ; as a fact, the French line was
nearly evenly distributed.

Next, he misjudged its total strength.
He thought the forces which had retired
before him were larger than they really
were. He knew, indeed, that the French
originally meant to use a " Mass of Ma-
noeuvre/' but he thought that they had
already used a great part of it, or perhaps
all, in the desperation of a retreat which
he, the enemy, thought to have nothing
calculated about it, but to be something
like a rout.

Lastly, he miscalculated the moral con-
dition of the troops opposed to him at
the end of this retreat, and particularly
the remaining vigour of the French 5th
Army and the British contingent, which
had suffered more severely in casualties

92 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

than the rest, and also in fatigue ; for,
being at the end of the line, they had
had to march greater distances to avoid
envelopment.

The result of these three miscalcula-
tions was that when the French " Masses
of Manoeuvre " swung up, although por-
tions of them (especially of the 6th Army)
had given the enemy evidence of their
existence before, he had no idea of the
size of the new bodies that were just
going to surprise him. The enemy's first
false move was directly connected with
this miscalculation.

The 1st German Army — that on the ex-
treme German right or west — acting as
though it had nothing in front of it save
the weary British contingent and the badly
fatigued and mauled French 5th Army,
both of which had just gone through the
terrible ordeal of the retreat, proceeded
to attempt the envelopment of the whole
Allied line.

This 1st German Army had been fac-
ing, after the fashion we have seen in the
last two sketches, south-west. It pro-
ceeded upon the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of
September to swing round after the fash-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 93

ion of the dotted arrows upon Sketch 23.
In doing this it would have to march
right along the front of the British con-
tingent ; but it thought that small force
too exhausted to endanger it even in so
perilous a manoeuvre. It ignored the
gathering, right on its flank, of the
French 6th Army.

a m. IV V

2 ^ 1 VII

Sketch 23.

When the 1st German Army should
have completed this turning march, and,
from facing south-west, should be facing
south-east and threatening the whole
flank of the French line, all the rest of
the German line was to strike together.
The Vlth and Vllth German Armies were
to push back the 1st and 2nd French

94 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Armies ; the Ilnd, Illrd, and IVth were
to attack the French troops in front of
them, and prevent their lending aid to
the wings. In this way, with the great
superiority of German numbers, the battle
should in two or three days have devel-
oped into some such shape as that upon
Sketch 24 : the French line already

/ /

I I

I I.

■'-> ><-'-«-<• I

cutoff: p f

Presumably fallinq jj

back cm Paris. M /'

Sketch 24.

bent back by its superior enemies, and
obviously doomed to envelopment, and
therefore to destruction.

What happened, in point of fact, was
very different from this. By the time the
German 1st Army had curled well round
and was just about to strike between the
British and the French 5th Army, the
French 6th Army appeared upon its flank.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 95

The position of the Germans now, and
particularly of their extreme marching
right wing, the 1st Army, was that of
Sketch 25.

To the British contingent and the 5th
French Army was disclosed the addition
of the 6th French Army, and in this open-
ing phase of the battle it was obvious

Sketch 25.

that the first German army (I.) was in
peril of being caught in flank and de-
stroyed. It had a small flank guard on
the spot — one corps (as is marked on
Sketch 25). But it was for the moment
in jeopardy. It had been surprised by
the size of this unexpected new body
upon its right.

Unfortunately, either the 6th French
Army came into play a little too early,

96 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

or the British a little too late. The
commander of the 1st German Army,
therefore, had time just before he had
got too far on, and just before his posi-
tion had become hopeless, to bring back
his troops which were marching past the
British, and to throw them against the
new menace on his flank. But in exe-
cuting that hurried movement he natu-
rally compelled the German troops be-
yond him to conform and lean to the right
also ; this at once perilously stretched the
central bodies of the German Army, and at
last allowed a gap to appear among them.

That fact is the central fact of all the
Battle of the Marne.

This it was which made that battle a
" Battle of Dislocation. "

The whole thing may be compared to
a piece of elastic which one pulls up
towards one end until, in the centre, it
snaps.

There was just one moment in the
third day of the action when the whole
position was that of Sketch 26.

The whole mass of the German forces
leant towards their right, as along the
arrows on Sketch 26. The 6th French

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 97

Army was by that manoeuvre itself out-
flanked and outnumbered, and for a mo-
ment in some peril. But the Germans
had so blundered in their haste as to
leave a dangerous thinness in their line
at the point marked A upon Sketch 26.

Sketch 26.

There happened to be opposite this gap
the newly-formed and arrived ' Mass of
Manoeuvre," the French 7th (or 9th*)
Army. It was under the ablest of the French
commanders, Foch. He discovered the
gap opening in the afternoon of the 9th of
September, the fifth and most critical day

* See page 89.
11. 7

98 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

of the battle. He pushed at once through.
And the situation became that of Sketch 27,
the continuation of which would obviously
have been ruin to the German armies.

They fell back with the utmost expe-
dition, re-formed their line as along the
dots of Sketch 27 (where they had

Sketch 27.

already prepared trenches), there dug
themselves in, and were pinned. They
had lost their mobility in the West. The
invasion was ended.

The invader was thrown down. He
was held, and the whole face of the war
and of history had changed.

Such were the elements of the Battle

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 99

of the Marne. It would have been im-
possible had not the French not only
discovered the gap, but also, in every
part of the line where the superior num-
bers struck them, stood their ground.
It was an action quite as much deter-
mined by this unexpected value of the
sorely tried Allies and their power to
take a counter-offensive, as by the enemy's
blunder or Foch's genius in taking im-
mediate advantage of that blunder, in
discovering it from the vaguest indices
by a flash of intuition, and in striking
precisely where the blow would tell with
most effect. Above all, the Marne, as
the disparity of numbers proves, was a
battle wherein the moral qualities of en-
durance, rapid intelligence, and wide sur-
vey had the better of mechanical routine
and excess of detail, though these were at
the service of an overwhelming majority.
The moral element, indeed, cannot be
exaggerated, but the comprehension of
the battle as a matter of diagram depends
upon the three phases just described.

First, the surprise of the German right
at its danger of being outflanked by new
and unexpected forces.

ioo A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Secondly, the movement of Germans
westward to meet this danger, a move-
ment so ill accomplished that their centre
was thinned until a gap appeared.

Thirdly, the discovery and immediate
advantage taken of that gap by the French
7th (or 9th) Army of Foch.

In those three stages consists the Battle
of the Marne.

Criticism oj this Theory.

Such is the statement in the briefest
and most general form of the strategy
and tactics which produced and decided
the Battle of the Marne. Upon that
statement this study is based, and my
book is but an expansion of this funda-
mental conception.

But I should be misleading the reader
if I were to present this theory of the
great battle as one already universally
accepted, and as one against which no
one would make a criticism.

There cannot exactly be said to be two
conflicting accounts of the Battle of the
Marne. Nor is it an action upon which
history will have a great, unexplained
movement to account for, as it has, for

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 101

instance, Erlon's counter-march to ac-
count for in the Waterloo campaign. But
there are two ways of stating the fashion
in which the battle was won, and these
two ways, though they are not contra-
dictory, sufficiently differ in character to
merit, each of them, statement and ex-
planation. The one I have just put for-
ward at length. I must, in justice to the
reader, state the other also, and contrast
the two.

The thing is rather subtle, but neces-
sary to a full comprehension of the cam-
paign, for it is by the failure to elucidate
such points that military history so often
confuses the reader.

Let me explain the difficulty by a
simile. A man wrestling with another of
superior weight and strength to himself
proposes to trip him up by putting his
right foot behind the other's heels, and
pressing at the same time upon the other's
shoulders. His opponent reels and nearly
falls ; but the tripping-up movement hav-
ing been slightly mistimed, he does not
actually fall. He recovers himself for an
instant, and there is a moment in which
he is actually pressing down the lighter

ioz A GENERAL SKETCH OF

man in his turn — though the reeling back
and the counter-thrust forward are really
all part of one movement, which would
never have taken place had not the trip-
ping been undertaken. Meanwhile the
lighter man, in this immediately succeed-
ing second phase of the wrestle though in
peril of falling, sees the opportunity of
taking a new hold ; takes that hold, and
finally throws his heavier opponent, and
wins the match.

The whole succession of three phases
has been so rapid and so closely con-
nected that one may put them together
and call them in a lump an attempt to
trip up which failed in its first effect, but
was the real cause of the final throw. Or
one may emphasize the final movement ;
point out the failure of the first trip, and
ascribe the result mainly to the last hold
and throw.

The Battle of the Marne was exactly of
that nature.

It is clear that in the last few seconds
of a wrestling match such as has just been
described, a discussion might arise as to
whether it was the initial tripping up of
the heavier man or the last catch sue-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 103

cessfully clinched which really decided
the match.

It would depend upon the extent to
which, in the judgment of each, the
heavier man had rallied for a moment.
One man describing such a wrestling
match might say : " Though the heavier
man rallied just for a second, his fall
was obviously due to the first tripping,
which was the cause of everything that
followed. "

Another one describing the match might
say : " The heavier man had quite turned
the tables, and if the lighter man had not
taken the opportunity of the second hold
he would have been beaten."

In the Battle of the Marne, when we
come to look into its details, we shall see
the possibility of just such a debate, and
those who describe the battle will un-
consciously be biassed by their desire to
ascribe a greater effect to one general
rather than to another.

Already in the few accounts of the
Marne that have appeared, the two ways
of looking at the thing have been pre-
sented. There is no contradiction, but
there is a difference of emphasis.

104 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

In one set of studies * the battle is
shown as essentially decided by the last
action of Foch in the centre, and that is
the view deliberately adopted after many
months of close consideration, including
a personal visit to all the main sites of
the battle, and hearing the evidence of
the best witnesses, by the present writer.
In another set the Marne is put forward
as dependent mainly upon Maunoury's
surprise attack with the 6th Army on
the extreme western flank.

In the first and, as I believe, the better
view, you are particularly directed to the
undoubted fact that if the Germans had
broken the French centre Maunoury's
effort would have been wasted. It is
equally an undoubted fact that what pre-
vented the breaking of the French centre
was Foch's lightning move of the after-
noon of 9th September.

In the second, alternative, view your

* A remarkable example is the book Germany in
Defeat, by Count Charles de Souza and Major Haldane
M'Fall, published by Kegan Paul, which has appeared in
this country and shows a very close grasp of the main
thesis presented in the present work. Upon the other
side, Babin's precise but not theoretic study emphasizes
the alternative view.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 105

attention is specially directed to the fact
— which is not disputed, of course — that
the whole battle takes the form of suc-
cessive steps or movements, retirements
by the Germans, advances by the Allies,
up northwards. It is pointed out that the
first of these is due to Maunoury's sur-
prise attack, and that all the others only
follow in due succession as effects of that
cause.

Thus, the German 1st Army, on the
extreme west, began to retire in order to
meet Maunoury on the 6th of September.
The next army, the Ilnd, was in retire-
ment upon its western end as early as
the 7th of September ; its eastern end
was not pressed until the 8th of Sep-
tember. The next army along the line,
the Illrd Army in front of Foch, showed
no sign of retiring, and was not even
considering it late in the 9th of Sep-
tember, when it received its unexpected
blow, and its retirement proper did not
take place until the 10th.

The fact that all these movements from
west to east follow one after the other in
time, and that the retreat began upon
the west, and continued successively later

106 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

and later, until it came latest of all upon
the centre — nay, the added fact that the
last army of all to the east, that of the
Crown Prince, did not seriously fall back
until the 12th — lends colour to all this
view of the battle.

But I must still maintain that this view,
though the mere statement of fact in it
is accurate, is mechanical and misjudges
the vital moment in the battle. It is not
retirement or advance which is the essen-
tial of victory or defeat, though these are
usually the concomitants of either. Be-
fore you can say " Here was such and such
an army defeated," you must discover
not where, nor even when, any portion
of it began to retire, but what portion,
and at what time and place, suffered the
particular stroke which was decisive of
the whole. Now I take it that the stroke
delivered by Foch in the afternoon of
Wednesday, 9th September, corresponds
to that test. The Guard was the fraction
of the German Army which received the
decisive blow. The place was La Fere
Champenoise. The time was between five
and six in the evening on Wednesday,
September 9, 1914.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 107

If further support be required for the
maintenance of such a thesis, the follow-
ing point, I think, is sufficient : —

Supposing Foch had not perceived his
opportunity, nor taken it, what would
have happened ? How would history then
have looked at the surprise effected by
the 6th Army on the west, its partial —
and what would later have been its com-
plete— failure ?

Supposing the Germans had broken
through in the centre — what, then, would
have been the Battle of the Marne ?

Clearly the historian would have had
to say : " The French, with the contin-
gent of their British allies, attempted to
redress the desperate situation due to their
inferiority of number by a surprise attack
with insufficient force upon the German
right flank. But the 1st German Army
parried this effort in time, enveloped the
Allied left wing in their turn, and mean-
while broke the Allied centre, thereby
deciding the whole issue in their favour.
The Allied army was cut in two fragments,
one of which was pushed back upon Paris
and contained, the other enveloped to-
wards the eastern frontier and destroyed.

io8 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

Upon the western remnant thus contained,
after the destruction of the eastern half,
the whole mass of the invaders next turned
in numbers three to one, and this amazing
campaign of three weeks was at an end.
The effect upon the history of the world,"
etc., etc.

That the future historian will not have
to present such a record is due to the fact
that Foch met and outwitted the enormous
pressure upon the centre.

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

PART II.

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

Part II.
The Details of the Battle.

THE details of the great action which
determined the enemy's invasion of
the West fall, as the reader will see
from what has already been described, into
three great groups.

(i.) You have first the resistance offered
upon the French right wing in front of
Nancy, and you have this resistance pro-
ducing the following effects : —

It makes the German Higher Command
believe that the weight of the French
Army and its chief masses of men are here
upon the eastern frontier. Consequently
upon this error it persuades the German
Higher Command to order their own
extreme right, when it got to the neigh-
bourhood of Paris, to swerve round

ii2 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

against, push back, and envelop the sup-
posedly weak French left, neglecting the
supposedly exhausted British contingent
beyond.

This eastern fighting is the preliminary
to the whole affair, without a comprehen-

\ j? r L G I UM &

\ LUXSMSUJLG
Miiikres* "\ J

/

PARIS

THEXMTLE. line of thimakne

1. The field affile Grand Cburonne' L Mbrf-'V / v-

2. - ... ^orcjr <P7Uar^is N \— ' ^

3. - . - LaThxChampenoise Jstf^

-MiUs° y *> y *» ^ ^ /^

Sketch 28.

sion of which we cannot understand
what follows. It took place just before
that dramatic moment when Joffre ordered
the counter-offensive all along the line of
the Marne. It filled the week before the
Battle of the Marne proper, and in its
last stages only just overlapped the first

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 113

stages of the successful series of actions
to the west. But it is the foundation of
the whole, and must first be clearly under-
stood if we are to understand its con-
sequences in Champagne and in the
neighbourhood of Paris.

It is not easy to give to modern actions
particular names such as attached to those
of the older warfare. The numbers en-
gaged and the very great areas involved
make the use of a town or village name
misleading. The best plan is to distin-
guish them by some striking but extended
natural feature of the terrain over which
they were fought.

This eastern resistance which laid the
foundations of the Battle of the Marne
we will call, then, the action of Le Grand
CouronnS, from the military name of that
range of hills in defence of which it was
fought. #

The whole action was spread out in
front of the town of Nancy for more than

* The term "Grand Couronne de Nancy" is not a
local place-name. It is the modern invention of the
French Staff ; a title given to this position as covering
Nancy, and derived by a metaphor from the technical
term " couronne " in French fortification — a term applied
to an advanced earthwork thrown out in front of and
covering the main line.

11. 8

1 14 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

ten miles, and covered that town. It
has, therefore, also been called the
" Battle of Nancy." But the term seems
to me improper, not only from the fact
given above that any one town or village
name rarely sufficiently defines the ter-
rain of a modern action, but also because
it implies that the French Higher Com-
mand was concerned to save the geo-
graphical area called " Nancy." No such
consideration was in its mind. No town
however rich, no mere space however
politically important, would have been
allowed to interfere with the great plan
which was already in process of execu-
tion. And the reason that the enemy
was checked where he was is not to be
found in the fact that this particular
choice of position saved Nancy from in-
vasion, but in the advantages afforded by
the Grand Couronne, which is a well-
defined range of wooded heights standing
before that town, and separating the valley
of the Moselle from that of the Seille.

The action of the Grand Couronne
covers the first seven days of September.
Its first beginnings are traceable to the
last two days of August.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 115

(2.) You have next in time the battle
which took place at the other extreme end
of the line in the region of Paris, and
which concerned the defeat of Kluck's
and Buelow's commands, the 1st and
Ilnd German Armies. The entire move-
ments connected with this field cover
more than ten days. They are already
developing by the 3rd of September.
They are not quite ended by the 13th.
But their acute phase falls upon the 6th,
7th, and 8th of September, which saw the
ruin of the German turning movement,
the surprise of the German right wing
by the unexpected appearance of the
French 6th Army on the extreme French
left, the consequent leaning back and up
of forces westward all along the German
line from its centre onward to meet that
surprise, and at the same time the be-
ginning of the German right wing's re-
treat before the British contingent and
the French 5th Army.

To this series of actions, though they
form a very distinct second group in the
development of the victory, it is not easy
to give a name, and none has hitherto
been affixed.

n6 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

It might very generally be called the
Battle before Paris.

Its most central point geographically
was the town of Meaux ; but, for the
reasons given above, a town name is in-
valid. The most conspicuous feature in
the field is the river Ourcq ; and the
French have already tentatively called it
" the Battle of the Ourcq." But to give
the battle the title of the " Battle of the
Ourcq : alone is confusing. There was,
as a part of the whole, a very definite
" Battle of the Ourcq," but that action
did not cover the whole Allied left, nor
alone decide the movement of the enemy's
right. Only one of the great units engaged
on the Allied side fought along the banks
of the Ourcq — to wit, the French 6th
Army. The British contingent and the
French 5th Army were away on the other
side of the Marne. These fought along,
and advanced over, the Lesser and the
Greater Morin, two streams which flow
into the Marne from the south as does
the Ourcq from the north.

Our term may be a trifle clumsy, but
it will be at least accurate, if we call this
second group of the movements which

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 117

decided the issue of the Marne the actions
of The Onrcq and the Morins.

(3.) The first phase, the defence of the
Grand Couronne, having, by misleading
the German Higher Command as to the
strength of the French left, produced the
second phase — the attempt of the Germans
to turn that French left in their ignorance
of the French strength there, and their
consequent overthrow in the actions of
the Ourcq and the Morins — the third and
decisive phase appeared in the centre,
where the point of dislocation which settled
the whole affair was allowed, by a blunder
of the enemy, to develop.

This third phase of the Marne, then,
concerns the opening of that gap in the
middle of the German line, the immediate
advantage taken of that opportunity by
the French 7th (or 9th) Army in front
of it, and the consequent breakdown of
the whole German plan.

This third and decisive phase of the
Marne covers in time five days — the 5th,
6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of September. By
the 10th the Battle of the Marne was won.
There followed, of course, in the case
of the German right wing, and indeed

n8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the whole of the line, further fighting
before the final result of the action was
accomplished in pinning the invader to a
line of trenches from which he resisted
all further pressure.

But in its essentials the decisive move
in the centre taken by the 7th (or 9th)
Army covered those five days, and is the
last of the three great movements which
settled the business.

It is impossible to give a general name
to this action, because it lay astraddle of
the plateau, the escarpment, and the plain
where the high land of Sezanne falls on
to the level of the Champagne. Any
name, including the plateau of Sezanne,
the marshes of St. Gond, the escarp-
ment of the Champagne, and the West-
ern Champagne itself, would be far too
clumsy. Any name taken from some
two of these features only would be in-
accurate. It is necessary here to break
our rule, and to take the name of the
village or small town whence the centre
of the drive proceeded, and to speak of
Foch's action as the battle of La Fere
Champenoise . This is the name also
to which, if I am not mistaken, the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 119

French official records are now com-
mitted.

We are about, then, to study sepa-
rately (1) the actions of the Grand Cou-
ronne, say the 1st to the 7th September ;
(2) the actions of the Ourcq-Morins and
their consequence, say from the 5th to
the 10th September ; and (3) the action
of La Fere Champenoise, the last and
decisive one, say the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th,
and 10th of the same month.

Material for such description is still
exceedingly meagre, but it is possible to
present a coherent view to the reader.
When each action has been presented, I
will attempt to co-ordinate the whole,
and to sum up the nature of the victory.

I.

The Battle of the " Grand
couronne."

All along the frontier common to France
and Germany by the Treaty signed after
the Prussian victory of 1871 the French
had erected, at a cost equivalent to at
least three years of the national revenue,
a chain of fortresses of the strongest sort.

Nothing surpassed them in the science
of their time. There were, as we have
seen on a former page, four great rings
— those of Belfort, Epinal, Toul, and
Verdun — each ring protecting vast sup-
plies, and forming a great entrenched
camp. Along the southern half of this
line, which is mountainous and coin-
cides with the range of the Vosges, a
string of forts linked up the system. Along
the northern part, the line of the Upper
Meuse, a further chain of forts linked up
Toul with Verdun.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 121

The invention of aircraft (which en-
ables the exact fall of a shell to be spotted
at whatever length of range the projectile
be shot from) suddenly changed this state
of affairs ; the invention of the petrol
engine (which gives mobility to very heavy
siege guns), the development of high ex-
plosives— all these three novelties between
them rendered the old limited fort, whose
position upon the map was exactly known,
and which afforded a known and fixed
target for a siege train, impotent. The
modern siege train, with its large, high-
explosive shells, its aim corrected by air-
craft, could make absolutely certain of de-
molishing limited fixed works of this kind
in a very few days. The Austrian Higher
Command had been the first to appreciate
this truth. It was they who produced the
new siege train on which their German
Allies mainly relied. Meanwhile the
Central Powers as a whole were confident
that the permanent fortifications upon
which the French and others had de-
pended for a generation were obsolete.
Their confidence was well founded ; their
judgment in this particular was perfectly
right.

122 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

They had already proved it at Liege
and Namur before their advance ap-
proached Verdun, the northernmost
stronghold in the French fortified line
of the eastern frontier.

At this point it is important to under-
stand what their objects were in ad-
vancing against this place, and what they
thought would follow in a few days
from the certain fall of the permanent
works defending it.

The general German plan was, as we
all know, to sweep round through Bel-
gium, so that the French Army should
be caught as in a net by the advance of
superior numbers round it by the north
and the west. They envisaged a whole
state of affairs that has already been
described, but may be repeated here to
explain why the Grand Couronne was
so important. The German General Staff
intended the invasion to begin with a
full German line, AB, against the dotted
French line within it, and to end with
a full German line, BC, curling round,
cutting off, and so destroying the lesser
dotted line within it : a Sedan on a very
large scale.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 123

For such a plan no great movement
was necessary on the German left at B,
the old eastern frontier common to France
and Germany. It was part of the Ger-
man plan only to hold the French here ;
to mass them there while the extreme
German right from A (Flanders) curled

Sketch 29.

round the French to C (near Paris) and
enveloped them.

But somewhat adverse to this plan was
the presence of the fortified eastern fron-
tier if it was allowed to stand unbroken,
and that for two reasons. First, that if
the French found they could stand be-
hind their fortifications in the east, they

i24 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

would leave there a bare minimum of men,
would mass towards their left upon the
west, and would meet with the bulk of
their numbers the German attempt at en-
velopment. You could only hold the
French on their right near the old fron-
tier on condition of making them anxious
there for their security.

The other reason, which was of great
importance, was this : the rings of forts
round Verdun and Toul covered not only
entrenched camps and supplies, but rail-
way junctions, the capture of which alone
would permit of a really rapid supply
from Germany to the armies operating
in France.

We have seen how all the autumn of
1 9 14 and the winter of 191 5 German
concentration of effort has been upon
the northern part of this line. That
had been because there only had the
Germans, through Luxembourg and Bel-
gium, a short and direct route from their
arsenals and bases of supply at home to
their front. First, if they could have got
Verdun and Toul everything would have
been changed. Much shorter lines of
communication would have led them

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 125

directly into the heart of the enemy's
country. An elementary diagram of the
main railway lines will show what I
mean. From Cologne and the West-

Tb Cologne and Westphatian Bases'

PARIS

The communications 6y 6,6, six

times as long as 5y 1.2. l^&forfcl

Sketch 30.

phalian bases (6, 6) the railway communica-
tion to the German front at the moment
of the Marne was six times as long as
from Metz and from Strasburg, (i) and
(2). Further, the longer lines went

126 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

through a now hostile Belgium, which it
required many men to hold down.

Length of communication is not so very
important when the front is stationary,
and when there is plenty of time to bring
up munitions and supplies. But while
the front is mobile, to have short com-
munications is to increase your advantage
in a much greater ratio than the mere
mileage. We must not forget that in this
first stage of the war the enemy's political
object was not to survive (as it is to-day),
but to conquer. Conquest was his political
object, and the whole of the strategical
plan which he had prepared depended
upon rapid and exceedingly mobile action
upon French soil.

With so much said, it should be clear
what end the enemy had in view in for-
cing the line of the eastern fortifications.
He did indeed propose to do no more
than hold the French on that end of their
line while he curled round the other end
of it, but it was essential to hold them
beyond the fortified railway junctions, and
with these fortified railway junctions in
his power. In other words, he must not
only sweep down through Belgium ; he

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 127

must also, in a fairly short time, get past
or through the fortified eastern line.

Now there were four reasons which
made him attempt this feat — an easy one
if Liege, Namur, and Maubeuge were any
guides — in a direction from north to south
— that is, from Verdun down towards
Toul.

The first of these reasons was the fact
that the mass of his troops were working
round by the north, and his whole organ-
ization depended upon this northern
agglomeration. He could always borrow
troops from the north to be used south-
wards ; he could not so easily borrow
them from the south to be used north-
wards.

The second reason was a matter of
ground. The southern part of the French
barrier, by Epinal and Belfort, was moun-
tainous and deeply wooded ; the north-
ern, by Verdun and Toul, was open.

The third reason was that the French
movement on Mulhouse into Alsace, which
had been a strictly strategic movement,
was taken by the enemy for a political
movement. They argued that the French
had massed troops rather to the south of

128 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the line, and that therefore he had better
himself strike to the north of it.

But the fourth reason was much more
important than any of these. It was the
fact that Toul and Verdun, the northern
part of the line, would give him far
better railway facilities than the southern,
and railway facilities which it was vital to
him to use at once if he was to bring
his full force into play against the
French Army, and destroy it as rapidly
as might be.

It must be remembered in this connec-
tion that Maubeuge had not yet fallen,
and Maubeuge protected another junc-
tion seriously handicapping the supplies
through Belgium. If the enemy could
take Verdun quickly, a flood of supplies
would be loosed across the Rhine bridges
and through Metz and Luxembourg for
use in the eastern plains of France.

Against Verdun, therefore, the number
of no less than six army corps moved
under the nominal command of the Crown
Prince of Prussia. As a soldier this young
man was, of course, negligible, and the
traditions of the enemy, though weak-
ened by respect for birth in the highly

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 129

technical matter of command, did not go
so far as to give him any real authority.
It is an error to ascribe the failure of the
Germans before Verdun to the personal
incompetence of a man quite insignificant
apart from his social position. Verdun
was saved by the astonishing rapidity with
which the French learnt the lesson that
their old theory of permanent fortifica-
tion was now wrong. General Sarrail, in
command of the French 3rd Army, had
moved in hours rather than days the heavy
guns of the fortress — or at least a great
proportion of them — from their old per-
manent positions to new field works con-
cealed upon a much wider perimeter.
The new works were hidden wherever
the ground gave the least advantage. The
wooded nature of that district helped the
scheme, and the original German idea
that Verdun would suffer the fate of the
Belgian fortresses came to nothing the
moment the Germans found that fire had
been opened against their advancing troops
by guns of large calibre, not from the old
permanent forts, but from the new bat-
teries.

It is from this discovery that the Battle

II. Q

130 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

of the Grand Couronne develops. The
German Higher Command determined to
do no more at the best than isolate Verdun
— attacking the forts to the south, main-
taining there strong forces against the
northern and eastern new outer works, but
concentrating their principal effort farther
south, with the object of forcing the line
by the gap south of Toul, and particu-
larly in front of and through the open
town of Nancy. They had ready for this
effort all the great force mustered under
the nominal command of the Prince Re-
gent of Bavaria, the army based upon
Metz. In front of this, as an obstacle
which the French could defend, was the
position of the Grand Couronne.

Let me describe that position. Rising
from the deep trench of the Moselle valley
upon the west, and separating it from the
wider and more broken valley of the Seille
upon the east, there runs by way of water-
shed a range of hills clothed here and
there with forests of considerable area, and
dominating the water level in summits
some six hundred feet above the valleys.
It was an obstacle which the Germans could
not avoid without stretching so far round

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 131

south as to leave a gap, or at least a weak-
ness, in their line. It was an obstacle
which they must carry at all costs if they
were to compel the French to keep what
the Germans believed to be the mass of
the French Army in these eastern posi-
tions, and ultimately to secure the great

AKCV\

Cap in ^\ ^

Tortificafcons vx \

EPINALq ^\

Sketch 31.

railway junctions that lay immediately
behind.

In its mere elements, then, the situa-
tion was this : A force already large, say
five army corps, or perhaps six, had to carry
and cross a sort of wall of hills possessed
of a certain amount of wooded cover, and
the test of their success would be the

132 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

retirement of the beaten French forces
from the crest of those hills to the next

f

10

If

ZtigtisA TrfUes

Sketch 32.

parallel crest behind — that is, to beyond
the Moselle.

But such success would involve the
French abandonment of Nancy. That is

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 133

why Nancy, an open town, was, so to
speak, the symbol and guerdon of the
whole effort. A triumphant entry into
Nancy would mean that the French field
defensive in the east had been forced,
and that the occupation of the railway
junctions was only a matter of time. A
failure to force the Grand Couronne, and
to enter Nancy behind it — a failure to do
this within the limits of time imposed by
the enveloping movement taking place
120 miles to the west — would mean that
the French had made good their effort to
check the enemy upon this eastern line.
The enemy, though he should be foiled
at the Grand Couronne, would still be-
lieve that he had caused the largest indi-
vidual mass of the French Army to stand
in front of him there, and had thus weak-
ened the western portions, and subserved
his distant western enveloping movement.
But he would not have achieved a com-
plete success if he had merely attacked
this position — probably at great expense
in men — without carrying it.

All this must be stated in order that
one may understand the German point
of view, erroneous though it was. Other-

i34 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

wise we shall not understand why the
Germans went on throwing away unit
after unit in the desperate and ultimately
futile attempt to force the Grand Cou-
ronne and enter Nancy.

But from the French point of view —
from the point of view of those who were
privy to the French plan — a successful
resistance upon the Grand Couronne was
of far more sharply defined importance.

They knew that the better they held
the more the Germans would be deceived
into exaggerating their numbers, and the
more consequently would the Germans
exaggerate their error with regard to the
weakening of the distant French western
extremity ; the less would the Germans
guess that large French forces were gather-
ing in reinforcement of that western ex-
tremity 120 miles away, and the more
thoroughly would the strategy so subtly
conceived, whereby five men were to defeat
eight, achieve its end.

The ideal or diagrammatic form of such
a position as the Grand Couronne is one
unbroken glacis. If you could get a crest,
say, from ten to fifteen miles long (as in
Sketch 3 3), with plenty of cover from woods

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 135

and what not to conceal batteries on the
shaded side ABCD, and a fine open field
of fire on the unshaded side ABEF, end-
ing upon either flank in the sharp, round
declivity at G and H, that would be a

Sketch 33.

Grand Couronne of the sergeant-instruc-
tor type, a Grand Couronne to dream of.

Real positions are never like that, espe-
cially when they extend over so great an
amount of country as ten or fifteen miles ;
and the ridge of the Grand Couronne is,
like all such bodies of hills, deeply in-
dented with combes, only occasionally

136 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

covered with wood — and not always on
the right side — full of patches which offer
a special opportunity for assault. Its
actual contours the reader may follow in
the next sketch ; but from that map the
reader will also appreciate that, in spite
of its diversity, the position is essentially
a wall, and a wall with plenty of cover
for guns. In spite of the unevenness of
the summit and the complex arrange-
ment of the dales running in deeply from
the Moselle and Meurthe on the one side,
and of the undulating slopes falling to the
Seille on the other, it could be treated by
one with a skilful eye for ground as one
ridge ; and temporary works and en-
trenched infantry positions could be dis-
covered everywhere, so that the enemy's
attack upon them would have to come up
over some considerable field of fire from
the Seille valley below.

The real problem was how to protect
the northern flank.

At the southern end the Grand Cou-
ronne was fairly safe, although it was the
closest point to the town of Nancy itself
(a mere geographical point so far as tactics
were concerned). Here stands the plateau

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 137

of Amance, the strongest position in the
whole line, a partly isolated hill overlook -

METZ

foods' .«&* '%«-

Valley floor ■.
100 ft. contours

Beacon of
Xon

Summits <ggg5.

( About '600 'fee£ average
adore l&Zley /7oory

Tasifion called the Grand
Cburonne

Ztuj&sA3file?

Heightof
Ttfousson,

Tlatsaaof
St.Genevutve

Tlateaztof

Amance

%-.. CAainpenou

NANCY

Sketch 34.

ing the Forest of Champenoux in the
plain below. It is true that the enemy

138 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

were in considerable strength at this end
of the line, but they actually moved men
up from in front of it towards the north,
in order to make their attack upon the
northern end. They had just been badly
checked south of the plateau of Amance
in an attempt to go forward after their
action at Saarbourg (to the east, out of
the map). The farther they got south
the nearer they were to the difficult
Vosges country, and the less their chance
of getting hold of Toul and the railway
junction ; and again, if they began the
action towards the south and massed
most of their men there, there would
be the danger of leaving a gap or too
thin a line upon the north. Again, the
enemy's chief strength was towards the
north. From the north alone could he
borrow men, and it was the north which
lay closest to the supplies of Metz. More-
over, he did not even weaken his line at
any point, because he greatly overesti-
mated the numbers of the French in front
of him.

Now this northern flank of the Grand
Couronne was far from secure. The hills
of Lorraine, of which the Grand Cou-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 139

ronne is but a particular range, lie in
broken groups, diversified by occasional
quite isolated summits. There is at the
end of the Grand Couronne position, as
will have been seen upon the last sketch
map, the village of St. Genevieve, stand-
ing right up on a high hill which to the
east, north, and west, falls sharply down
in bare, open fields towards the Seille
upon one side, and the Moselle upon the
other. Upon the south the height of St.
Genevieve is connected by a low, long
saddle with the general ridge of the Grand
Couronne. Immediately north, beyond
the low valley, rises the perfectly isolated
peak, on the top of which is the village
of Mousson, one of those prehistoric
fortresses which still keep a sparse popu-
lation. Beyond this, to the north again,
is the isolated peak of the signal or beacon
of Xon, and so to the fortified heights
round Metz, twelve miles away.

All this northern end of the Grand
Couronne lacks that complete differen-
tiation between a position and the plain
below it which would make its tenure
secure. It is at modern ranges faced by
one position after another in a chain.

140 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

If you hold St. Genevieve the true end of
the ridge, Mousson, as high as you and
over against you at 5,000 yards range, is
a peril. If you occupy Mousson, Xon is
behind you again. If, at great risk of
thinning your line, you try to hold Xon,
you are under the guns of Metz.

Castelnau, commanding all this sector
and in particular the 2nd Army, which
had for its task the holding of the Grand
Couronne (or, as it was popularly and
erroneously called, " The Defence of
Nancy "), took up positions upon the
Grand Couronne proper.

On the northern flank, for which he
was most anxious, he did not dispose
either his best or his more numerous
troops, but he seems to have strength-
ened it heavily with artillery, and he
relied upon its being, if attacked, at least
not turned, from the fact that the ground
beyond to the west of the Moselle was
strongly held. Of the forces at his dis-
posal, two-thirds held the slopes of the
middle and southern end of the Grand
Couronne proper over the Seille, while
the 20th Corps, which is the pride of
the French service, either lay at the be-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 141

ginning of the action upon, or was moved
before the end of it on to, the plateau of
Amance — a disposition which argues the
wisdom of the commander who foresaw
that when the German effort had been
checked upon the north it would auto-
matically work down southwards, and try
to get round at last by the very flank
which it had at first rightly refused to
attempt.

Those who are interested in the analogy
of past history will be curious to note
that the Grand Couronne not a little
resembled the positions occupied by the
Austrians before the Battle of Wattignies,
which also in its time had helped to decide
the fate of the French Republic. Such
positions are imperilled when any part of
the crest is forced and held by the assault
coming from below. It is like the pier-
cing of a line. Wattignies was won because
upon the long, wooded crest in front of
Maubeuge the French managed upon the
third day (120 odd years ago) to carry one
summit of the crest near the village of
Wattignies itself. The Battle of the Grand
Couronne was lost by the Germans be-
cause they nowhere succeeded during a

142 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

full week's fighting in establishing them-
selves permanently upon any point upon
the heights between St. Genevieve to the
north and the plateau of Amance to the
south.

The first signs that the enemy in-
tended to attack in great force, no longer
Verdun but this position covering Nancy,
were discovered when two contemporary
movements showed the nature of their
plans.

First, a violent artillery duel to the
south, begun by the Germans, covered
the concentration of troops up north-
ward towards the Grand Couronne from
the garrison of Strasburg and the plain of
Saarbourg.

Next, Strantz, in command of the Vth
German Army Corps, was on the march
due west from Metz to attack the line of
the Meuse — that is, to support the general
design against Verdun, when, upon the
30th of August, he received orders to
wheel round suddenly by more than ninety
degrees, and march on Pont-a-Mousson,
the large market town and bridge under
the isolated peak of Mousson.

Here it may be asked why the enemy

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 143

did not try to turn the position of the
Grand Couronne round by the west and
north at AB. There was here an open
plain, the Woevre, and though it is
sometimes (especially in winter) very bad
going, with clay soil, the weather was at
this moment exceedingly dry, it was the

Corps

"UETZ

PL A I N

of WOE VR Z

Original German
Corps designed
/ for tike
l/ ^Attack

Torces
Coming up

from

Strasdurg

SPSaarbourg

Sketch 35.

height of summer, and no difficulty was
to be expected on that score.

The reason that Strantz was ordered
thus to turn sharp round on his march
from Metz instead of attacking the line
AB was, that the line AB reposed upon
Toul with very short and ample com-
munications, and with the prodigious ar-
mament of that fortress now pushed well

144 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

out into the plain. It is more accurate to
regard the attack on the Grand Couronne
as an attempt to turn the positions of
Toul than the proposal to attack those
positions as in any way a feasible turning
of the position of the Grand Couronne.

The German troops were coming up
from the south to concentrate against the
Grand Couronne, and Strantz's additional
corps had been borrowed from the Verdun
business to menace the perilous northern
flank of the Grand Couronne.

On the 31st of August, or, perhaps, the
evening of the day before, the enemy
began that form of attack upon which he
confidently relied — the preparation with
very heavy mobile artillery. He had
gambled deep in his preparation for this
war upon the value of large guns in the
field. The French had held the opposite
view, that heavy artillery in the field tied
one — that is, destroyed one's mobility so
much as not to be worth while. The
French have proved absolutely right so
far as mobile war is concerned. But the
very error which the Germans had made
by laying their money upon heavy artil-
lery in the field, stood them in very good

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 145

stead, as we shall see later in this book,
when it came to the immobile trench
warfare of later months, and the unex-
pected and enormous increase in heavy
munitionment which this required.

This heavy artillery preparation was
conducted by about four hundred pieces,
drawn principally from Metz. It had far
less effect than the German theorists of
the period before the war would have
assigned to it.

For one thing, it was of short duration.
The enemy had not yet learned what the
French taught them in Champagne five
months later — the necessity of positively
drowning even field defence with heavy
artillery fire before an attack. The great
masses of heavy shell, twenty to fifty
times what any one had thought neces-
sary hitherto, were not yet produced, and
therefore, after only a comparatively short
preparation of this sort, the first infantry
attacks were launched against the north-
ern end of the Grand Couronne upon the
31st of August.

The expense in men was startling.

When the history of the war can be

written from official documents, I think
11. 10

146 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

it will be found that the Germans par-
ticularly blundered in their conception
of what the " 75 " gun could do, and
that the execution effected by this arm
was the foundation of all that followed.
But the dense massed attacks also, of
course, reached the range of the machine
gun and the rifle, and at point after point
on the slopes rising up from the Seille,
were thrown back, the last wave of them
at the point of the bayonet.

For a whole week this amazing spectacle
(and what a war this is, that not even
a brief picture of such a battle should
have been presented yet to Europe, under
the discipline of silence which the French
have enforced upon themselves!) went on.
Charge upon charge of units drawn from
every part of Germany, each charge pre-
ceded by the inevitable heavy artillery
preparation, each repelled, and the dead
accumulating in heaps upon the slopes
that lead up from the valley of the Seille.

There was a moment in the tremendous
struggle when the firm French position
seemed in some peril. A small flanking
force holding the isolated height of Mous-
son was forced from that peak by Strantz,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 147

whose artillery, corrected by observation
posts placed there, answered, and seemed
at the time to command the opposing
position of St. Genevieve. But this peril
did not develop. The ground in front of
St. Genevieve was too well prepared, and
after each effort of the pieces on the
Mousson Hill the following charge of
infantry below failed.

It is curious to note that the chief work
in throwing back this attack fell upon a
single battalion, and that a Territorial unit
of reserve, the 324th. It held the trenches
just north of St. Genevieve village, look-
ing towards Mousson hill, and would
surely have been swept back if the enemy
had had the least idea of how small were
the forces here opposed to him. Also the
effect produced on him was mainly the
work of field pieces.

As this awful week proceeded the tide
of effort crept southward, grew, perhaps,
fiercest round the forest of Champenoux,
threatened the plateau of Amance ; but
the losses had been too severe, and the
remaining power to attack, both moral
and material, wa9 waning. It is said,
and it is credible, that the French after

148 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the action recovered or noted in German
dead alone losses which in those six days
stood for an average of perhaps 5,000
a day.

The climax of the business was nearly
reached, so far as its local anxieties and
local duties were concerned, when there
arrived at this army upon the evening of
5th September the famous general order
distributed to all the troops from Paris
to Alsace. The tenacity of the 2nd Army
had borne its fruit. The great retreat
proceeding behind it upon the west had
reached its term. The counter-offensive
was to be undertaken upon the morrow.

Upon that morrow, the 6th of Septem-
ber, the last and, so far as the eye was
concerned, the greatest effort of the Ger-
mans, was made. News was beginning to
come in of the counter-offensive now just
beginning along the whole French line
from Verdun to Paris, and the necessity
of succeeding then or never, so far as
the Nancy sector was concerned, was
imperative.

It often happens in the history of war
that the most striking development of an
action — to the eye — does not appear until

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 149

the affair is really decided, and that a sort of
desperation in the last moments produces
the most dramatic aspects of the struggle.

There was something of this in the last
tremendous assault of the 6th of Sep-
tember. But in spite of his incredible
losses, the enemy still hoped upon that
day to decide the issue. He could not
but believe that the French forces, far
inferior to him in number as he knew,
and yet, as he believed, the chief group
of his opponent, had suffered under the
strain more than he. The nervous in-
stability of the French was a dogma with
the enemy's Staff. They had seen it
proved in books. They believed it and
reasoned on it a priori.

This last grand assault was directed
against the plateau of Amance. It was
watched, as I shall repeat in a moment,
by the Emperor himself, who had arrived
for this decisive day from his head-
quarters at Metz. It cleared the French
out of the Forest of Champenoux, and
reached the open slopes of the hill; but
that hill it never carried. It utterly failed,
and with its failure the Battle of the Grand
Couronne was at an end.

150 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Already by the evening of that day the
full news of the counter-offensive against
the rest of the line was common to both
sides ; Castelnau had heard in full of
Maunoury's appearance upon the Ourcq ;
of Kluck caught in flank ; of French's
launching of the British contingent against
the enemy from the forest of Crecy ; of
the halt in the Allied retreat, and the
return of the wave all along the line from
Paris to Verdun.

The German Emperor and his Staff
had also heard the news. Kluck must
have telegraphed his surprise at the ap-
pearance of Maunoury upon his right,
and his hurried need for men. The
centre must have apprised their Com-
mander-in-Chief of the call made upon
them for men, though not, perhaps, of
the peril it was to involve : that was
to appear later. The whole face of the
campaign had changed.

The next day, the 7th and the 8th,
the German assaults on the hills were
continued, but with no hope of victory.
By the 9th the thing had become like
the sullen wash of diminished waves
three tides after a storm. The German

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 151

attack died away in spasms, like those
of an animal stricken. After sunset on
the 9th a few shells were dropped at
long range, unaimed — a moral sign of
defeat — on to Nancy itself. Two days
later, on the nth, came the last jerk.
One single division on the extreme south,
with Heaven knows what object — per-
haps with none — debouched from Einville
towards Dombasle, and was wiped out.
In dead alone it left upon the ground a
fifth of its total effectives.

Any detailed consideration of the battle
or analysis of it beyond the very general
outline here completed is as yet (at the
moment of writing) impossible, but we
can draw certain conclusions from it even
after this space of time, which guide us to
an understanding both of the enemy's
error in the matter and of its effects.

The importance of the forces with
which this great effort was being made
proves all those points connected with it
which we have emphasized in speaking
of the French plan as a whole, and of
the German error in meeting that plan.
No less than eight German corps — over

152 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

a third of a million men — were from
first to last occupied in the attempt to
force the Grand Couronne. No such
mass was to be discovered upon such a
front in any other part of the line.

The employment of these very great
numbers, portions of which elsewhere
might have prevented in time the general
disaster, proves at once that the German
Higher Command believed Castelnau to
have very much larger forces than he
really possessed.* It proves the impor-
tance they attached to keeping those sup-
posedly large forces occupied in front of
them, and preventing the loan by Castel-
nau of men to reinforce the French left
wing, which Kluck was supposed at that
moment to be turning ; and it proves the
belief of the German Higher Command
that, in spite of the supposedly great
numbers in front of them, they could
drive the French right back behind the
Moselle and the Meuse, isolate Verdun,

* We do not yet know the details of Castelnau's force.
But it seems to have been no more than the equivalent
of five divisions. All the 20th Corps was there, a part
of the 9th, and several detached units, among which
were the defenders of St. Genevieve and the Forest of
Champenoux, for both of these were held by Territorials.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 153

and before the end of the week enclose
all the French armies in the field within
the ring of a new Sedan.

To these strategical considerations,
which, had not the German Higher Com-
mand been in grave error, would have
been sound enough in themselves, it is not
unjust to add a certain weakness which
has always been present in modern Ger-
man war, and has been conspicuously
present throughout the current cam-
paign. I mean an eye to dramatic effect.
There is no doubt at all that a sort of
triumphant entry into Nancy had been
planned for the Emperor. It is curious
to note the paradox of such very unpro-
fessional considerations accompanying the
detailed and thorough professional work
of the German service. But similar
paradoxes are to be observed in many
other forms of human activity, and in
the particular case of the enemy's army
the giving of command to men of mere
birth, the multiplicity and phantasy of
uniforms in time of peace, the pompous
language of the orders of the day, and
the very illusions under which it suffers
with regard to the enemy's psychology

154 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

and its own are part of the same busi-
ness.

On the critical day of the action, the
forenoon of 6th September, the little,
aged figure of that unfortunate man whose
physical disabilities were, perhaps, in part
responsible for the war, was to be seen
from the French lines watching the battle
from the ground behind. He was dis-
tant from the nearest observers by more
than the common range of a field piece ;
he was caught only by the careful scan-
ning of glasses ; but the figure and its
surroundings were unmistakable. Grouped
about him was the " brilliant staff " of the
newspapers and the stage ; and the White
Cuirassiers, which were to be the escort
of his triumph, were massed to the left
and behind. He had also put on for that
day the white uniform of that corps and
the silver helmet. It was pathetic, and a
little grotesque.

The total of the enemy's losses we shall
never know, for the simple reason that
the German casualty lists are never com-
plete, and in this disastrous and intensive
week were particularly chaotic — and no
wonder. But the dead counted by the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 155

French upon the ground at the end of
the long action must mean a total loss
or general casualty list of not less than
a quarter, and much more — probably a
third — of the men employed in the as-
saults. A higher proportion has been
named, and that upon competent author-
ity ; but the tendency in war is always
to exaggerate the enemy's losses. It is
wiser to base them in this case upon the
accurately ascertained number of German
dead left behind upon the ground, and to
multiply this by not more than four,
considering the murderous character of
the fighting at close range, and the repe-
tition of the assaults over so many days.
By that reckoning the Grand Couronne
cost Germany over 120,000 men. None
can deny the praise due to the German
system of discipline in making possible
a continued effort of the sort, nor can
any one deny the lack of judgment which
permitted that effort to continue after the
fourth day.

The Battle of the Grand Couronne ex-
emplified a point which will undoubtedly
stand out from the whole of the war as
one of the chief characters in the enemy's

156 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

bid for victory — a sort of routine in-
capable of correcting itself in time ; the
momentum, as it were, of a huge engine
working smoothly, enormous in design,
but lacking elasticity altogether.

The complete success of the Battle of
the Grand Couronne was the foundation,
as I have said, of all that we next must
follow. The German conclusion that the
French were in far larger numbers than
they really were (their losses alone were
small compared to the enemy's) had per-
suaded the Higher Command to order
Kluck's famous move under the walls
of Paris. That move was in full progress
in the very days which saw the climax of
the French resistance in front of Nancy.
The disastrous effect of that move upon
the German fortunes as a whole began
to appear just in those hours when the
German Emperor returned to Metz from
before Nancy, defeated.

To that move of Kluck's, then, and
its results, we will next turn.

II.

The Battle of the Ourcq and of
the two morins.

We have just seen in what fashion was
fought out the first of the three enchained
actions which between them determined
the result of the Marne.

That first action we have called the
" Grand Couronne." Its venue lay upon
the extreme right, or east, of the French
line. Its issue was decided by the 6th
of September. But long before that date
— by the 2nd, at least — the German armies
had here received such a check as had
convinced them that the mass of the
French forces was gathered before them
upon these eastern hills.

I have maintained that this error in the
German judgment, produced by the un-
expectedly strong resistance offered by
Castelnau upon the Grand Couronne\ is
the first step in all that followed. If it

158 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

did not cause, it seemed to render more
secure the left wheel of the 1st German
Army on the extreme opposite end of the
line, and the conversion of its direction
upon the 2nd and 3rd of September from
south-west to south-east.

Once that conversion of direction was
effected by the extreme eastern or right
wing of the German line, an open flank
was presented by it towards the south-
west— that is, from the direction of
Paris. Its commander, Kluck, presented
this open flank (which he guarded but
slightly with one-fifth of his total force)
because he did not believe that any seri-
ous blow could come from that quarter.
And he did not believe that any serious
blow could come from that quarter be-
cause he believed that the French had
already put into line all their forces
available, and that their mass increased
as it gathered towards the east 120 miles
away, and was at its least here in the west.
He knew that some few and demoralized
troops were on his new flank. He did
not dream that four divisions, capable in
a few days of growing to six, and even
eight, were in reach.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 159

For, as a matter of fact, the French had
reserved a " Mass of Manoeuvre." They
had not yet brought forward all their men.
Still less had they principally concen-
trated on the east, in front of Nancy.
Part of this " Mass of Manoeuvre " was
available for use on the extreme west. It
suddenly appeared upon the exposed flank
of Kluck and his 1st German Army in
numbers far superior to anything he had
expected.

What followed we shall see in the next
few pages. He halted his march towards
the south-east. He brought back his
forces to meet this threat upon his flank.
He in turn outnumbered and proceeded
to envelop the new force which had threat-
ened him. This withdrawal of forces to
protect his flank meant, of course, a local
retreat of some few miles, and a " lean-
ing " of his whole weight westward. It
involved a corresponding falling back and
" leaning westward " of the Ilnd Army
immediately to the east of him, and that
retreat was followed up by the Allied
forces in front of it.

The combined operations on the west
end of the line covered the afternoon of

160 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the 5th of September, and all the 6th, 7th,
8th, and 9th of that month. In their
entirety, up to the evening of the 9th,
they form what is called " The Battle of
the Ourcq," or, more accurately, " The
Battle of the Ourcq and the Two Morins."
But though the new dispositions under-
taken by General von Kluck to parry the
unexpected danger upon his flank involved
a local retirement of a few miles, both for
his army and for part of the Ilnd Ger-
man Army upon his left, or east, such
a check would of itself alone in no way
have been decisive of the great action
as a whole, nor would it have resulted
in what is called the victory of the
Marne. Simultaneously with it was be-
ing delivered a violent effort by the
Germans in the centre of the whole line,
who were there principally met by the
French 9th Army, under Foch. Had
their efforts succeeded, had the French
line broken in the centre, the Battle of
the Marne would have been won by the
enemy. Everything depended upon the
action of the French centre under Foch.
As we shall see, it was the action of that
army in the course of 9th September, the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 161

last day of the Battle of the Ourcq, which
decided victory for the Allies. The fall-
ing back of Kluck, and his inevitable
" gathering westward " against the threat
to his flank, compelled Buelow to the east
of him to lean westward too. The Ger-
man centre was unnaturally thinned. A
" gap of dislocation " began to appear.
Foch, fifty miles away to east, found this
" gap of dislocation " opening in front of
him, took immediate advantage of it,
routed the German centre, and compelled
the rapid retreat of the whole German
line. The campaign in France was trans-
formed ; the " strategic balance " was
reversed : the enemy was put upon the
defensive, and the whole nature of the
war was changed from an immediate
German triumph to what we know.

The thing may be put diagrammatically
as in Sketch 36.

The west of the German line, with the

1st, Ilnd, Illrd, and IVth Armies, stood

before Kluck's conversion of direction

as do the dotted lines upon Sketch 36,

upon 2nd September, with the 1st Army

advancing south-west towards Paris, and

the Ilnd, Illrd, and IVth advancing south-
11. 11

1 62 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

ward. After the conversion of direction
it stood as do the full lines, with the
bulk of Kluck's army, the 1st German
Army, pointing as lb, leaving to protect
its flank only one-fifth of its forces at la.
It was faced, and knew itself to be faced
on that flank, by a small French force X ;
while in front of it it had Y, the British
contingent, and Z, the 5th French Army.

TktftlefieLI ofOuraj G>7>foriJts

* ] Qnd&oti
\ Zasfwarcr
\£brJQOmiter

Undsoon.

Sketch 36.

Beyond Z was F, the French central army,
the army of Foch. In addition to the
small known French force X were rein-
forcements which Kluck had not sus-
pected, marked as a dotted line MM.
On the discovery of this new force
Kluck withdrew his advanced forces right
round back over the Marne to protect
his flank, and produced the situation
described in the following sketch, 37 : —

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 163

Sketch 37.

He outflanked and imperilled the new
French Army at X, but was followed up
by the British at Y and the French at Z,
this manoeuvre meanwhile compelling the
Ilnd German Army to fall back a little
towards its right at A. But meanwhile F
was being subject to a very violent pres-
sure from the Illrd German Army, and
the IVth German Army (and so on east-
ward) was also violently attacking. Hap-
pily for the Allies, the German centre
was over thinned by all the " westward
leaning " on the wing. There was a dis-
location. A gap began to appear at B.
Foch, commanding the army at F, at
once took advantage of this, and broke
through in the direction of the arrow,
routed the Illrd German Army on 9th

1 64 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

September, and compelled the whole Ger-
man line to fall back, including the 1st
German Army, although it had already
seriously imperilled the French left at X.

It is clear that if the Illrd German
Army had succeeded, and after pushing
back (as it did) the French at F, had also
quite turned or broken them, all the left
wing of the Allies, X5 Y, and Z, would
have been isolated and forced back upon
Paris, and Germany would have won the
Battle of the Marne. The victory of Foch
at F, where he took advantage of the gap
at B, reversed all these conditions ; and
after his success the position was that of
Sketch 38, with the German Armies, 1st,
Ilnd, and Illrd, in full retreat, and the
Allies everywhere pursuing them north-
wards.

What we are about to follow separately
for the moment is the series of operations
on the extreme left within the boundaries
of the square frame upon each of these
sketches, within which area the action of
the Ourcq and the Two Morins may be
confined. But we must continually bear
in mind, as we follow the details of those
operations, that their ultimate result de-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 165

pended not upon the movements within
this frame, but upon what was going on
to the east of them in the struggle between
the Illrd German Army and the forces of
Foch in the Allied centre.

We begin the recital of the Battle of the

Sketch 38.

Ourcq with Wednesday, 2nd September,
the anniversary of Sedan.

On that day Kluck's army was stretched
out in the region of Compiegne and Sen-
lis, with cavalry watching far in front of
its main line, and the whole force still
pointing south-eastward toward Paris.
But already the news had come of the
successful French resistance on the Grand

1 66 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Couronne, and — perhaps long before —
the order to turn the German extreme
right wing round by ninety degrees, and
attempt the envelopment of the Allied left.
That order was to be executed upon the
morrow.*

Upon Thursday, the 3rd, news was
obtained from the Allied air service that
the 1st German Army was no longer
facing south-west but south-east. It was
clear that General von Kluck intended
now to strike, not towards Paris, but
against the left wing of the Allies, and
especially the point of junction between
the British and the French south of the
Marne.

The position upon that day, Friday,
4th September, may be appreciated in

* It would be confusing to dilate here upon the ques-
tion as to whether the German right wing under
Kluck would in any case have swerved thus round to
the left and turned south-eastward whether the Grand
Couronne had held out or no. It is true that it was the
business of the Germans to fight the Allied Army in the
field, and not merely to menace Paris " a geographical
area ; " but it is certain that if Kluck had known what
large forces could be gathered between him and the
capital, he would not thus have turned and exposed his
flank to the attack of those forces. In other words,
the strength of the 6th Army upon that flank, both in
numbers and in activity, was a surprise for him.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 167

the sketch map 39. The 5th French
Army was in the region marked 5 upon
the map, the British Army in the region
marked E. Kluck had hitherto been
advancing (with the British retreating

1

Up near Amiens'
certain German %:,

emits on way Sou£/i \,

Down fromX
Amiens X

Tortified\
2-one of
PARIS

Trench StArmy

Sketch 39.

before him) in the direction of the arrows
AA.

He knew that there were forces of some
sort — the French 6th Army — between
Paris and himself. For in the neigh-

1 68 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

bourhood of Amiens his extreme right,
some days before, had come across those
forces, and he knew that they had retired
southward toward the capital. But he
had no conception either of their strength
or of their remaining fighting power ; for
upon this Friday, the 4th, his whole
movement was swerving round in the
direction of the arrows RR, clearly in-
tending to pass the Marne and to strike
the British Army and the French 5th
Army, and especially the point of their
junction. Victorious in that region against
what he believed to be the weak, attenu-
ated extremity of the French line, and
neglecting the British contingent, which
he believed wholly exhausted, as well as
the French 6th Army between Paris and
himself (which he believed to be not an
army but a detachment, insignificant in
numbers and also exhausted), he would
get right round the end of the whole
French line, and a huge enveloping move-
ment, a half circle with its wings 150 miles
apart, from in front of Nancy to his own
positions, would, like a great net, be curl-
ing round the French armies. He was the
marching wing of what, as I have said,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 169

was to be another Sedan, but a Sedan
upon a gigantic scale not of six miles but
two hundred.

The French, who knew both the ex-
tent and the remaining combative power
of their 6th Army, perceived that with
Kluck's swerve the opportunity had come
for the counter-offensive.

Here was the whole 1st German Army
marching right across the front of the
French 6th Army. It would, of course,
leave something to protect its flank, but
that something would hardly be strong
enough to withstand the shock which the
6th Army was prepared to deliver. If
Kluck could be allowed to get right away
southward beyond the Marne, the French
6th Army could strike in behind him, cut
his communications, and envelop him,
marching across the river Ourcq towards
Chateau Thierry. In the mind of the
French command the situation that should
have developed about the 5th of the month
would be something like that upon the
accompanying sketch 40, with the mass
of Kluck's Army (I.) and the mass of the
Ilnd German Army (II.) well south of the
Marne engaged by, and (to use the French

170 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

metaphor) " hooked on to," the British
force and the French 5th Army. The
French 6th Army, unexpectedly stronger

1 Sketch 40.

than any flanking guard Kluck might have
left at R, would break or turn that flank-
ing guard, cross the Ourcq, make for

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 171

Chateau Thierry, and so get right across
behind the two German armies, and cut
their communications. The whole Ger-
man right wing, the extremity of their
line, would be destroyed.

Things did not turn out so favourably
as that. That was only the fullest harvest
of the victory conceivable. Part only was
gathered.

It is clear that everything depended
upon the surprise effected by the unex-
pected strength of the 6th Army.

But when one comes to see what the
strength of that 6th Army was, though it
was greater both in fighting power and
in numbers than Kluck imagined, yet
we find it hazardously weak for the work
it had to undertake.

The French 6th Army on that day,
Friday, 4th September, consisted as yet
of a nucleus only. Its other component
parts were still in the act of arriving while
the battle was in progress. Its last units
could not come up until the action was
already decided.

What its size was, and how far it might
be expected to accomplish its perilous
task, even with the advantage of surprise,

172 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

what proportion it bore to the forces in
front of it, etc., we shall see in a moment.

Upon this Friday, the 4th of Septem-
ber, General Gallieni, commanding the
army of Paris, and entrusted with the
defence of the city, summoned General
Maunoury, commander of the 6th Army,
and conferred with him the whole of that
morning. The two generals went off
after this conference, about a quarter-past
noon, to the British headquarters at Melun,
in order to discover what the dispositions
of the British Army would be upon the
morrow ; an essential point, of course, in
the whole scheme. For unless the ad-
vancing forces of Kluck were engaged and
held, they would return when they saw
that their communications were being
attacked in strength by the French 6th
Army, and the plan might end disas-
trously.

There is at this point a matter of dis-
cussion which only the future historian,
with ample material at his disposal, will
be able to debate, let alone to settle, and
which I only mention here because, were
I to omit it, there could be no under-
standing of what followed.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 173

It was evidently the judgment of the
British command that the reorganization
of their forces for the offensive, and the
important work of getting into full touch
on their right and left with the two French
armies, the 5th and the 6th, which were
their neighbours on either hand, would
take so much time that the plan would
not be mature for at least forty-eight
hours. The French command of the
army of Paris worked for the opening
of the business not in forty-eight hours,
but in twenty-four. From the one point
of view the hitch which followed could be
laid to delay ; from the other, to prema-
ture action. Which party may have the
advantage in this debate of detail only the
future, I repeat, can show. It may even
remain, as do so many details of military
history, a matter of undetermined dis-
cussion.

At any rate, the French 6th Army, it
was decided, should show its strength,
and attack suddenly in force to envelop
Kluck on the next day, Saturday, the
5th ; though by the evening of that day
the British forces would still be in the
region of Rozoy, and not yet free to

174 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

engage and hold the much larger German
forces in front of them.

The action of the Ourcq and the Morins
begins, then, at midday of Saturday, Sep-
tember 5, 1914.

Our first business is to appreciate how
the opposed armies stood at that precise
moment. It is for the purpose of under-
standing this that I append the following
plan, 41 . In this plan I omit the Ilnd Ger-
man Army (to the left of Kluck) for the
moment, and the 5th French Army facing
it, since all the critical work of the opening
of the battle concerns the extreme west
alone, and particularly the struggle be-
tween the 6th French Army and Kluck 's
original, and later rapidly reinforced,
flank guard.

General von Kluck, then, on this Sat-
urday, the 5th of September, at about
midday, had already brought the great
mass of his forces well south of the
Marne, prepared to deliver his great blow
upon the morrow. This great mass of
his forces consisted of three army corps,
some of them perhaps strengthened by
an extra third division. These three army
corps were, in their order, the Ilnd Active,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 175

the I Vth Active , and the 1 1 Ird Active . To
these we must add the IXth Active, as
to which we are not actually certain yet
whether it was under Kluck or under

'^laapy

TJon&uii-

DoCTarrtn,

Chateau Thkny

•MUu
•ttuny: Say 210-150,000.

Sketch 41.

his neighbour Buelow, to the east, and
we must also add, in a gap between the
Illrd Active and the I Vth Active, two
cavalry divisions, the Vth Cavalry Divi-
sion on the left wing of the IVth Active

176 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Corps, and the Cavalry Division of the
Guard on the right wing of the Illrd
Active Corps. We must, of course, con-
ceive of this great force (not far short of
200,000 men) as screened for a long way
in front by bodies of cavalry, some of
which are said to have extended almost
to the Seine, fifteen miles away from its
main front.

Opposed to this great army were the
little British force at E, in the region of
Rozoy, and (after a certain interval, to the
east of it) the western portion of the French
5th Army.

It will be seen that this host of Kluck's
roughly corresponded in its arrangement
with the valley of the Great Morin, a
stream which flows down through, and
profoundly cuts, the plateau of this region,
and joins the Marne a little below Meaux.

Kluck, in effecting this rapid march
southward for the destruction of the Allied
left wing (a march directed along the lines
of the arrows on Sketch 41), knew, as
we have seen, that there was a certain
force (though he believed it to be a very
small and thoroughly exhausted one) be-
hind him, and upon his flank in the region

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 177

of Dammartin. Greatly as he underesti-
mated it, it was none the less necessary
to prevent the attack of even such a body
upon his communications. He had, there-
fore, left behind him rather less than a
fifth of his forces in the shape of the IVth
Reserve Corps spread out in the region
of Penchard, Marcilly and the neighbour-
ing villages to the north of Meaux, paral-
lel with, and some eight miles to the west
of, the Ourcq River. This IVth Reserve
Corps was to act as a screen, and to thrust
back whatever the French might there
bring up.

As we know, what the French were
prepared to bring up there by way of
surprise was their 6th Army, and that
6th Army they launched, as I have said
(perhaps a little prematurely), at midday
of that same Saturday, the 5th of Sep-
tember.

It next behoves us to consider in detail
what strength that 6th Army could already
summon, and then we shall be in a posi-
tion to appreciate the extent of its task,
the nature of the risk it ran, its peril two
days later, its ultimate success, and the

difficulties in the way of that success.
11. 12

178 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

The Real Composition of the French
6th Army.

The French 6th Army at this moment
was not yet what so many accounts have
described it to be in their relation of the
Battle of the Marne.

We should suffer from a profound mis-
conception, falsifying all our judgment of
the battle, if we thought of it as a fresh
and vigorous force, vastly outnumber-
ing the German IVth Reserve Corps, and
prepared to fall with unexpected and
overwhelming strength upon the com-
munications of Kluck. The German IVth
Reserve Corps left to protect those com-
munications consisted, it is believed, of
only two divisions. But there may have
been, as was so frequently the case with
the German organization during the great
advance, extra forces present with it. At
the least, it consisted of a full army corps
of two divisions which had enjoyed a tri-
umphant though very rapid advance, had
lost nothing to speak of in strength, and
was a body carefully chosen for its excel-
lence in the important task of protecting
the flank and rear of the 1st German Army.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 179

It lay, as we have said, north of Meaux,
over a stretch of territory about six miles
in extent.

On this midday of Saturday, the 5th,
the French had ready for work against
this excellent German body four divisions
and a brigade ; on paper, the double of
their opponent. In reality these four
divisions and a brigade were very little
superior in number to, and had been
far more severely tried both in losses
and fatigue than, the IVth German Re-
serve Corps, which they were just about
to attack. These four divisions and a
brigade consisted of two main groups.
The first, under General Lamaze, were
the 55th and 56th Division of Reserve,
with, on their right, an infantry brigade
from Morocco. The second, under Gen-
eral Vautier, were the 14th and the 63 rd
Division, grouped under the name of
the 7th Army Corps.

This corps lay stretched in line on the
morning of 5th September, from some-
what north of Dammartin to the plain
north of the village of Claye. It had been
separated the day before by about five
miles from the mass of the German flank

j.8o A GENERAL SKETCH OF

guard, the IVth German Reserve ; but
the cavalry had taken contact, and the
IVth German Corps at the moment when
the action began had come forward from

Sketch 42.

its old positions at XX to about the posi-
tion marked AA upon Sketch 42.

We have just seen that the paper
strength of the French 6th Army thus
assembled to attack the German flank
guard, and to get, if possible, upon the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 181

communications of Kluck, was superior
to the enemy in this region. You had
nominally four divisions and a brigade
(a Moroccan brigade) attacking a force
of possibly more than two divisions, and
certainly not the strength of three. But
the French four divisions — the 14th, 63rd,
56th, and 55th — had had a very different
experience in the last few days from that
of the victorious German corps in front
of them. They had all four been en-
gaged in the eastern fighting ; had suf-
fered very heavy losses ; had been sent
round by rail to the neighbourhood of
Amiens ; had reached that neighbour-
hood in the last days of August only
just in time to take the shock of the
German flood, and to recoil from it.
They had come down south by long
marches, and had only just arrived in
this region before Paris and north of
Meaux in time for the counter-offensive
that was now about to develop.

It may be asked why, with this in-
sufficiency of force, so great a task as the
envelopment of the whole of Kluck's
army, and the cutting of his communica-
tions, should have been attempted.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 183

The answer is that, though not yet present
upon this 5th of September, there would
appear upon the battlefield at successive
stages considerable reinforcements which,
it was hoped, might in one day more —
which did, as a fact, within three days —
muster an imposing number upon these
plains. That those forces were not yet
actually present, but only in process of
arrival, lends some colour to the thesis
that the attack undertaken at midday of
the 5th was premature.

In order to understand what these extra
forces were, I must beg the reader to turn
to a sketch here appended, 43, which
will help to give some general conspectus
of the situation.

We have, in this Sketch 43, the force
actually existing between Dammartin and
Claye at midday on the 5th of September.
This force I have marked I. It con-
sisted, as we know, of four divisions and
a brigade.

Twenty miles away, round about Pon-
toise, there had arrived the day before
two divisions, the 61st and 62nd of Reserve,
coming back in full and hurried retreat
from the extreme German forces which

1 84 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

had been pursuing them down from
Amiens, but which had since rejoined,
for the most part, the mass of Kluck's
armies. These two divisions, the 6ist
and 62nd, were, by the French official
report, in a very bad case, as might be
imagined, broken with fatigue, vastly re-
duced in numbers, and perhaps suffering
somewhat in essential organization as well.
It might be hoped, however, that they
would appear upon the field of battle
north of Meaux before the action should
close, though they certainly could not be
there for three or four days.

Next, there was expected the 45th Divi-
sion, which had been organized south of
Paris, which crossed Paris during that day,
the 5th, and might arrive upon the field
of battle before the conclusion of the 6th.

Lastly (and much the most important
reinforcement) was the 4th Army Corps,
under the command of General Boelle.
It consisted of two divisions, the 7th and
the 8th,* in good condition, men of an

* A French army corps is nominally composed of
two divisions bearing numbers the highest of which is
double that of the army corps. Thus the ist Army
Corps is composed of the ist and 2nd Divisions; the
2nd Army Corps, of the 3rd and 4th Divisions. This

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 185

active corps and a firm support, to be
thrown into the battle when it should
have developed.

Unfortunately this fourth corps could
not be present in the region of Meaux
(where battle, as we have seen, had already
been joined by midday of the 5th) until
long after the strain had begun to tell.
They also were being sent round from the
east, from Lorraine, to complete the " Mass
of Manoeuvre." But it was impossible to
deliver them in the neighbourhood of
Paris much before the 7th, though the
first units had begun to detrain a day's
march west of Meaux just before the action
began. If we add up all these reinforce-
ments, we find that the original force with
which the battle began between Dam-
martin and Claye is more than doubled.
To four and a half divisions we add five.
But of these five two (those from Pontoise)
are in a bad way ; while the other three

4th Army Corps was therefore composed of the 7th and
8th Divisions. We saw above that the 14th and 63rd
Divisions were bracketed together as the 7th Army
Corps under Vautier ; but this anomaly was due to the
fact that the 13th Division, normally part of the 7th
Corps, had been kept in Lorraine and had been re-
placed by the 63rd Division of reserve.

1 86 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

can only arrive from a day to three days
after the opening of the battle.

To these reinforcements ultimately
available may be added a number of
" frills," to be counted before the end
under the command of the 6th Army,
but affecting its action in little or nothing
save in the case of the Zouaves. Two
and a half battalions of this corps were
thrown in at the very end of the battle,
just in time to be of some effect.*

There was a considerable mass of cavalry,
but of little service both from the nature
of the action and because it was exhausted
at the end of the long retreat. It played
no part. There were over thirty extra
field pieces pushed in on the second day
of the battle from some reserve, and there
was a very remarkable body, a brigade of
marines, which two months later acquired
very great fame at Dixmude, but was as
yet not sufficiently organized or trained
to be put into the fighting line, was kept
as a reserve only, and had no effect dur-
ing the battle.

* Roughly speaking, and on paper, one might count
a division as nearly 20,000 men at this stage ; a bat-
talion at a thousand.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 187

All that afternoon, the 5th of Sep-
tember, the four divisions and the brigade
under Vautier and Lamaze, the whole
commanded by Maunoury, were enga-
ging the IVth Reserve Corps of the Ger-
mans.

The heaviest fighting was that under-
taken by the 56th and 55th Divisions, and
the brigade from Morocco. These three
columns, attacking the mass of the Ger-
mans entrenched upon the heights from
Montge to Penchard, achieved but little
before nightfall. They carried Montge,
on its hill, but in the plain below the
heights reached no farther than Plessis
aux Bois and Charny. It was the 56th
Division which carried Montge, the 55th
which reached Plessis, and the Moroccans
who established themselves at Charny that
evening. Meanwhile Vautier's group, the
14th and 63rd Divisions, under the name
of the 7th Army Corps, were occupied
that afternoon against less obstruction in
marching eastward across the plain, with
the object of turning the German line of
resistance by the north.

On this, then, the evening of the first
day, the results were as follows : —

1 88 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Lamaze's group of two divisions and
a brigade had advanced with some diffi-
culty over a belt of a few hundred yards

Sketch 44.

to a mile (see Sketch 44), and still had
the main positions of the German IVth
Reserve Corps to tackle.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 189

But meanwhile Kluck had appreciated
within a very few moments of the first
attack at midday on that Saturday that the
6th French Army, under Maunoury, was
stronger than he had imagined, both in
numbers and in fighting power.

He at once began to recall his troops
from south of the Marne, and to change
the whole character of the battle.

It is here that the vital importance of
the discussion between the delay south of
the Marne or premature action north of
it by the Allies comes in. If Maunoury
had not attacked until the British force
had been at grips with the German forces
south of the Marne, or if the British could
have attacked those German forces south
of the Marne and held them contempo-
raneously with Maunoury 's attack, the
partial German success we are about to
follow would have been impossible.

As it was, the mass of the German
troops south of the Marne were dis-
engaged, and free to return at a mo-
ment's notice, and Kluck, taking imme-
diate advantage of this lack of synchrony
upon the part of his enemy, and acting
with a rapidity and decision worthy of

190 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the highest admiration, left his two cavalry
divisions to form a screen (under the un-
fortunate and stupid Marwitz), watching
the approach of the British, and recalled
his Ilnd Active Corps across the Marne
to help the IVth Reserve Corps, which
was at grips with the French 6th Army.

If the reader will turn back to Sketch
41 on page 175, he will see that this
Active Corps II. was the nearest to the
river northward of which the IVth Re-
serve Corps was with difficulty holding
its own.

All the late hours of Saturday, the 5th
of September, its columns poured north-
ward towards the Marne, and by day-
break of the 6th they were across the
river, one division coming up through
Varreddes, the other through Lizy.

All during that blazing Sunday Lamaze's
two divisions and the Moroccan brigade,
whom now the 45th Division had joined,
pressed back the German IVth Reserve
Corps, in spite of their favourable posi-
tion upon the heights. They carried the
heights in the course of the morning, and
by night held a line running from Cham-
bry to Acy, in the deep ravine of the

THE EUROPEAN WAR.

191

Gorgogne. While during that same morn-
ing Vautier, with the two divisions of the
7th Corps (the 13th and 63rd), was turn-

Sketch 45.

ing the German line with ease in the
neighbourhood of Etavigny.

There seemed little to stop them. All
the German IVth Reserve Corps together
was, now that the French 45th Division

192 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

had come up, less than half its opponents.
The Ourcq would have been crossed next
day, and Kluck destroyed, had it been
possible for the British to engage and hold
the Germans south of the Marne.

As we have seen, this was not done.
The Ilnd German Corps was recalled ;
and long before Maunoury's 6th Army
had achieved anything decisive north of
Meaux upon that Sunday, this same Ilnd
German Corps had marched back its eight
miles ; it had crossed the Marne at
Varreddes and at Lizy, and was appear-
ing right upon the flank of Vautier.

So that Sunday ended. The French
surprise was no longer a surprise. The
French 6th Army no longer outnumbered
its opponents, but was already beginning
to be itself outflanked. Should Kluck be
permitted the next day to bring up yet
more troops from beyond the Marne ;
should his forces in that region be left
unmolested for a few more hours ; should,
as was probable, the French reinforce-
ment of the 6th Army be still somewhat
delayed, it was well upon the cards that
Kluck would have turned the tables. He
might be enveloping Maunoury in his

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 193

turn, and become, though under cir-
cumstances not foreseen, the victor in
front of Paris. . . . Meanwhile, far off
to the east, in the centre of that hundred-
mile line of millions, the tremendous
attack had already been launched against
Foch ; and if Foch broke, the envelop-
ment of the French 6th Army alone
would be something more than a local
disaster. It would be part of a vast
movement isolating the whole western
half of the Allies, and shutting them up
in Paris.

The first phase of the Battle of the
Ourcq we leave thus, with the fall of that
Sunday night, the 6th of September.

Upon the 7th of September, Monday,

the third day of the struggle, the three

great elements deciding it appeared more

clearly than ever. First, the German

Army south of the Marne was not even

yet engaged by the British, and was,

therefore, free to get away northward

and to help its comrades. Secondly, the

French 6th Army, so far from being able

to push the reinforced Germans back

eastward, could barely hold its own. And

thirdly, it was a sort of race between the
11. " 13

194 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

French and the Germans which could
bring their reinforcements up quickest.

We have seen how, of the German rein-
forcements, the Ilnd Corps, that nearest
the south of the Marne, had recrossed
the river, and had appeared upon the
north of the IVth German Reserve Corps
the day before, the 6th. The corps next
farthest along, the IVth Active Corps of
the Germans, had also been on the move
all that day, the 6th, and was crossing
the Marne on the 7th. It would shortly
appear in the field, bringing overwhelming
superiority against Maunoury. It was
urgent for the French command to rein-
force that general. One of the tired and
badly broken divisions from Pontoise —
the 6 1 st — was got up on the evening of
the 7th by train ; and after dark there
had also come in, partly by the curiously
ingenious commandeering of motor cabs
from Paris, partly by train, one division
of the newly arrived 4th Army Corps —
the 7th Division, which had disentrained
that afternoon. None of these reinforce-
ments, however, were available during
the day of the 7th itself for the fighting.
The result was that the original force of

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 195

Maunoury, having now fought for three
days largely on the offensive, and against
troops increasing in volume, was getting
tired out, as well as suffering from very
heavy losses. When morning dawned
upon Tuesday, the 8th, it was clear that

KZuc&s Command
German l„Army

S^Trenai/Lrsiy

Sketch 46.

Maunoury 's army was in increasing peril
— for early that morning the German
IVth Active Corps appeared upon the
scene ! The position at this moment,
the morning of Tuesday, 8th Septem-
ber, the fourth day of the struggle, was
that indicated upon the above sketch.

196 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

The French 7th Corps, under Vautier,
was badly bent back in front of Betz.
In the Lamaze group reinforcement
had brought no greater strength to the
fighting line, because the new divisions
that had come up only relieved the
exhausted 55th and Moroccan Divisions,
which were at the end of their tether.
While this Lamaze group was forcing
its way painfully forward, and had
carried Chambry, the IVth German
Active Army came up that morning
of the 8th, and all the German mass was
now present, outnumbering and vigor-
ously attempting to envelop Maunoury's
command. Into the positions which the
Ilnd German Army Corps and the IVth
Active had abandoned south of the Marne,
the British that day advanced across the
Great Morin, still watched by the German
screen of cavalry which fell back before
them. But they had not yet reached the
Marne, and were not yet, therefore, any
appreciable menace to the flank and rear
of Kluck's men, who were in process of
enveloping Maunoury. The British ad-
vance, and that of the 5th French Army
to its right, had for effect upon this day

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 197

the falling back of the one remaining
German army corps which had stayed
south of the Marne — to wit, the Illrd
Active, and had consequently caused the
neighbouring wing or Buelow to fall
back also. It was clear that when the
British should reach the Marne and cross
it, Kluck would have to make the troops
just north of Meaux fall back eastward
and northward, to avoid envelopment ;
but that need not prevent Kluck from
accomplishing, in the time he still had
before him, the ruin of Maunoury's army.
All that Tuesday, the 8th, the half-
encircled French fought desperately from
Chambry, right away round by the north-
west to near Nanteuil ; but they accom-
plished nothing save the bare mainte-
nance of their positions. The German
heavy artillery, under such circumstances
of an almost unchanging line, was for once
efficacious in the field, outranging, of
course, the French field batteries ; while,
not having to move much, its chief defect,
immobility, did not encumber it. When
night fell upon the 8th, the French Army
already thought it prudent to consider
the possibility of retreat. Of the two

198 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

divisions from Pontoise, one had already
come into the fighting, the second was
brought up to stand in reserve for the
covering of that retreat, and in general the
prospects of the following day, the 9th,
were less favourable to Maunoury than
those of any period hitherto in the long-
drawn action. The French had no more
men to throw into the fighting line ; the
three German corps — more than six but
less than nine divisions — had almost suc-
ceeded in turning them, and might succeed
on the morrow. If the British could cross
the Marne early upon that morrow, the
9th, they might conceivably catch Kluck's
left wing. Even that was unlikely, be-
cause, should the British succeed in
crossing the Marne as a whole body,
Kluck would presumably withdraw his
left wing in time, and would still be per-
fectly free to defeat Maunoury by the
action of his right, and of the IVth German
Active Corps.

On Wednesday, the 9th, the British did
reach the Marne. Their right and their
centre crossed to the northern bank of
the river from midday onwards ; but
their left wing, which was the body essen-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 199

tial to the threatening of Kluck 's IVth
Reserve Corps (and which, therefore,
Kluck determined to delay as long as pos-
sible), was held up at La Ferte-sous-
Jouarre, at the mouth of the Little Morin.
That day, the fifth day of the fighting,
was so critical for Maunoury, that when
one obtains from eye-witnesses an im-
pression of the French 6th Army at the
moment, it is clearly an impression of
approaching disaster.

Many of the officers and men had not
eaten for two days, not from any break-
down of supply, but from the continued
violence of the struggle. The losses had
been very heavy indeed, and at the close
of this most critical day certain German
bodies, not of great military value, it is
true, but threatening on account of their
direction and position, appeared from the
extreme north, where the last detach-
ments of the great German march from
Belgium had been lingering, and whence
they had been summoned by Kluck to
appear at this critical moment on the
battlefield of the Ourcq.

The situation just after sunset of that
Wednesday, 9th September — say, shortly

200 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

before seven o'clock in the evening — was
that of the accompanying sketch map, 47.
The British were closing in, and had
almost entirely crossed the Marne, even
their last bodies, the left wing, being pre-
pared to cross early on the morrow. The

Chaimi

Thi£TTV

Sketch 47.

8th Division of the French 4th Corps,
which continued the British line towards
Meaux, was also crossing the river. The
German IVth Reserve Corps would, there-
fore, certainly have to fall back on the
morrow in the direction of the arrows.
But all this local retirement of the Germans

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 201

just east of Meaux would mean nothing to
the result of the battle so long as the extreme
German right at A still pressed, and was
still able to turn, envelop, and push back
the inferior and now bending French line.

The morrow, the 10th, might bring
disaster.

Yet when, with the first light of that
morrow, Thursday, the 10th of Septem-
ber, the command of the French 6th
Army made its first effort to discover
how the enemy's line stood, it found with
surprise that the right wing at A had
disappeared. Nanteuil, from which the
French had been thrust back in that
great turning movement, was abandoned ;
not only the IVth Corps of Reserve,
which would have had to fall back in
any case, and whose retirement would
not have affected the issue, but all Kluck's
acting and fighting line, the IVth Reserve
Corps, the Ilnd Active, and the IVth
Active, were every one of them pounding
off at top speed to the north, and the
task remaining to Maunoury's army and
to the British was simply that of pursuit.

What had happened to produce this
revolution ?

202 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

What had happened was the victory,
the decisive action, of Foch in the centre,
fifty miles away.

Upon that same day, the 9th, which had
seen the extreme peril of the French left
and the suffering of its chief strain, in the
middle of the afternoon Foch had launched

Chateau
try

LaFerfc'
soixsJouam

Sketch 48.

his decisive movement. Kluck had known
by five o'clock that the hitherto victorious
pressure of his colleague to the east was
checked. By nightfall he knew that the
German centre was routed, the line pierced,
and an immediate and general retreat or-
dered. By the morning of the 10th his share
in that retreat was already in full swing.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 203

We will, therefore, next turn to the
third and deciding factor in this enor-
mous struggle, the action of Foch with
the Central German Army, which may be
called " The Battle of La Fere Cham-
penoise ; " omitting as incidental to the
whole, and as more properly studied at the
conclusion, the action of the intervening
forces.

III.

The Battle of La Fere Champenoise.

The third of the three great factors
deciding the Marne, the latest and the
conclusive one, was the central Battle of
La Fere Champenoise, delivered by Foch
against the Prussian Guard and the Saxon
army.

It is, of all the separate actions in this
great campaign, the most important his-
torically. It is, again, of all the great
actions in the war, that one the general
character of which is easiest to grasp ;
for it was decided by one single bold and
successful manoeuvre. Unfortunately, it
is also, as we shall see later, that one of
all the actions of the Marne most difficult
to establish in detail.

The description which has just been
laid before the reader of the Battle of the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 205

Ourcq would leave a false impression upon
his mind were it to stand alone.

He has just followed the story of a sur-
prise French attack in flank upon the
extreme German right, which rapidly
became (either because the French attack

SaSlefwld

r<^-.,Chqtaiu.

^BELGIUM S>
*—• '' \ LUXEMBURG
Tvfe'xicre?» V

\ /

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CERMATtY

7ms

Sketch 49.

was premature, or because the British
advance south of the Marne came too
late) a battle in which the French under
Maunoury, seeking to imperil the Germans
under Kluck, were in their turn gravely
imperilled, confronted by larger and larger
forces as the four days of extreme strain

206 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

proceeded ; and at the end of these, upon
the evening of the 9th, came within an ace
of serious defeat.

We have also seen how, just in the most
hazardous moment, the army of Kluck,
which had till then only drawn in its left
while actually extending and pushing for-
ward its right, suddenly retired as a whole ;
so suddenly that the movement might be
called precipitate ; so suddenly that it
was surely the result of some unexpected
news received and acted upon in a mo-
ment.

The story, read thus isolated, might
suggest that the Battle of the Ourcq was
a blunder, or at any rate a failure, of the
Allies, only set right by other action of
theirs elsewhere. Such a conclusion would
be the exact opposite of the truth.

The Battle of the Ourcq, even if history
should prove (which is doubtful enough)
that it was launched prematurely, was
but a fragment of one general plan, all of
which worked out to a sufficient conclu-
sion. Those who fought at such hazards
north of Meaux under Maunoury upon the
5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of September,
1 9 14, played the part which the trigger

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 207

plays to the discharge of a weapon. It was
their action which made possible all that
ensued, and without running the risk they
did the Battle of the Marne could not
have been won.

For had not the Ourcq been fought in
the fashion we have seen, that disarray of
the German centre twenty leagues away
would not have taken place, and the genius
of Foch would have found no ground for
action.

As it was, the Ourcq acted, to use the
French metaphor, " like a leech." The
6th Army, drawing towards it as it did
back and right westward five-sixths of
Kluck's forces, drew also westward in
retreat to save a gap all the right wing
of the Ilnd Army, Buelow's, which lay
to the east or left of Kluck's. Such a
retreat in such a direction further called
after it, or at any rate loosened and weak-
ened, the structure of Buelow's left ; and
therefore it was that beyond Buelow's left,
in a region fifty miles away from the
Ourcq, where the plateau of Sezanne falls
sharply upon the vast stretch of Cham-
pagne, the German commanders of the
centre were confused in decision.

208 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Whether they ought to bear also by the
left, and secure, above all things, the un-
broken continuity of their line of battle,
or whether, at the risk of opening a gap,
they were to attempt by concentration to
win through at their own central point —
this divergence of objects clearly con-
fused and bewildered the central com-
manders of the enemy.

Hausen, in command of the German
Saxon Army, at the centre (or possibly
the commander of the Guard with whom
he acted), decided, as we shall see, for the
second alternative. He, or they, decided,
perhaps, a little too late, and certainly in
a fashion hurried and confused. We shall
see that the blow struck was heavy. We
shall see that it nearly succeeded. We
shall see that had it succeeded, the Marne
would have been a final and immediate
victory for the enemy. But we shall also
see that the decision so taken was fatal ;
that it threw open a gap in the German
line ; that the calm but very rapid vision
of Foch at once detected its opportunity,
and that his lightning swing round into
that gap from the left, acting upon the
German central army as a blow upon

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 209

the temple will act upon a man, stunned
it, and broke it. That blow delivered,
the Battle of the Marne was won.

One may here usefully repeat and em-
phasize a diagrammatic illustration with
which the reader is already familiar. Here,
from A to B, is the German line of the

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Sketch 50.

Marne, 120 miles long, from Meaux to
Verdun, organized in its five armies,
numbered from left to right, with the
Guard and the Illrd Army at its centre,
C. There stretches in front of it from
E to F a known enemy force. There,

suddenly and unexpectedly, strikes upon

11. 14

2io A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the flank guard of the 1st German Army
at D the force under Maunoury along
the direction of the arrow. As a result,
the extremity of the German line near
A takes on, with the object of envel-
oping and defeating Maunoury, the form

V^.^'l BELGIUM &

„,, ., \ LUXEMBURG

wavsets* -v. .

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aw y

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PARIS

GERMANY

V.

#fe

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1,f
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2f SO

Sketch 51.

it shows in this next sketch, 51. Army
I. has not only changed its shape, but
inclined heavily to the left. Army II.
has itself to fall back to the left, lest a
gap should appear. Army III. and the
Guard at the centre, left thus forward,
and with a dangerous thinning appear-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 211

ing between it and Army II., had to
decide whether also to bear up to the
left, extending its line and, therefore,
weakening itself, or to concentrate (at
the risk of leaving a gap) and to strike
a heavy blow in the direction of the
arrows, hoping thereby to break the
centre of the opposing line. It does
force that centre back, but its opponent
takes advantage of the increasing breach
at X, strikes in there, and achieves an
immediate local victory. The German
Army III., the central army at C, has no
choice but to fall hurriedly back with
heavy loss if it is to escape destruction,
and the whole line beyond it, Army II.
and Army I., has no choice either but to
retire or be isolated. The whole line,
therefore, retires, its offensive power is
broken, and the Battle of the Marne is
won.

Having thus set down the main principle
of the central battle, called after the name
of La Fere Champenoise, we will now
turn to its fuller history. Before under-
taking which, however, I must again re-
peat that, while we have a clear grasp
of what happened — that is, of how the

212 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

victory was won — the details of the
units, especially upon the enemy's side,
their actual movements, the extent of
their confusion, are all singularly obscure.
No official sifting of documents and evi-
dence has yet been given to the world.
No one has yet been allowed to consult
the notes, the examination of prisoners,
the captured enemy documents, the mili-
tary correspondence, etc., on which alone
could be based a clear account of the
battle. No competent authority has yet
dealt with it as General Bonnal, for in-
stance, has dealt with the Battle of the
Ourcq ; and even upon such elementary
points as the names and numbers of the
corps in Hausen's command, let alone
their movements, there is still, after
eighteen months, a tangle of conflicting
statement.

The movements upon the French side
are, of course, better known. We must,
as best we may, combine these with the
observed, implied, or supposed movements
upon the enemy's side, and so attempt a
fairly consecutive description of the action.

First, then, for the line of battle in the
French centre. The French centre con-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 213

sisted, as we have seen, of a new army,
part of that " Mass of Manoeuvre " upon
which the French strategical theory relies.
It was first grouped about a week before
it came into action at the Marne, and was
given, as we know, to General Foch,
whose work upon the principles of modern
war had already rendered his name familiar
to the enemy.

General Foch had under his command
the equivalent of three corps only. He
had the two divisions of the 9th Corps
and the two of the nth Corps, and he
had a heterogeneous body composed of
the admirable and famous 42nd Division,
with a Moroccan Division added to it.

With these six divisions alone — the
equivalent, as I have said, of three corps
— he had to fight his battle. There were
at his disposition, it is true, two reserve
divisions, the 52nd and the 60th, not part
of the active formation, and kept almost
throughout behind the line. He had also
a division of cavalry on the right which
kept up the link between himself and the
4th Army east of him. But the fighting
had to be done with the six divisions
alone which I have mentioned.

214 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

These six divisions were spread out,
counting from left to right — that is, from
west to east — as follows : —

The 42nd Division stood on the ex-
treme left, next to and within hail of the
extreme right of the French 5th Army.
It is important for the purposes of the
battle to remember what this extreme
right of the 5th French Army was com-
posed of. It was composed of the 1st
Army Corps. In the course of the battle
we are about to follow it played a dual
role, sometimes acting entirely with the
5th Army, at other times appearing rather
as a support for General Foch. At any
rate, it is important to remember both its
number and its position ; for although it
was a part of Esperey's 5th Army, it
enters more and more, as the battle de-
velops, into the fate of the Central Army
of Foch, which we are about to follow.

Next to this 1st Corps, then — the ex-
treme of the neighbouring army — came
the extreme left of Foch's line — the 42nd
Division ; and, closely united with it, a
Moroccan Division ; and these two divi-
sions lay, before the battle opened (say, on
the evening of the 5th of September, when

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 215

Maunoury had already begun his attack
fifty miles away to the west), on all those
heights which overlook the upper valley
of the Little Morin, where it leaves the
marshes of St. Gond, which are its source.
Charleville and Villeneuve were occu-
pied by these troops, who also stretched
astraddle of the great highroad marked
on Sketch 52. They reached to the neigh-
bourhood of the country house called the
Chateau of Mondemont, which stands
on a hill overlooking the marshes, and is
a very important point both for observa-
tion and as a strong position to hold.

Next in order, and forming the middle
of Foch's line, stood the two divisions of
the 9th Corps. These two divisions lay
that evening of the 5th along the south
of the eastern end of the marshes of St.
Gond, in front of La Fere Champenoise,
and so on to a point somewhat north-east
of that market town.

Lastly, the nth Corps (principally com-
posed of Bretons, I believe) continued
the line about up to the railway, which
runs northward from the junction of
Sommesous, and perhaps a little be-
yond it.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 217

To the east of that line of Foch's we
get his cavalry division watching and
linking up a small gap. Beyond them is
the 4th Army, with which we are not
for the moment concerned.

What forces were marching against these
six divisions ? What was the strength of
that German centre whose function it
was to bear with the utmost weight against
the French centre, and whose role, when
the unexpected attack upon Kluck's flank
developed, became of such capital im-
portance ?

We have seen that the breaking of the
French centre or the driving of it thor-
oughly back, would, in combination with
Kluck's rapid counter - envelopment of
Maunoury, have decided the issue. It
would have cut off the whole Allied left,
and put it between converging forces at
each end.

Foch had to meet this blow with the
smallest of all the French armies. It
was part, indeed, as has been said, of
that " Mass of Manoeuvre," the bringing
up of which was the essential of French
strategy ; but still it was insufficient. It
was going to be attacked with superior

2i 8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

numbers, of course, but with what supe-
riority of number ?

This, the answer without which all our
story necessarily lacks precision, cannot,
unfortunately, be fully given. Our know-
ledge of the composition of the German
central force is still very imperfect. But
we can state what we know to have
been present opposed to Foch, and thus
give a minimum. We also know the
nature of the Higher Command at this
point.

There were marching against Foch on
that afternoon of the 5th of September
two distinct bodies : (1) the Prussian
Guard,* (2) the Saxon Army. So much
is certain.

The Prussian Guard consists of an
army corps in itself. Its active body, two
full divisions, were present upon this
occasion. The Saxon Army certainly con-
sisted of three, and may have consisted of

* In a curious way, which the superstitious may note,
the Imperial Guard has done badly all through the war.
When all the rest were triumphing in the rapid advance
from Belgium, it got the only bad blow received — that
at Guise. It was the chief victim of Foch at La Fere
Champenoise, and so was chiefly responsible for the
Marne. It got the worst set back of all the masses
brought up against the British at Ypres.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 219

four, army corps. There were certainly
present the Xllth Army Corps Active, the
XlXth Army Corps Active, the XlXth
Army Corps Reserve. There may have
been present the Xllth Army Corps Re-
serve, and in one of the most detailed and at
the same time most vivid of all the accounts
of the action so far available, the Xlth
Army Corps is mentioned as having come
up in some rather confused fashion before
the end of the action from the rear, not
having room to deploy, or having been
delayed upon the march. In one account
of inferior value I have seen mention of
a Bavarian corps. Whether any of these
corps or all of them boasted a third divi-
sion present, as was so often the case
with the original German force of inva-
sion is not, I think, known. There was,
of course, a division of cavalry present,
and we know that the general command
of these forces, which must have been more
than eight divisions, and may have been
eleven, was under the command of
General von Hausen, whose disgrace after
the battle is one of our clearest pieces of
evidence that the responsibility for their
defeat at the Marne is laid by the Ger-

220 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

mans not on Kluck and the right wing,
but upon the centre.*

To the Guard and the Saxon Army,
whose advance against Foch's inferior
army of the centre we are about to follow,
we must add in our general view one
more corps of at least two divisions to
the west — the extreme left — of Buelow's
Ilnd German Army, the Xth Active Ger-
man Corps, which was facing the extreme
right of the French 5th Army. This Xth
German Corps does not properly enter
into the battle against Foch, but its weak-
ness and retirement during Foch's battle
largely affected the issue, as we shall see.

We have, then, the German line stretch-
ing roughly thus all along the north of
the marshes of St. Gond, and eastward

* It will emphasize for the reader the difficulty one
has, after eighteen months, in establishing this force, to
learn that the ioth edition of a summary — very accu-
rate, though not official — published last summer, counts
a reserve corps of the Xllth as being present, but not a
reserve corps of the XlXth, while three accounts of equal
authority give a reserve corps of the XlXth, but not of the
Xllth. I am inclined to believe that both were present.
A very valuable and conclusive source of information
upon the numbers and constitution of the enemy's forces
at any moment is the analysis of the early casualty lists
of the enemy, which give not only date and unit, but
place. But this work, though in existence, is not yet
open to the public.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 221

to beyond the Sommesous railway, facing
the French central body.

In spite of our uncertainty with regard
to these enemy forces, we shall be able
to understand the battle clearly enough
if we seize at the outset the following
two capital points, both of which concern
the Imperial German Guard.

First, the Guard must be regarded as
an independent force. We shall only in-
troduce an unnecessary and profitless con-
fusion if we bother about the question
whether it was commanded by Buelow or
by Hausen. It was acting in reality almost
as though it were an independent army
between these two German forces.

Secondly, the Guard, when it came into
the action, clearly yielded to the temptation
of acting in two separate fields — (1) the
Marshes of St. Gond, (2) the Plain of
Champagne below. It did not maintain
its unity of movement. This temptation
to " split " to which the Guard yielded
was caused by the lack of forces just in
that neighbourhood ; this lack was caused
in its turn by the inflection westward of all
the German right when once Maunoury's
" leech " effect began to tell.

222 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

It is exceedingly important to grasp
this, the gradual separation of the Guard
into two groups during the battle of La
Fere Champenoise, for it is the explana-
tion of that " gap," which, opening in the
German centre, decided the issue. Upon
that point I will here, with the reader's
leave, admit a digression which is essen-
tial to our comprehension of the affair.

The Gap.

I have throughout this study empha-
sized, I fear to the weariness of the reader,
the fundamental character of this feature.
It was a gap opening in the German line
here at the centre which decided the
Marne.

But now that we are looking at the
matter closely and in detail, I must warn
the reader against a misconception.

The " gap " was not simply a large
hole left in the line by forgetfulness,
delay, or mismanagement.

Armies in movement do not fight in
strict cords or " sticks." They are not
arranged in those exact oblongs by which
we conventionally represent them upon

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 223

our maps. They are dispersed over wide
regions of country ; a group of men
thickly gathered in one village ; thinner
outposts ; smaller groups to the right or
to the left, then a denser group again ;
large bodies out of the firing line behind,
etc.

If we were to plot down in red dots
upon a large scale map the position of
every single man before and during an
action of movement, where neither party
is permanently entrenched, the impression
the map would give would be a confused
one of scattered thousands of red dots,
very dense in some places, very rare in
others, showing roughly areas of concen-
tration, and roughly also a general line
of action, but no more.

So true is this that the modern French
teaching of war no longer represents to
students the old conventional oblongs
upon the map, but only great " blobs,"
roughly oval, and marked with such signs
as " 2nd Corps in this region." No
greater definition is attempted. The enor-
mously detailed and painstaking huge
volumes, for instance, published by the
historical section of the French War

224 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Office upon the campaign of 1793, show
the movements of such actions as Tour-
coing or Hondschoote in this fashion.
So does General Bonnal's minute study
of the Ourcq in the present campaign.

It follows from such a view of the way
in which armies actually occupy country,
that " a gap " in any part of a line hardly
ever means the total absence of men in
that part. It may do so. There have
been such things in war as the complete
neglect of an important section of territory,
its complete degarnishment of men, and
a consequent opportunity for perfectly
unimpeded progress by any enemy op-
posed to it. But in the case of the famous
gap which opened on the last day of
Foch's action in front of the French, the
solution of continuity was not as abso-
lute as that.

The " gap " opened, as we shall see
later, between the two sections into which
the Guards Corps had gradually got sep-
arated ; but the very error their com-
mander committed is evidence of its own
incomplete character. He would have
seen and repaired at once a complete
break. He tolerated a more and more

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 225

risky " thinning out," until he just over-
reached himself. You would probably
have found, if you had been able to plot
down the position of every man or of every
small group of men in the Prussian Guard
and the German forces at the critical
moment of the battle — the early afternoon

~MairskesofSt

^b-laJere Chamvencise
§3?

'-W A

1/

Sketch 53.

of the 9th of September — something like
the accompanying sketch, where the eye
clearly seizes alternative concentrations
and thinning out of men, but no com-
plete denuding of any part, and the " gap "
upon and through which Foch's left-
hand swing worked with such terrible

n.

15

226 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

effect at G, was no more than a section
in which the link between two portions
of the Guard had been allowed to get
excessively thin. In the heat of the vio-
lent attack against and through La Fere
Champenoise there had developed far too
great a concentration upon the east at A,
when there seemed such a great and power-
ful chance of breaking the French line
which the mass of the Guard were for-
cing back ; there had remained (on account
of the nature of the fighting) too many
men round B, and the " elastic," so to
speak, between the two had been stretched
to the utmost.

We shall see clearly upon a later page
the effect of all this upon the action, but
it is important at the beginning of our
description to appreciate the true nature
of the dislocation, and not to visualize the
extreme and unreal picture of a stretch
of country wholly denuded of men,
through which French columns might be
imagined to be penetrating on the last
day of the action without opposition. The
real situation was that when the time came
to act in flank, the French, swinging round
along the arrow, could treat the very troops

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 227

at G as though they were not there, be-
cause they were so few as to be warded
off, so to speak, with one hand, and as
impotent to interfere with the French
flank movement as though they had not
been there at all.

To this extreme weakness of what I
have called the Gap must further be added
the fact that the few men in that gap
were not deliberately left as a minimum
force sufficient to menace any French
movement in front of them. They were
rather men who, for the most part, were
looking eastward and westward, con-
cerned with and attached to in almost
every case either the great operating mass
at A, or the mass remaining at B, and were
probably actually in movement towards
those two masses at the decisive moment.

With so much said — the value of which
cannot appear until we have seen how
the action developed — we will proceed to
a detailed examination of that action.

The Action.

The headquarters of Foch upon the 6th
of September (before his men had actually

228 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

begun the fighting, but when Maunoury
had already been pressing Kluck's flank
guard for nearly twenty-four hours) was
at Pleurs, a mile and a half behind, or
south, of the great Chalons road. From
this centre the orders went out to his
three groups of combat — the 42nd Divi-
sion, with its Moroccan Division in aid,
upon the left ; the 9th Corps in the
centre, and the nth upon the right.

In the plan of the Generalissimo it was
Foch's role during all the first part of the
action to stand only upon the defensive.
Since the French plan was to envelop
Kluck upon the left of the line with
Maunoury 's army, it was important to
let the German centre sag as much as
possible southward in front of Foch, and
for Foch to hold it there while the en-
velopment upon the left proceeded.

That envelopment, as we have seen in
the account of the Ourcq, miscarried ;
because the English and Germans south
of the Marne were not engaged. It
rapidly developed upon the 7th, 8th, and
9th of September into a counter-envelop-
ment of Maunoury by Kluck. In such
a pass merely to " hold on " in the centre

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 229

fifty miles away (retiring if necessary, but
leading on the enemy) would be fatal. It
would make the left French line bend
more and more round until it was en-
veloped at both ends, and the centre
pierced. It is clear that if you catch
your enemy at fault along the line CD,
and proceed to envelop him at A with

Sketch 54.

the left of your line AB, a deep bend of
his forward at E is to your advantage.
It gets him more " into a pocket." But if
he finds out your move at A and counters
(as along the dotted line), then a vigorous
thrust of his at E may cut off all your
left, and the sag is in his favour. Foch's
role, therefore, once Maunoury, on the
extreme left, had failed to envelop, be-

230 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

came not defensive but, so far as he could
make it, offensive, as those days pro-
ceeded. He had not only to hold on, but,
if possible, to break the German centre in
front of him, lest the enemy should win
the battle, the flank movement fifty miles
away to the west having gone wrong. But
to take the offensive when you are heavily
outnumbered is not gay work.

At the opening of the battle, how-
ever, his original defensive function was
not yet disturbed. The orders given
out, therefore, by Foch upon the morn-
ing of the 6th of September were as
follows : —

The left — that is, the 42nd Division
and the Moroccan Division — were to at-
tempt an advance, starting from the posi-
tions they occupied from Charleville to
near Mondemont, and they were to lean
a little westward or to their left, so as to
keep in touch with the offensive advance
that had been planned for the French 5th
Army beyond them.

The 9th Corps (commanded by General
Dubois) was ordered to stand upon the
defensive, stretching from Oyes to be-
yond Bannes — in fact, standing behind the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 231

marshes of St. Gond as behind a moat.
When I say " moat " it must not be under-
stood that the marshes are impassable.
There are, as the map (page 233) shows,
four regular roads across them, and after
a long spell of dry weather such as was
that of this day, the 6th of September
(and many days preceding), the usually
soggy meadows can be crossed even with
wheeled vehicles in many places.

The 9th Corps was told to put strong
outposts north of the marshes, holding
bridge-heads, as it were, so that when the
time might come for a general advance
the mass of its effectives should be able to
cross the marshes undisturbed, with its ad-
vance posts securely holding these bridge-
heads. But for the moment General
Dubois' two divisions, the 9th Corps, were
to stand pat.

Exactly the same order was given to the
two Breton divisions of the nth Corps,
under General Eydoux, which carried on
the line. These two divisions lay upon
the country road which runs from Mo-
rains to Sommesous, a road which passes
through the little villages of Ecury, Nor-
mee, and Lenharre. These two Breton

232 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

divisions, which just covered the rail-
way from La Fere Champenoise to Som-
mesous junction, had orders to hold
the enemy and no more. Such disposi-
tions, if we reflect, were exactly consonant
to the general plan which the French
Higher Command had in mind. They
desired to get the mass of the Germans well
down south, then to get round behind them
with their 6th Army far off to the west,
and so to cut the German communica-
tions and inflict a complete defeat. That
plan was not, as we know, carried out.
The Marne did not conclude the war,
though it permanently decided its char-
acter. Its incompleteness was due to the
nearly successful counter-envelopment of
Maunoury by Kluck. But until this was
apparent the obvious r61e of the various
forces was to move less and less against
the enemy the more east one got. The
6th Army to move most ; the 5th con-
siderably, but more on the left than on
the right. The central army of Foch to
go forward perhaps a little on its left, but
the main part of it not at all.

The French line, then, on that day,
Sunday, 6th September, was attempting

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 233

to act after the fashion of the accompany-
ing sketch map.

To the left we see indicated the French
1 st Corps, the extreme right of the 2nd
Army. Next, the 42nd Division of the
Moroccans, bunched on the high land
just west of the marshes of St. Gond.
Then, on the lower land behind the

Sketch 55.

marshes the two divisions of the 9th
Corps, with advanced posts holding
bridge-heads, as it were, beyond the
marshes. Lastly, the two divisions of
the nth Corps, with advanced posts
outside the villages Morains, Ecury, Nor-
mee, and Lenharre ; the post of com-
mand lying behind all this at Pleurs.
Contact was taken with the enemy on

234 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the morning of that day, the Xth Active
German Corps engaging with the 42nd
Division before the 1st French Corps to
the west — the extreme of the French 4th
Army — could come into action. North
of the marshes the German Imperial
Guard drove in the bridge-heads which
General Dubois had established. The
German Xllth Active was the first of
the Saxon Army to come into main con-
tact with Foch. Before night it had
pushed in the advanced guards of his
nth Corps (Eydoux's), and the line of
the villages Morains, Normee, and Len-
harre was carried. The flames of their
burning houses illuminated that night.

At the end of the day, therefore, the
left wing has not been able to progress.
It is hard at work against the German
Xth Active Corps, which has closed with
it. The Imperial Prussian Guard has
driven in the bridge-heads which the 9th
French Corps had put in front of it in
the centre, and solidly holds all the line
of the marsh to the north. The Xllth
Corps (Active) of the Germans has ad-
vanced seriously against the French nth
Corps upon the right.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 235

Against Foch that day no other part of
the Saxon Army had yet come into action,
though their extreme left had already taken
contact with a portion of the French 4th
Army to the west. Indeed, the confused
marching of the Saxons, and a sort of
general hitch in their Staff work, helped,
if we may credit German reports and views,
towards the final disaster. But I cannot
help remarking that there was hardly room
for their whole great number to deploy
(they were at least ten men to the yard),
and even as it was they were so much
superior in numbers to the French as to
press the French back for three days in
the fashion we are about to follow.

Already, in this first strain put upon
Foch's three main bodies, the form the
battle was to take began to show itself.
The enemy pressure increased from west
to east, from the German right to the
German left, and only the extreme French
left in front of the German right had been
able fully to stand its ground.

As we shall see in a moment, the action
continued to develop upon these lines, the
French being forced back far southward
upon their right, somewhat upon their

236 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

centre, but their left holding, and the
line thus pivoting round its western ex-
tremity as it retired.

This was the moment — nightfall on the
6th — when Maunoury had already discov-
ered that Kluck had been able to bring
part of his troops back north of the Marne,
and therefore the moment when it was
already grasped that the French surprise
attack in flank might fail.

On the next day, Monday, the 7th, the
German pressure became much more
violent, but did not greatly bend the
French line. The French 1st Corps, on
the extreme right of the French 5th Army
to the west of Foch, had come into play,
and relieved the intense pressure upon the
42nd Division and the Moroccans. But
on the Tuesday, the 8th, the situation of
Foch began to be very serious.

On that day the 42nd and the Moroc-
cans, having full aid from the 1st Corps
on their left, and therefore outnumbering
the Germans in front of them, pushed
forward. At a very heavy price they
occupied St. Prix, and turned the Guard
out of certain of its positions north of the
marshes — not all of them ; only those to

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 237

the west. The two divisions of the 9th
Corps held, largely because the marshes
still somewhat protected them, but also
because the German determination to
achieve their success upon the east of
the line was now clearly apparent, and
because there the mass of the attack was
pressing hardest.

Upon that day, Tuesday, the 8th, the
Imperial German Guard had already be-
gun that separation into two fractions
which was later to prove so fatal to it.
Part of it remained holding on to those
positions north of the marshes, but most
of it was inclining eastward in aid of the
Saxon Army ; and this largest mass of
the Guard, together with the whole of
the Xllth Active German Corps, and the
whole of the Xllth Reserve — the equiva-
lent, certainly, of six divisions, possibly of
seven — was driving back the two Breton
divisions of the French nth Army Corps.
It was a tremendous drive, pushing the
French right down on this one day past
the railway, through La Fere Champe-
noise, and behind the high road from
that town to Sommesous, and the French
retirement could not call a halt until it

238 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

had got behind the little brook of Mau-
rienne upon the line Connantre, Corroy,
Gourgancon, Semoine.

By the evening of that day, then, Tues-
day, the 8th, you had the French line as
it is on the accompanying sketch map.
The left, the 42nd Division and the

StPrix m^^"^^ _

c^ *. ^^sa^ IK523 ho ..

Original J.iw, crrrt*.

' 'Vr"*""+-«— t-vCr — 1 C

Flannj

SaXon.

'Extreme Southern

point ofFochs tvtxremenf

Sketch 56.

Moroccans, had gone forward somewhat.
The two divisions of the 9th Corps were
still holding, of course, but of little use ;
for the marsh both covered and hampered
them. But the nth Corps had fallen with
bad loss right back to the position AA,
and the line continuing eastward into the
French 4th Army was very badly dented

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 239

indeed. It was now quite clear what was
the plan of the German commander here
against Foch, and with our present know-
ledge of the action as a whole it is clear
to us how nearly that German plan came
to success.

Chateau,
Thierry

\ BELGIUM &

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Mziires • N,\ /

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PARIS

Chalons oV

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w

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"Bdforf\ SJP

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Sketch 57.

The Germans in the centre said to
themselves (Sketch 57) : —

" Kluck on the far west, fifty miles
away in the direction of the arrow A, has
had to bring back his divisions from be-
yond the Marne, and has leant westward
generally. Therefore Buelow next to him

240 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

has had to do the same thing lest the line
should lose continuity. On this account
everything beyond a certain point (B) is
thinning off westward in the direction of
the arrow. ' The elastic is being pulled,'
and there is bound to be rather a critical
strain here at the centre (X). Well, we will
for the moment risk that. We will for
the moment neglect this strain. True, it
leaves the two divisions of our Xth Corps
to meet almost single-handed (save for a
few elements of the Guard) the jour divi-
sions of the French ist Army and of
Foch's left. Our Xth Corps will doubt-
less have to retire. But we will get a deci-
sion against Foch to the east, before this
retirement of our Xth Corps becomes peril-
ous. There will be a strain, but we will
break the French centre opposite us before
that strain reaches the breaking-point. Most
of the Guard and half the Saxons shall
mass against Foch's right, the nth French
Corps, and drive it in. This will tear a
hole in the French centre at C, cut off
all the western half of the Allied line, and,
coupled with the outflanking of Maunoury
by Kluck, either drive it back on Paris, or
annihilate it by a general envelopment."

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 241

Drive in the French nth Corps they
did, as we have seen. They forced it back
across a belt of country which was at its
widest a full ten miles in extent, and very
nearly did they come thereby to their de-
sired result of breaking the whole French
line. Indeed, Eydoux, with his nth
Corps, only rallied at last with the help
of a reserve division hurriedly lent him
from the rear. Even then he was still
outnumbered as 3 is to 5i, and there was
apparently no prospect of redressing the
balance upon the morrow.

What that to-morrow, Wednesday, Sep-
tember the 9th, would bring, the French
command could not determine. The
genius of Foch was still at grips with
an adverse problem. He only knew that
so violent a concentration against himself
must mean the desire to redress an enemy
weakness elsewhere in the line. The most
significant part, perhaps, of this bad day's
retirement was the withdrawal of French
headquarters by a distance of no less than
ten miles from Pleurs, its original seat,
right away to Plancy, upon the Aube.

Wednesday, the 9th, broke very hot

and clear. It was everywhere to be the
11. 16

242 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

decisive day. It was the day at the close
of which Maunoury, with the 6th Army,
was nearest to complete envelopment and
disaster.

All the morning the perilous situation
left by the fighting of the day before hung
undecided. But the enemy, now confident
that a few hours would decide the issue,
called up everything that could be spared
from the Guard north of the marshes,
and threw it southward into the massed
attack which was being delivered from
Connantre to Gourgancon, and he further
launched all that the Saxon Army could
crowd into such a space against the re-
mainder of the French right, from Gour-
gancon south-eastward to where the bend
of the French extremity was getting more
and more accentuated. At one moment it
reached Salon.

He threw to the winds the fortunes of
the Xth German Corps, now clearly giv-
ing way. All that could be attended to
after his victory to the east. He held his
few posts north of the marshes with less
and less of his Guard. The " Gap " began
to form and increase as he pressed the
mass of the Guard more and more east-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 243

ward with his weight and mass, deter-
mined to break through and round Foch's
right. It would be time enough to think
of the Xth German Corps and this ever-
weakening western edge of the German
centre when — as surely it would be before
night — the victory was decided by the

LaRre

ewise

Sketch 58.

total crushing of Eydoux's nth French
Corps.

A little after midday of this blazing
French September day, over the hori-
zon of which great storm clouds were
already gathered, Foch — his retirement
now at its utmost limit, and the strain he
was suffering at its maximum — delivered

244 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

that famous stroke which it is the object
of all these pages to define and to fix.
The precise details of that blow once it
was struck will never be known. Such a
melee blinded to time and space the men
who, in the intense heat of the struggle,
decided the fate of the country.

Even its outlines are obscured in places
by our ignorance of the exact dispositions
in the overwhelming German host upon
the east, the Guards, and the bulk of
Hausen's Saxon Army.

But the general lines can be clearly
grasped. In order to grasp them, let us
first mark how far the situation had de-
veloped by about midday of that 9th of
September, since the morning.

On the left, or west, at A the German
Xth Corps was still slowly falling back
before the French 1st Corps. The Mor-
occans are struggling for, but cannot
master, the height of Mondemont at M,
whence one looks over all the marshes
and the plain to the east. The two divi-
sions of the French 9th Corps, which have
stood so long, are now bent back to keep
alignment with the unfortunate right wing,
and that right wing, the two Breton divi-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 245

sions of the nth Corps under Eydoux,
has curled right round to Salon, and there
presses against it the mass of the Guard,
and at least half of the armies of Hausen.
All this is but a slight further develop-
ment of the situation at daybreak.

■*z^

*s?rs?

^English Miles

Plonxry
'.H.CL

Sketch 59.

But there is one significant change in
the line of battle. If we look for the 42nd
Division next to the Moroccans we shall
find it gone. Several hours before there
had reached this best element of all Foch's
troops, the 42nd Division, an order to
fall back to the south and east, to the

246 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

neighbourhood of Linthes. There it was
bid to lie behind the 9th Corps, awaiting
further news.

I have met none of the private soldiers
who took part in that counter-march under
the rising clouds of the now threatening
weather, but I know from the temper of
soldiers with what bewilderment and in
what mood the rank and file, and, indeed,
all the command save the Staff of that
division (if they) must have heard that
they were ordered to leave what, in their
restricted horizon, was a triumphant ad-
vance upon the beaten Xth German Army,
and to fall back for all those miles.

They lay (knowing themselves by that
pride of service which a corps d'elite so
rapidly establishes, and which in their case
was founded upon their position during
the long tradition of the peace) useless in
the open fields. They stood with piled
arms idle, hearing the cannonade two
miles away, learning from the rumours
that had spread all over that field how
the right was all but broken. They
must have thought their march and its
present halt the beginning of a disastrous
retreat.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 247

Foch, their General-in-chief, from head-
quarters at Plancy, twelve miles away, was
even then dispatching the order which
decided the history of his country. That
order was delivered to the 42nd Division
near Linthes at four o'clock in the after-
noon. It bade them advance at once,
straight before them eastward, down
through the line of low pinewoods which
here bounded the fields, out through these
to the plain beyond, and so break out
against the exposed flank of the German
Guards before La Fere Champenoise.
They had an hour's marching to cover
before the shock.

It was not yet evening, it was between
five and six o'clock when their columns,
the heads deployed in shouting waves of
men, struck suddenly upon the exposed
flank of the Guard, and broke it alto-
gether. Precisely at that moment came
along the whole of the French line the
order for an intense offensive. The
stretched, thin, hardly-held gap between
the marshes and La Fere Champenoise
gave way, the two divisions of the 9th
Corps poured in, and the right of the 9th
Corps joined with the 42nd Division in

248 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

its thunder against the exposed vital flank
of the Guards.

That too-famous corps was now quite
broken into two ; its few units north of
the marshes were abandoned and cut off ;
its mass here to the south was trying to
look both ways, fighting in front as before
against the left of Eydoux's Bretons ;
fighting for its life upon the wounded
flank in hurriedly converted wheelings of
men. Its side faced about as best it could
in the confusion against the advancing and
triumphant pressure of the 42nd Divi-
sion and the right of the 9th Corps.

The huge, congested mass of the Saxon
offensive farther beyond to the south and
east learnt the peril of the Guard. A gap
had opened. The French had seized it.
The line had been broken to their right.
They in their turn summoned all their
energy to cover, as best they could before
darkness, the necessity for retreat.

Before the fall of night the storm broke
out of the sky, and it was under the most
furious pelt of warm rain that the 9th
Corps and the 42nd Brigade pushed hour
after hour through the darkness north-
ward, careless of sleep now that the battle

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 249

was won. The nth, fighting hard against
rearguards of the retiring Germans,
achieved even in that night some prog-
ress. There ran even in such darkness
and such weather the indescribable thrill
of victory through all the six divisions.

By the morning La Fere Champenoise
was already held and passed through. The
midday meal, snatched hurriedly from
the haversack while they still marched,
found the army back again at its line of
three days before, and all that day, Thurs-
day, the 10th, as Foch's men went for-
ward like a wave along a beach, they
passed in the ruined villages and on the
roads the litter of a confused and precipi-
tate retreat. They picked up its strag-
glers and its wounded, and its lost and
broken guns — thousands of men, fifty
pieces, half the artillery of the Guard.
Their progress was only halted by the
fatigue of an almost uninterrupted twenty-
four hours of success.

Upon that evening of the 10th the
French headquarters, which the day be-
fore had stood at Plancy twenty-five miles
away, established themselves in La Fere
Champenoise itself, with the advanced

250 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

line far off to the north beyond, and the
Battle of the Marne was won. During
all that same day Kluck had been hurry-
ing northward from before the British
and Maunoury ; Buelow had been hurry-
ing northward from before the French
5th Army. The German plan, humanly
certain of success at Charleroi three weeks
before, was in ruins.

IV.

The Rest of the Line.

So far we have followed in three sep-
arate divisions the three main actions
upon which the Marne turned : first,
the Grand Couronne ; next, the surprise
attack of the French 6th Army on the
west ; lastly, the decisive counter-stroke
delivered in the centre by Foch, which
determined the result.

We must, to complete our grasp of the
battle, consider more generally the inter-
mediate parts of the line as well as these
three capital points of the two wings and
the centre. With this object I will briefly
recapitulate the actions of the left centre
and right centre lying between Foch and
and the two wings, so that we may have
a united view of what was taking place
from the opening of the action to the
moment when its turning-point was passed

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 253

during the night between the 9th and 10th
September.

As we have already seen, the line of
battle as a whole was that of the sketch
here appended. In order, from the left
to the right, or from east to west, the
6th Army, the British, the 5th Army,
Foch in the centre, which central army
is now officially known as the 9th. (See
Note at end of chapter.)

Beyond this, again, to the east, the 4th
Army ; next, again to the east, forming a
great horn round Verdun, the 3rd Army ;
then, down in front of Nancy, running
from north to south, the 2nd Army
which had fought and won the Grand
Couronne ; and, lastly, along the Lor-
raine and Alsatian border to the south
of it again, and on to the Swiss frontier,
the 1 st Army.

These armies may also be remembered
by the names of their commanders. The
1 st Army, commanded at the moment of
the Marne by Dubail ; the 2nd by Castel-
nau ; and the remaining armies, as one
goes westward — those which took part in
the main action of the Marne — the 3rd
by Sarrail, the 4th by Langle de Cary,

254 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the Central one (or 9th) by Foch, the
5th Army by Franchet d'Esperey, the
British contingent by Field-Marshal Sir
John French, and the 6th Army by
Maunoury.

Now in this order of battle the various
" subsidiary " policies, as I may call them,
had different roles, which we must care-
fully distinguish. The army of Sarrail,
just to the west of Verdun, and covering
Verdun, is obviously the pivot upon which
the whole Battle of the Marne revolved.
We shall find it going forward, indeed,
after the battle has been fought, but not
over any considerable belt of country, as
it is nearest to the centre of the revolving
movement.

Sarrail's 3rd Army plays, indeed, a very
important part, but it is not a part of
great movement, nor one which we have
to follow in much detail in order to grasp
the development of the general action.
Up to the 9th of September Sarrail hardly
moved.

There remain only the 4th Army and
the 5th, which may be called the left
centre and the right centre of the battle
on either side of Foch, and I shall deal

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 255

with these separately before talking of the
role played by Verdun, and Sarrail's army
neighbouring it, during the Battle of the
Marne.

The Role of the Left Centre :
the $th Army.

The 5th Army , under Franchet d'Esperey ,
was a very strong one. Though we do
not find it playing the great role which
belongs to Maunoury's surprise attack
and Foch's decisive central play, yet its
strength was a very important part of
the whole French scheme, for it will be
remembered that this scheme largely con-
sisted in deceiving the enemy as to the
sectors on which he was to expect the
strongest resistance. The enemy was led
to believe, as I have repeatedly pointed
out, that very large forces were gathered
by the French on the east, Jn front of
Nancy, and upon the frontier, and that
there would be a corresponding weak-
ness upon the west. The strength of
Franchet d'Esperey's 5th Army, there-
fore, was one of the several elements of
surprise from which the Germans suf-

256 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

fered, and which between them all led
to the result of the Marne.

The 5th Army was composed of no less
than the equivalent of nearly six army
corps. There were exactly eleven full
divisions under the command of its gen-
eral, and a spare brigade as well, together
with three divisions of cavalry.

Franchet d'Esperey's command, in order
from west to east, was as follows : the
two divisions of the 18th Corps (under
Maud'huy), the two divisions of the 3rd
Corps, the two divisions of the 10th, and
the two divisions of the 1st. That is
eight divisions. He had also three more
reserve divisions behind his first line,
numbered the 51st, the 53rd, and the
69th, and further a separate brigade of
light infantry over and above these units
drawn from the 2nd Corps in Lorraine.
These very considerable forces stretched
thus from in front of Esternay westward,
or to the left, right away eastward to
Sezanne, on the right. Between the 5th
French Army and the British to the left
was the cavalry force under Conneau.

We shall see in what follows how the
superabundant strength of the 5th Army

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 257

had its effect upon the fortunes of Foch's,
to the right.

From what we have already read of the
surprise attack upon the German flank in
the west (and the way in which the enemy
met this by a rapid retirement and re-

Sketch 61.

concentration north of Meaux), and of
the simultaneous attempt of the German
centre to push southward and break the
French line, we could guess without
further evidence that the French 5th
Army during the four critical days, the
6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of September,

IL

17

258 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

would probably be continually advancing
its left, while compelled to fight hard and
to advance but little with its right. As the
whole line of battle under the effect of
Maunoury's unexpected attack (and of
Kluck's rapid meeting thereof) swung
more or less westward and northward,
one might expect the 5th French Army to
swing similarly up by its left or western
end. And that is more or less what actu-
ally takes place, when we follow its move-
ments during those four days.

Buelow, with the Ilnd German Army,
has got to retire and to lean westward (at
least so far as his right wing is concerned),
in order to conform with Kluck's con-
centration against and attempt to envelop
Maunoury. The French 5th Army can
therefore advance upon its left opposite
Buelow's right, and does so in the follow-
ing fashion : —

On the first day of the battle, Sunday,
the 6th of September, the French 5th
Army, with its headquarters at Romilly,
upon the Seine, moves forward before
dawn. At about seven o'clock in the
morning its left wing enters Monceau
and Courgivaux, these successes being

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 259

obtained by the 18th Corps and the 3rd
Corps, opposite Buelow's retiring right
wing. But on the right a similar progress
cannot be made. The 10th Corps is held
up by all the fighting in front of Chatillon,
only disengaging itself by riskily sending
one of its divisions right round by the

' ftWVY/H V/////A

W/////M ,'

- -3

lS»Cbrpr

vaflesSfc Gorge*

10

T^fiU'S

Sketch 62.

east through the woods to La Noue. It
came down out of these woods on to the
open fields, which are crossed here by
the great road down on to the brook of
Noue, and striking thus at the left flank
of the German Xth Reserve Corps, rout-
ing the latter body, and allowing the

26o A GENERAL SKETCH OF

French troops to enter Esternay before
night. Farther to the east again, the last
of Franchet d'Esperey's fighting line made
no progress. As we have seen, the ist
Corps, which was there in action, simply
helped the left of Foch's army (the 42nd
Division and the Moroccans) to hold their
ground.

The next day, Monday, the 7th of
September, while Maunoury was begin-
ning to feel the pressure of Kluck's
counter - concentration, and while this
counter - concentration was compelling
Kluck to call back troops from beyond
the Marne, and compelling Buelow further
to conform to that movement, the 5th
Army had fortunes exactly corresponding
to such changes of position on the part
of the enemy.

In front of its left it was held up by
nothing more than strong German rear-
guards and cavalry screens, which it was
able to push back. All that morning,
therefore, Franchet d'Esperey's left was
working up towards the Little Morin.

But about midday the General got news
of the very heavy pressure to which Foch
was already being subjected. On his right

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 261

the German effort to break the French
centre (now that they had parried and
held the surprise attack of Maunoury
upon the west) was developing. That
part of Foch's army which was closest to
Franchet d'Esperey — the 42nd Division
and the Moroccans — was just at that
moment receiving the violent pressure
of the German troops debouching from
St. Prix. Franchet d'Esperey, still push-
ing forward with his 1st Corps, told the
1 st Corps, on his extreme right, to help
Foch's left wing as much as they could,
so as to relieve the pressure upon it.

The 1st Corps, with that object, in-
clined towards the east instead of going
due north. But it met there (since it
was now in touch with the strong Ger-
man central effort) with an unexpect-
edly powerful resistance, and Franchet
d'Esperey had, perhaps a little reluctantly,
to check the regular forward progress of
his 10th Corps just to the left, and direct
it also to help the 1st Corps. So strong
was the German resistance here that it
was not until about sunset, between six
and seven o'clock in the evening, that the
German Xth Reserve Corps, which im-

262 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

mediately faced the French ioth Corps,
began again to retire. There was some
bad liaison work in connection with this
retirement, and this German corps lost
in the woods a whole battalion which got
itself cut off, and a very large amount of
motor transport, especially of munitions.

But taking the 7th of September all in
all, in spite of this local success, it was
not very much more than a conforming
with the German retirement northward
and westward, and a struggle against the
German strength to the east.

On the next day, Tuesday, the 8th,
this swerving of the line more and more
up towards the north-east regularly con-
tinued. The 1 8th Corps, under the able
command of General Maud'huy (who
later was given the command of a whole
army in the campaign), forced the passage
of the Little Morin, and before night had
carried the village of Marchais — where the
good cheese comes from — up on the height
of the plateau, and quite close to the great
road. It was thus past the lonely town
of Montmirail, a place which the Ger-
mans would soon have to abandon, and
which had been at the beginning of the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 263

battle the German headquarters of Buelow.
It was also on that historic ground, famous
for every Frenchman, where Napoleon had
won his most amazing (fruitless) victory
against the invader in 18 14.

To the right of the 18th Corps, there-
fore, the 3rd Corps, not without a heavy
loss and a very sharp struggle, carried
Montmirail itself. But again, as on the
preceding day, as one goes towards the
right, the difficulty of advance is more
marked. The 10th Corps did get on to
the heights beyond the river at X, but
no farther, and the 1st Corps, on the ex-
treme right, was still hammering, when
night fell, at the flank of the Germans,
who still pressed hard on Foch's left wing.
This 1 st Corps was facing, before dark,
almost due east, trying to reach, and fail-
ing to reach, Bannay, the pressure upon
which point would have compelled the
Germans — who were pressing the French
42nd Division in front of St. Prix — to
loose their hold.

All that day, as we have seen, Foch
was suffering the tremendous series of
blows which forced back his right by
something like ten miles, and even in

264 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the advancing and successful 5th Army
news of the very critical state of affairs
developing to the east of them was spread-
ing. To their General, of course, it had
long been known.

The headquarters of the 5th Army

itPruc

Wv.rMarshej.of &

VtlUers St Ganges

10

'Miles

Sketch 63.

moved upon the evening of that day, the
8th of September, to Villiers St. Georges,
and the whole battle stood thus : —

The 9th of September, the critical day
of the battle, opened for the French 5th
Army in the following fashion : —

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 265

The 1 8th Corps, on the left, with
Buelow's right in full retreat before it,
could march, not unimpeded, but with
a certainty of advance, right up towards
the Marne at Chateau Thierry, and so it
did. As all these days of advance upon
Franchet d'Esperey's left had not been
undertaken without loss, the reserve divi-
sions were in part called up to the front
line. The 18th Corps, with its reserve
divisions just behind it, went rapidly
that day, under Maud'huy's command,
across the bare plateau, the great portion
of it marching in column along the
straight high road (Roman in origin)
which points straight at Chateau Thierry.
It is a singular proof of how rapidly Buelow
had effected his retreat upon his right,
that so long a day's march should have
been possible, in the very midst of a great
action, to this one French corps. From
Marchais, where it had found itself on the
evening of the 8th, to Chateau Thierry,
is a fair day's march — twelve miles — even
for troops in manoeuvre or on a route
march in peace.

The head columns of Maud'huy's 18th
Corps seized Chateau Thierry, and were

266 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

across the Marne by night time, holding
the bridge-head beyond.

This was a little more than the German
retreat at this point had bargained for.
It was all very well to retire in con-
formity with the necessity of support-
ing Kluck's big western move against
Maunoury, but they did not mean to lose
the crossings of the Marne so rapidly.
The German general, Richthofen, with a
great mass of cavalry, came up just too
late to save the situation there, and by
night, as I have said, the French were
across the river. The British, it will be
remembered, had been crossing on that
same day (the 9th of September) by all
the lower reaches as far down as La
Ferte sous Jouarre, though at this last
point they had been unable to effect a
crossing against the very heavy resist-
ance which Kluck had put up there
if he was to complete his plan, and
prevent the British appearing upon his
rear.

The 3rd French Corps next in order
towards the east marched on either side
of and along the deep ravine of the
Braye, and reached a point a little south

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 267

of Conde before night. The 10th Corps,
to the east again, got before evening just
west of Fromentieres.

The general alignment of the mass of
the 5th Army, therefore, upon this critical
late afternoon of the 9th, just when Foch
was on the turn of his fortunes, was that
of the accompanying map. There had

BuAcws Command
II™ German Army
Note the resistance of
die left at X as one
gets nearer the. German
Centre, where the
violent effort tD
make good was
' inproaress

--» !^Ou-J- llJu. fa tujn fend WL»^j, %#fe&S2ii5P

1%

Sketch 64.

been, as on the preceding day, a rapid
advance of the left, a less rapid advance
of the centre, and a very difficult and
slight advance of the right against ex-
tremely heavy pressure.

When we look at what happened here,
to the extreme right of Franchet d'Esperey,

268 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

in those decisive hours, it helps us to
understand Foch's success.

In the first place, Franchet d'Esperey
sent orders to the ioth Corps during the
afternoon to wheel quite sharply to the
east, and even to a little south of east,
threatening Baye. And he had already
lent the ist Corps beyond to Foch — that
is, he had given over to Foch the right to
command the movements of this corps.

This flank attack of the ioth Corps in
the course of 9th September, coupled with
the power of direct command now exer-
cised by Foch over the ist Corps, per-
mitted Foch to send that memorable
order to the 42nd Division upon which
such emphasis was laid in a preceding
page. As we have seen, the order to the
42nd Division came early in the morning,
for it was early in the morning that Foch
had been made acquainted with the in-
tention of his colleague d'Esperey to wheel
round the ist Corps, and also to hand him
over the command of the ioth Corps.
Foch knew early in the morning of 9th
September that he would have the ioth
Corps to use on his left, and at the same
time the pressure upon that left would be

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 269

relieved by the 1st Corps being swung
round to the east, threatening the Ger-
mans in Baye. But remember that all this
was only rendered possible by the deple-
tion of the German strength near Baye,
in itself the result of the general " leaning
westward " of the whole German line to
meet Maunoury's surprise attack.

That same evening — the evening of 9th
September — news must have reached the
general commanding the 5th Army that
Foch, thanks largely to his aid, had been
able to bring off his coup ; that the 42nd
Division in particular, and the 9th Army
as a whole, had triumphantly achieved
what we saw in our description of La
Fere Champenoise ; and that the battle,
though still in progress, was won.

Hence we can understand the order
of the day which General Franchet d'Es-
perey issued to the troops upon that
nightfall : how " upon the famous fields
of Montmirail and Vauchamps, they had,
like their sires, broken the enemy." But
there was this great difference between
the modern triumph and the old, that
not even Napoleon's miracle of 1814
could save the campaign ; his great

270 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

victory of Montmirail, tactically marvel-
lous, remained strategically barren. But

the Marne !

The Marne, now essentially decided in
this night between the 9th and 10th of
September (for during all those hours
Foch's 9th Corps and 42nd Division were
pouring through the " gap "), was a stra-
tegic decision of such vast importance as
perhaps only the remotely future historian
will be able to grasp entirely, but which,
in a manner still difficult and confused,
Europe has already begun to realize.

The Role of the Right Centre :
the \th Army.

The action of the 4th Army upon Foch's
right during those four great days is
peculiar. It refused to move in succes-
sive conformation to the fortunes of Foch
immediately to its left, or east. It stood
while all the rest of the line was in move-
ment. It held while all near it were re-
tiring ; and we must follow that strange
story of stubborn immobility if we are
clearly to see the whole line of battle.

The 4th Army was commanded, as we

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 271

have said, by Langle de Cary. It was of
normal size, consisting of seven divisions :
two divisions of the 17th, one division
(barely one in size, two in number) of
the 1 2th Corps (which last was com-
manded by General Roques, afterwards
Minister of War), two divisions of Colonial
troops — professional soldiers, re-enlisted
from the conscript army for the most part
— and the two divisions of the 2nd Corps
under General Jerard (all but one brigade).
It continued eastward the line which Foch
had originally occupied at the beginning
of his great action of La Fere Champe-
noise.

It stretched behind, and parallel to, the
course of, and half astraddle of, the river
Ornain. Facing the 4th Army were partly
the eastern or left wing of the Saxons,
and partly the right or western wing of
the Wurtemburgers — that is, portions of
the Illrd and IVth German Armies.

The Germans held Vitry, and were in
front of Sermaize, where they were soon
to be guilty of some of their most bestial
crimes. This book is not the place to
speak of these matters ; but when the
war is concluded the foul story of Ser-

272 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

maize will weigh more heavily upon the
German service, and prove more typical
of its character, than anything else, I
think, done upon French or Belgian soil.
For the purposes of strategical study we

rocu's •^TroudKt IT™ Corps

7rfiLes~

Trench 4$ 'Army
LANGL£de GWT

BHIENNE

Sketch 65.

must be content to remember that this
heap of ruins, filled with its innocent
dead, and still reeking with the worst and
most perverted of human actions, formed
the eastern extremity of the sector under
our observation in these pages.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 273

During Sunday, the 6th of September,
when the action opened here, the French
line lay from left to right as follows. The
17th Corps, with its two divisions, was in
the region of Huiron, and at Courdemange,
west of the Marne, and just south of
Vitry, continuing beyond it to the left
towards Foch's army, a division of cav-
alry. The 1 2th Corps, under General
Roques, which had been very badly hit
during the retreat, and was not of the
strength of a full division, lay south of
the railway and east of the Marne, run-
ning through Vauclerc, and crossing the
junction of Blemee. And the 2nd Corps
stretched up to Heiltz-le-Maurupt, a very
lovely village deep in orchards and fruit-
ful. It was a stage upon the march (in
peace times) for the young soldiers of the
frontier whenever they went to their fir-
ing-schools at the camp of Chalons, and
well remembered by many thousands from
the time of their youth. For it was the
pleasantest of the halting-stages on that
long road.

The headquarters of this 4th Army
were at Brienne when the action began.

Before following the movements of that
11. 18

274 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

action we must remember that this army
had upon the Meuse done best, perhaps,
of all the covering armies that had taken
original contact with the enemy. It was
actually victorious at the moment when
it received the order to take part in the
great retreat, and it is said that its com-
mander, seeing the temper of his troops,
asked whether it were not possible for
him to remain upon the north-east and
form the pivot that was actually afforded
later by Verdun. But the general plan
of the French Commander-in-chief de-
manded his retirement, and it was during
this retirement that General Roques' corps,
acting as rearguard, had suffered such
heavy loss.

On this Sunday, the 6th of September,
General Langle de Cary received, on the
defensive, like all the rest of the French
armies, the shock of the enemy. The
whole line stood that shock easily, the
17th Corps, its left wing, so far exceed-
ing the general plan as to thrust back
the XlXth Saxon Corps opposed to it,
and pursue it for some little distance.

But upon the next day, Monday, the
7th of September, very much larger forces

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 275

came up against Langle de Cary, and
these, combined with the beginning of
Foch's retirement upon his right, com-
pelled a slight displacement of the line.
No less than fourteen divisions struck
between Sermaize and the far side of
Vitry, the whole attack inclining towards
the south-west, just as the blow against

Sketch 66.

Foch inclined towards the south-east, both
being designed to break the French centre,
between La Fere Champenoise and Vitry.
It was at this moment that Kluck was
at last sure of being able to meet Maunoury
and perhaps to envelop him ; it was at
this moment that the German com-
manders had decided that an assault on

276 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the French centre was the master-stroke
dominating all the action ; and it was
at this moment, late in the same day,
the 7th, that the famous order was de-
livered from Vitry-le-Francois itself, tell-
ing the German soldiers in the centre that
everything depended upon the action of
the morrow.

These fourteen divisions, acting thus
upon the equivalent of no more than
seven divisions, compelled the 4th Army
to fall back. The Germans carried Ser-
maize, crossing the canal and the railway,
and forcing the right of Langle de Cary
back into the woods. All along the rest
of the line there was either just the
power to hold or the beginning of a re-
tirement.

The next day, Tuesday, the 8th, that
upon which Foch first felt the last pres-
sure beginning upon him, but had not yet
begun the last very serious retirement,
Langle de Cary still rather dangerously
maintained his line.

I say " rather dangerously," because he
must have feared that Foch would have
to retire next day, and then there would
open between his left and Foch's right a

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 277

bad hole right in the centre, and in face
of the strongest forces of the enemy.
Nevertheless, all the evening of that day,
Tuesday, the 8th of September, Langle
de Cary was still far forward, not much
south of the railway, only a mile or two
south of Sompuis. His men on the left
were actually advancing somewhat when
night fell, and on the right and the centre
he held his ground.

But the error of thus attempting to
stand forward while his neighbour was
certainly condemned to retire appeared
before dark. Just about sunset news came
of very considerable German columns
striking down upon the left of Langle de
Cary towards the two Trouant villages,
the Great and the Little Trouant — un-
happy hamlets in a deserted land. And
the cavalry forming the line between
Langle de Cary and Foch saw, from the
heights of the ridge and the camp of
Mailly, very heavy forces coming up to-
wards them from the north-west. Even
then Langle de Cary did not withdraw
his left, but brought two divisions, one
of the Colonials and one from the 2nd
Corps, up from his right to his left, bade

278 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

them cross the Marne and march west-
ward to parry this coming stroke.

The situation at this moment was that
of this sketch : —

Sermoize

Little Trcwxl9s^~L

GtTrouoitt~---?_

2?^

%**>j2k~

Sketch 67.

Next day, the 9th, the critical day of the
battle, still saw Langle de Cary .holding
his positions. I do not know what would
have been said by the historian of the
commander of this singular disposition if
things had gone ill in the centre, and if
the Battle of the Marne had fallen to the
enemy. But war is a game in which
hazard often passes for calculation, and
calculation for hazard, and no true appre-
ciation of so exceptional an attitude as
that of the 4th Army will be possible until
we have much more evidence before us.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 279

At any rate, during the early hours of
that same 9th of September, at the very
moment when Foch's right was bent right
back eastward of Semoine, and when,
therefore, so dangerous a dent was appear-
ing in the general French alignment,
Langle de Cary's left not only held its
own, but actually continued to force back
the Saxons in front of it. The tremendous
concentration of forces against the 4th
Army, so far from achieving its end, was
already — probably because that concen-
tration had involved congestion and mis-
management— leading to some confusion.
But the centre in front of Vitry, and the
line to the east of that town, were firmly
held by the Germans, and the battle still
swung even when, in the late afternoon,
just before sunset, the XXIIIrd German
Division, just in front of the extreme left of
Langle de Cary's army, began to show signs
of anxiety and disorder. Before evening it
was in full retreat. Why was there this
change ?

We know what had happened. Ten
miles off, to the west, Foch's stroke had
come off. These late afternoon hours of
the 9th had been filled with his murder-

280 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

ous flank attack upon the Prussian Guard.
The effect of La Fere Champenoise had
run along the line, and hence it was that
the Saxons opposite Langle de Cary were
now, at nightfall of Wednesday, 9th Sep-
tember, in confusion and beginning to
retire. It was Foch's stroke which had
affected the enemy's troops in front of
the extreme left of Langle de Cary, and
that night rout was confounded with the
break-up of the Guard and of the re-
maining Saxons to the west.

Such, briefly, is the singular history of
the 4th Army during those days : difficult
to explain as part of the general action ;
hazardous, apparently, and almost a gamble
if we consider what Foch was risking upon
the left, and by how narrow a margin his
stroke of genius achieved its end. But,
as events turned out, the 4th Army, claim-
ing as it did so great a record, refusing to
retire, took part in what was now to be a
triumphant advance, with the boast that
during the Marne it alone had " con-
formed to no situation, but had fought
its own hand." Rightly or wrongly, it
had pinned a vastly superior but vastly
worse-managed enemy, and, as Foch was

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 281

on its left, it suffered no permanent isola-
tion. But it was a great hazard.

NOTE.

It is a curious thing that even to this day one can-
not be absolutely certain upon so simple a point as the
numbering of Foch's army, and it is typical of all the
official reticence which the French are determined to
maintain upon their military affairs until the campaign
is decided.

There is no doubt about the official name, which
appears in innumerable dispatches and documents,
private and public : Foch's army was called the 9th
and hardly ever anything but the 9th.

But these words " hardly ever " are in themselves a
curious phrase to have to put down upon such a matter.
Now and then, even in documents really official, you
find Foch's army called the 7th : you very often get
the expression "the 7th army" in private letters, and
in non-official descriptions of the battle. I have before
me as I write, amongst other documents, one most
interesting little jotted note, the writer of which (a man
personally acquainted with the whole campaign and
furnishing a private memoir upon it) even hints that
the expression " the 9th " is a mere sifp of the pen.
The words he uses are: "The 7th Army, which General
Sir John French, the Field-Marshal, alludes to in his
dispatches as the 9th." The writer of that note appa-
rently imagines that General Sir John French wrote a
o for a 7, or mistook a French 7 for a 9, or even that he
himself wrote the figure 7 and that it was transcribed 9.
In support of this use of the denomination the " 7th
Army' for Foch's you have the obvious truth that this
army was in order of time of formation the 7th, and that,
equally in order of time, you could not get more than
seven armies in. There is no room for a 9th, and no
trace apparently anywhere (as yet) of an 8th. After
all, we know the French order. There was (1) the

282 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

Covering Body, or " Operating Forward Mass," which
took the first shock of the invasion ; and (2) the " Mass
of Manoeuvre." The covering body which was engaged
in the first shocks against the Germans, and which
suffered the great strategic retreat, consisted of the 1st,
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th French Armies ; all duly aligned
from the Swiss frontier to the extreme left ; all numbered
exactly in order from south to north and continued by
the British contingent, which is the last of the series.

Then, when the French Commander-in-Chief formed
his first new army out of the " Mass of Manoeuvre " it was
logically enough called the 6th, and brought up, as we
know, still farther to the left beyond the British con-
tingent. At very nearly the same time another army is
made up out of the " Mass of Manoeuvre," and put under
the command of Foch ; this, therefore, should logically
be the 7th. With this organization the French line was
complete. Its formations had reached (for the moment)
their maximum.

Where, then, do we get the figure 9 ? If there was no
8th Army, how can one get a 9th ? Still more, how can
one get a 9th if we can only get it at the expense of
presupposing not only an 8th which does not exist, but
also supposes a hypothetical 7th, which is in reality
the 9th ?

It is a puzzle I shall not pretend to solve. I may be
making some elementary error of ignorance, and perhaps
I shall receive information which will enable me to delete
this note before my book goes to press. The denomina-
tion " 9th Army " may have been settled with the
deliberate object of deceiving the enemy, or it may be
due to something more simple and more obvious which
has escaped me. I only know at the moment of writing
— after twenty months of puzzle — that the army is
nearly always officially called the 9th, but is sometimes
(even officially) called the 7th ; that by every indication
of common sense and arithmetic it ought to be the 7th ;
and there I must leave it.

V.

The Stationary Right Wing.

The Role of the Third Army under Sarrail.

The last of the armies aligned between
Paris and Verdun — that upon the east or
Verdun end — was the 3rd Army, now
(though not in the first days of the war)
under the command of General Sarrail.
It must be distinguished from the forces
which were actually round Verdun itself,
and were protecting that singular " horn "
in the French dispositions — a resisting
projection as necessary to the whole plan
as was the resisting fortified zone of Paris
at the other end of the line.

The army of Sarrail, though bound to
keep in touch with the great horseshoe of
field defences covering Verdun, was of in-
dependent action ; and it looks a little as
though it had been expected, when the
action of the Marne developed, to come
on in flank, press upon the Crown Prince's

284 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

army (the German Vth Army) , which was
opposed to it, and help to increase the
confusion of the enemy when once he
should be compelled to retire.

If this was the role set down for Sar-
raiPs force, it was unable to play its full
part. If, on the other hand, the 3rd Army
was only expected to hold against the
pressure of the Crown Prince while all the
active work was being done elsewhere,
then the 3rd Army amply fulfilled its
function. It had already done something
of capital importance when, during the
retreat, it had covered and saved Verdun ;
for by so doing it had compelled the
German advance to take that curved,
" sagging " form which gave half its value
to Maunoury's unexpected onslaught in
flank.

Sarrail's army during these four days,
the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of September,
gained and lost such little ground, and
had, though an important yet such a
negative effect on the whole battle, that
our examination of its movements can be
brief.

It consisted, two or three days before
the battle opened, of nine divisions — six

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 285

divisions in line (with a brigade added),
and three divisions behind in reserve,
using as well the regulation division of
cavalry which accompanied each of these
armies. These eight divisions were thus
organized : — The six divisions were the
4th, 5th, and 6th Army Corps. Two of
them formed the 4th Corps, two the 5th,
and two the 6th. But it did not main-
tain that strength. It was used as a reser-
voir for other fields to draw upon, because
its position made movement on its own
account immaterial to victory.

The whole story of this army is a sort
of little model of the strategy that won
the Marne. During the great retreat it
is the pivot, and therefore has the least
distance to retire. It is therefore less
fatigued, and forms a good " reservoir "
from which to draw men, just before the
battle, to swell the " Mass of Manoeuvre."

It is on the east, and its original strength
will, therefore, deceive the enemy, in-
creasing his erroneous idea that the French
were massed on the east and would be
weak on the west. But the west will be
strengthened — among other ways — by the
secret withdrawal thither just as the battle

286 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

opens, and even during the battle, of troops
from the 3rd Army.

The forces secretly withdrawn from it
are swung round by rail behind the re-
treating covering line to the centre and
west with extraordinary rapidity and skill.
The secrecy and speed with which the
French used their railways was a mark
of all this time.

Finally, the moment for ending the re-
treat and for taking the counter-offensive
is so clearly foreseen that the forces bor-
rowed from Sarrail for use by Maunoury
and Foch when the counter-stroke is
given are borrowed actually during the
retreat, and while the enemy thinks that
he is pursuing a mere flight. The 4th
Corps is drawn off (to swell Maunoury 's
army) as early as the 4th of September,
and so is the 42nd Division, which formed
one-half of the 6th Corps, which we later
find with Foch, and which, it will be re-
membered, decided La Fere Champenoise.

The three reserve divisions lying be-
hind the line were the 65th, the 67th,
and 75th ; and the division of cavalry
which Sarrail had available was the 7th
division.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 287

The line along which these forces were
deployed is a simple one to follow upon
the map. It ran straight from Revigny
(which is called " Revigny of the Cows,"
and is a wealthy little market town) to
Souilly. It faced, therefore, almost exactly
north-west, and everywhere looked at the
great bulk of the Argonne forest, the out-
skirts of which stretched up to its line.

In that Forest of the Argonne opposite
Sarrail was the Crown Prince, having
under his command no less than five corps,
with a division of cavalry. This army of
the Crown Prince, the Vth German Army,
was composed of (at least) the Vth, XHIth,
and XVIth Active Corps, and the Vth and
Vlth Reserve Corps. So many were actu-
ally identified. It was very much more
numerous, therefore, than the French 3rd
Army opposed to it, numbering as it did at
least ten divisions, with perhaps two extra
divisions as well additional to the active
corps. The reason that the Crown Prince's
army was thus exaggeratedly strong was
the German error as to the disposition of
the French. The exaggeration proceeded
from the error that the French had mainly
massed towards the east — a fundamental

288 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

misjudgment which, as we have seen,
largely explains the whole Battle of the
Marne. This battle turning as it did
upon the surprise in the west and the
sharp tactical move of Foch in the centre,
so huge a host right up here in the east
under the Crown Prince was wasted.

Indeed, the Crown Prince's army was
so large that it had not full room to
deploy. His three active corps (the Vlth,
XHIth, and XVI th) lay right in front of
Sarrail : the Vlth just on the boundary
of the department, in front of the big
Belval pond and through the Forest of
Belloue ; the XHIth in front of Triau-
court ; and the XVIth astraddle of the
upper valley of the Aire, just out of the
forest. The two other corps — the Vlth
Reserve and the Vth — were spread out in
front of the defence of Verdun, and did
not concern Sarrail's action.

I have said that we have in the 3rd
French Army of Sarrail excellent proof
(if history should demand such) of the
fact that Joffre's great retreat was strategic
and designed. Sarrail, before taking up
these positions, and while in the act of
retiring upon the extreme French right

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 289

of the retirement, did, I will not say
" what he chose," but all that was needed
to hold and shepherd the Crown Prince's

VjWQrps^

CROWN TRIKCFS
Command

3^Army
SARRAIL

Ttevwny •
cjdxwches

s 7*fiUs to

Sketch 68.

force. Thus in the early days of that

same week, three or four days before the

Marne, on the 1st and 2nd of September

-at the very moment when the sixteen

11

19

2Qo A GENERAL SKETCH OF

German divisions under their Emperor's
eye were in the thick of the Grand Cou-
ronne — the French 3rd Army, which had
then retired to about the level of Mont-
faucon, had defeated at its leisure an attack
of two of the Crown Prince's corps, and
even pursued one of them back over the
Meuse, giving the retreating army ample
time to fall back unmolested. Sarrail
himself had been put in command just
at the end of its retirement ; and so secure
did the French General-in-Chief feel with
regard to his right wing here, in spite of
the enormous masses the Crown Prince
commanded, that he borrowed men from
this 3rd Army not only to strengthen
Foch before the Battle of the Marne, but
even to strengthen the extreme left wing
under Maunoury.

The reader is already acquainted with
the fact that the 4th Corps of the French
Army appeared upon the field of the
Ourcq on the 7th of September. Just
before the Battle of the Marne opened
this 4th Corps was taken, as we have
seen, from Sarrail's command, and sent
by train right round westward for 120
miles, appearing after an interval of less

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 291

than forty-eight hours upon the extreme
left wing.

At this point it may be well to admit a
short digression upon the use made by
the French of their railways in this cam-
paign.

The public comprehension in this coun-
try— and, indeed, pretty nearly through-
out the world — of all the campaign is
largely affected by the contrasting policies
of silence upon the one side and of often
exaggerated publicity upon the other which
distinguish the French and the German
service respectively. The Germans never
hesitate to tell us from what part of the
empire troops come which achieve such
and such a feat, whether that feat be real
or imaginary. We were at once informed,
in rather inflated language, that the troops
which took the shock in Champagne in
the early part of 191 5 were "our valiant
Rhinelanders." A year later, in the at-
tack on Verdun, the regiment that pene-
trated to the abandoned fort of Douau-
mont was given us by Berlin (in the
curious telegram which claimed that act)
as ' a conquest of the armoured fort

292 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

which is the north-eastern corner-stone
of the defence of the fortress by the
brave 24th Brandenburg Regiment." The
failure to carry the Mort Homme four
weeks later was not only trumpeted as a
success, but we were loudly informed
that the supposed capture of that hill
had been " the triumph of a Silesian divi-
sion." The abandoned fort of Vaux, when
it was not reached by the enemy, was simi-
larly captured by them upon paper, and
the glory duly accredited to the two re-
serve regiments from Posen. In general,
throughout the campaign, it has been the
German policy to hearten public opinion
at home and to excite neutral imagination
by this sort of picturesque detail.

The French, upon the other hand,
maintain for months after any event a
complete silence upon the units taking
part in the action. Their profoundly
rooted corporate discipline permits the
public to remain in complete ignorance,
and the soldiers to defer the fame which
in older wars would have been their im-
mediate reward.

These contrasting characters are ap-
parent in every other matter. Thus the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 293

Germans publish lists of casualties incom-
plete, indeed, but detailed. They even
went so far, in the earlier part of the cam-
paign, as to tell us where and when each
casualty noted occurred ; so that we could,
with the greatest ease, identify the various
units and their movements. This piece of
folly they later abandoned ; but that they
should ever have committed it at all, is a
singular proof of the strength of routine
in the Prussian service, and of the political
necessities to which its commanders must
conform.

Now, the same contrast is observable
with regard to the use of railways in war.

The Germans throughout the whole of
the great campaign have published broad-
cast, and with the strongest expressions
of self-satisfaction, their use of the rail-
way in transforming the modern mobility
of men. American journalists in particular
have been favoured with I know not what
extravagances, designed for repetition in
their neutral press ; and one unfortunate
scribe — common so far as his work goes
to this country and to the United States
— has written wildly of Prussia's moving
one million men in forty-eight hours from

294 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the Eastern to the Western frontiers of
the enemy !

The effect of this sort of boasting and
publicity is not negligible. It has had
upon the opinion of neutrals and of
civilians, after more than a year of war,
the result that most neutrals, and even
many civilians in belligerent countries,
have come to imagine a special aptitude
in the Germans for this very straight-
forward business of moving troops by
rail.

In point of fact, the Germans have
in this as in every other matter been
methodical, painstaking, and either rather
slow, or, when pressed, confused. Their
movements of men by rail, measured in
units, mileage, and time, have been very
well worked out, but have shown no
special efficiency — certainly no special
speed — and have been a little less de-
veloped than those of the Italians and
the French. They have had a great
deal more of such business, because they
were fighting upon two fronts. But each
individual example of it has been at a
rate never superior to, and usually slightly
inferior to, that of their rivals. No move-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 295

ment of German troops which we can
trace is comparable for exactitude and
rapidity to the transference of the whole
British contingent from the Aisne to
Flanders in the autumn of 1914. And
there has not been one example of any
large transference of German troops dur-
ing the course of an action and behind
the front of it comparable to this swing-
ing of 160 French troop trains from the
extreme east to the extreme west of the
line just before and actually during the
Battle of the Marne.

It is well to bear these rather simple
and obvious points in mind, lest we
should find ourselves asking, as so many
bewildered men have asked in the course
of this great war, how it is that the enemy
— if to the advantage of immensely superior
numbers be added superior technical effi-
ciency in organization and handling of
machines — managed to get beaten at the
very outset by the greatly inferior forces
opposed to him, and driven to entrench-
ments after less than a month of open
war in France.

From this digression upon a point not
unimportant, I will return to the situa-

296 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

tion of Sarrail's army at the moment when
the battle opened.

Deprived of half the 6th Corps (the
42nd Division, which had gone to Foch)
and of the whole of the 4th, Sarrail's

S Miles /o

Sommaim &W
BeUouex1'

r<?TrenchArmy
"SAXXAIL'S Command

Sketch 69.

diminished army was deployed as we see
it on Sketch 69.

His division of cavalry was used, like
all the others in the long line, to fill the
gap and form a link between his left and
his neighbour's right. It was spread out
along the railway between Revigny and

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 297

Maurupt, in the fertile meadows that
here bound the upper stream of the
Ornain.

Next came all along in front of the
Forest of Belloue the two divisions of
the 5th Corps to beyond Villotte. What
was left of the 6th Corps, now the 42nd
Division, had gone over to Foch — to wit,
one division and a brigade — and lay very
thinly spread from near Sommaisne (the
village at the sources of the Aisne River)
to near Souilly. The three divisions of
reserve were spread out behind this front
line occupied by the 6th Corps, passing
through Rembercourt and Chaumont, and
so up the Souilly road.

In the night before the opening of the
battle — that is, in the evening of Satur-
day, the 5th of September — the Crown
Prince, who believed the French retreat
to be still in full swing, issued orders for
a general advance upon the morrow ; in
which orders were included the singular
phrase, that his troops were not " to
advance towards " but to " take " Bar-
le-Duc. At about seven o'clock of the
morning of Sunday, the 6th, the Germans
advanced with that object in view.

298 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

The shock struck the French army in
line, Sarrail having received, with all the
other generals, Joffre's famous message
that the morrow was to see the end of
the retirement and the beginning of the
counter-offensive. The pressure of the
Crown Prince's army during the whole
of that Sunday, 6th September, was held
all along the northern part of the French
line, and was successful only upon the
extreme left, where the Germans entered
Revigny before darkness fell.

By that night the French line passed
through Vassincourt up to Villotte on
its left — that is, the two divisions of the
5th Corps had fallen back over a sector
three miles broad at its extremity, and
pivoting upon Villotte. It had yielded to
the pressure of the Vlth German Corps,
and Bar-le-Duc was no more than about
six miles behind its line. Beyond Vil-
lotte, all the way from that village north-
ward, it either maintained its original
positions or slightly advanced, the last
units up to the north being three or four
miles in front of Souilly.

The next day, Monday, the 7th, saw
no further German successes. There did,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 299

indeed, begin upon that day a very im-
portant movement of the Germans far
away eastward in the Woevre behind Sar-
rail, which I will deal with in its place,
and which I will beg the reader to bear
in mind until the time for describing it
shall come.

STRA-NTZ'S
attack from the
rear of the
P±\7i4euse armies

to

20 Miles

^

TOUL

Sketch 70.

Seeing how the horn of Verdun was
thrust northward, a German force from
Lorraine was making an attempt to force
the Meuse behind Sarrail at A, and, as
we shall see later, they very nearly suc-
ceeded. But the main front, facing the
Crown Prince, stood firm, in spite of a

300 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

certain accession of strength to the enemy's
already greatly superior forces, which ac-
cession of strength was due to the arrival
upon the line of certain units hitherto to
the rear of the German march. Sarrail,
though thus still holding his own, was
very weak in men for such an effort ; and
it was of great service to him when, just
before dark upon that Monday, the 7th,
the 15th Corps began to disentrain in
his neighbourhood, having been sent up
to reinforce him. I have never been able
to find from what direction it was drawn,
but it was essentially a part of that " Mass
of Manoeuvre," the flinging of which into
the action when it was developed was,
as we have seen, the essential of French
strategy.

This reinforcement on the morning of
the 8th was massed for the greater part
against the weakening and imperilled left
wing in front of Revigny, and lined up
round Contrisson along the canal. By
the night of the 8th this reinforcement
had recovered the greater part of the
ground lost upon the day before round
Revigny ; but they found in that un-
happy little town marks of deliberate

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 301

savagery — less abominable than the crimes
of Sermaize, but yet of a sort unknown
hitherto in modern war.

The last of the four days, the 9th, the
critical day for all the other armies — its
close the moment of victory for Foch —
had not for Sarrail and the 3rd Army
any great development. The rout of the
German centre had not by night time
affected the Crown Prince's army, and
the only place where this large German
force snowed any sensible weakness was
in the centre, where there seems to have
been a hitch in munitionment ; for the
German fire became singularly weak at
one moment of the action.

But while Sarrail thus held upon his
front, his rear — the farther side of the
horn of Verdun, the defence of which
was the Meuse and the forts upon the
heights beyond it — had been in increasing
peril.

It had occurred to the enemy — too late,
of course — that if he could not break the
main front of Sarrail, he could at least
threaten him in the rear. The singular
conformation of the line lent itself to such
a threat. Sarrail's rear was guarded only

302 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

by the line of forts along the Meuse.
There would be few troops present. The
permanent works would fall to the new
siege train — all the last three weeks had
shown that. The attempt was made.
Troyon Fort was bombarded, and nearly
succumbed. But the stroke was deliv-
ered as a German afterthought four days
too late; and before it had succeeded,
the retreat from the Marne had begun,
and the attempt was abandoned. Troyon
was relieved upon the nth.

THE AISNE AND AFTER.

WE have seen that the ioth of Sep-
tember (Thursday) was filled with
the general retreat of all the Ger-
man line from the Argonne to the Ourcq.
The morrow, the nth, saw that retreat
continued. Its first rally appeared at the
close of the third day.

Upon the evening of Saturday, the 12th,
the end of the third day of the pursuit,
Maunoury's right had already come in
front of Soissons ; his left was in the
Forest of Compiegne.

It was a day of cold, fine rain through-
out the morning, turning to a regular
downpour in the afternoon, and as the
sun declined a strong wind began to
blow. In such weather the German troops
in Compiegne itself defiled endlessly out
through the northern gate.

o

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 305

We have a vivid picture from an eye-
witness of that nightly procession : The
guardians of the palace watching through
the steaming panes file upon file of gray
figures tramping off in the retreat. On
into the night that procession continued
endlessly. It was nine o'clock when the
last officer, appearing suddenly before the
curator, threw down upon the floor the
great keys which had been handed to him
so recently, cried angrily, " There are
your keys," and departed. It was ten
o'clock when a formidable explosion east
and north of the city announced the de-
struction of the temporary bridge which
the enemy had thrown across the river,
and the complete evacuation of the dis-
trict. Far off to the east and to the right
that same afternoon and evening the guns
were answering each other upon the hill
south of Soissons. With the first light of
the morrow, the Sunday, the crossing of
the Aisne began. The bridges had, of
course, all fallen, and the larger German
pieces lining the heights beyond deluged
the valley with shell. It was the begin-
ning of that war of positions which was

so rapidly to develop in the next few days,
a. 20

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 307

The extremity of the German line stood
in a singularly united landscape of a
simple type. The Aisne, a narrow but
deep river, slow in stream, flows through
a flat valley from Berry-au-Bac to Com-
piegne, which has upon either side similar
heights, plateaus descending sharply in
escarpments on to the level of the river
meadows. It was upon the farther north-
ern heights that the enemy had prepared
to stand.

At Vic, at Fontenoy, and at other
points the French threw across their pon-
toons, and one detachment precariously
bridged the water in front of Soissons,
crossing upon the ruined girders of the
narrow gauge railway, and, once the cross-
ing was effected, confirming the rapidly-
constructed wooden bridge behind them.
Perhaps half of Maunoury's force was on
the northern bank before the end of that
Sunday, 13th September, and preparing
for the assault of the northern heights
upon the morrow.

Unfortunately, a swift and exactly syn-
chronized advance, which alone (as was
later discovered) offered any hope of
preventing the Germans from digging in

3o8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

thoroughly upon the heights, was not
achieved. For to the right of Maunoury
the Aisne held up the British contingent.

Field- Marshal Sir John French's com-
mand stretched from the immediate neigh-
bourhood of Soissons eastward as far as
Bourg, beyond Pont d'Arcy. Its right,
therefore, had before it the considerable
flat indentation or ravine at A which runs
up north into the hills from Pont d'Arcy
and Bourg, and is the depression used by
the canal. Its left immediately faced a
point where the northern escarpment
comes down close to the stream of the
Aisne. Its centre, at the point where the
Vesle falls into that river facing Conde,
had that escarpment rising abruptly from
the very banks and ground by the work
called the Fort of Conde.

The command was deployed in numer-
ical order from east to west, the 3rd Corps
nearest Soissons, the 2nd in the centre,
opposite Conde, the 1st on the extreme
right, and all three found upon that Sun-
day the obstacle of the Aisne extremely
serious. The river was in flood after these
two days of continuous rain, and all day
the attempts to cross near Soissons failed.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 309

At Venizel, however, the road bridge was
not completely destroyed. It was partly
mended, sufficient to carry guns. A pon-
toon bridge was constructed side by side
with it, and the 4th Division got over.
The centre, in front of Conde, was in a
worse case. Its left effected crossings by
means of rafts in the neighbourhood of
Missy, but the bridge of Conde under its
strong work continued firmly held by the
enemy. It was held, indeed, for some days
further, and they could not be driven
out. One battalion of the Guards effected
a crossing at Chavonne. The right got
over partly along the ruined but remain-
ing girders of the bridge at Pont d'Arcy,
partly by the viaduct which carries the
canal east of this point across the Aisne.

The position, therefore, by that Sun-
day evening was that the left of the whole
line, the French 6th Army, was fairly well
established beyond the Aisne ; but the
more difficult task of the British con-
tingent had not been entirely accom-
plished. Roughly, the two wings were
across, while the centre was held back
by the continued German occupation of
Conde and its bridge.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 311

It was upon the next day, Monday, the
14th, that, so far as this imperfect align-
ment permitted, the assault upon the
German entrenched line upon the heights
north of the Aisne was delivered ; and
upon that same day the whole of the
German positions from Compiegne right
away eastward to the Argonne, close upon
one hundred miles, were attacked by all
those bodies which four or five days be-
fore had triumphed at the Marne.

Maunoury was pushing up and carry-
ing Autreche and Nouvron in his centre,
and had nearly reached Nampcel, to the
left. The British had reached many ad-
vance points upon the ridge in front of
them, and, at their farthest limit, Troyon,
almost on the height of the ridge.

Farther east Esperey and the 5th Army,
having crossed the Aisne above the Eng-
lish, were striking at the bold cape of
Craonne ; and in all the open, mournful
country of the Champagne the 9th Army
under Foch, the 4th under Langle, had
touched and been checked by the German
entrenched line. That line ran from the
Aisne parallel with the Suippe in such
fashion as to cover the lateral communi-

3i2 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

cation afforded by the railway from Bazan-
court to the Argonne, an artery essential
to the linking up of the German centre
with the Crown Prince's army. To reach
that railway was the object of all the
central French advance. It was not at-
tained. Twenty months were to pass,
and still to see that line in the hands of
the enemy. The 4th Army went no
farther than Souain. Foch and the 5th
Army, linked up north of Rheims, did
not reach that railway.

The whole of that Monday, the 14th,
the German line across the Champagne
received and checked the advance of the
French centre opposed to it ; and before
night it was apparent that even upon
the left, where Maunoury had achieved
so considerable an advance, the main
German defensive position was still in
front of him upon the height of the ridge,
and that what had been a general retire-
ment and a general pursuit was changing
in character.

It was upon the 15th and the 16th that
this modification of the campaign — the
true conclusion to the Battle of the Marne
— became apparent, first upon the left,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 313

and gradually along the line eastward to
the Argonne. For upon the 15th, the
Tuesday, the Germans developed against
Maunoury a sustained and vigorous
counter-offensive, which drove him back
towards the river ; upon the 16th Esperey,
with his 5th Army, had found it impossible
to storm the height of Craonne. Foch was
back nearer to Rheims, and had lost the

— — — — German Line on &e evening of
Wednesday Sep?. /6^ when dAad counter
affiicied andtfte 7're.icApursud'ceased

20 Miles so

Sketch 74.

height of Brimont. What was worse,
he was losing the heights of Nogent
l'Abbesse, just east of Rheims, at a range
of only 7,000 yards from the centre of
the town, whence the accurate delivery of
heavy shell laid the city and the capital
at the mercy of the German guns. The
4th Army, to the east beyond, could move
no farther. The German line securely
covered the Bazancourt-Argonne railway,

314 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

and the whole of that immense move-
ment between the Oise and the Argonne
had come to a halt.

It was upon the evening of this Wed-
nesday, 1 6th September, that the French
Commander-in-Chief began to change the
plan of the attack. The hope of con-
tinuing a war of movement could no
longer be held. For many days to come,
especially on the heights above the Aisne,
attack was to succeed attack against the
entrenched German line. But the con-
tinued enemy retreat, actively pursued,
which the first days had promised, was
at an end, and there had appeared for
the first time in history that phenomenon
only possible to millions in arms, and
those arms the arms of a modern defen-
sive— the entrenched position covering half
a Continent, and forming a wall not to be
turned upon either flank.

Here I must beg the reader to pause
and consider the new character the war
was to take for so many months.

From this moment, the 16th of Sep-
tember, when the Allies discovered that
the enemy's digging himself in destroyed

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 315

all chance of direct forward movement
in the field, and when this discovery had
begun to produce the attempts to turn
the enemy's line, there begins that system
of immobile trench warfare which for
many months characterized all the war
in the West.

Its chief effect upon opinion is the false
conception of a " stalemate." The pro-
found action of delay upon the psychology
especially of the civilian public among the
Allies is, perhaps, the chief point of in-
terest connected with it, and will chiefly
occupy the future historian who shall
analyze the consequences of this long
check to movement in the West. But
it is not germane to this book, which is
only concerned with the history of the
Marne and its immediate sequel.

What does concern me here is the dis-
sipation of a very general error into which
the present writer fell, in common with
most others, when this novel development
first appeared.

That error is the conception that this
new phase was part of a deliberate
plan already established in the enemy's
mind.

316 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

To entertain such an error would be,
as subsequent study and evidence have
proved, to misunderstand the nature of
the war and the psychology of the oppos-
ing belligerents.

To speak in the most general terms,
there are two great departments of error
to which military history is prone.

The combatant, vividly recollecting the
violence and chaos around him, within
the narrow horizon of his individual view,
belittles plan, organization, and foresight
upon the part of commanders.

The student of war, writing his account
of an action or a campaign long com-
pleted, and surveying it as a whole, and
with the aid of documents and maps,
tends, equally inevitably, to exaggerate
the element of foresight, intelligence, and
plan, and to underestimate that chance
which is a function of the confusion of
human struggle. The greatest of the
French commanders, to whom we owe
the triumph of the Marne, is reported
to have replied to one who asked him
what his action had been upon a critical
occasion : " Hazards often pass for cal-
culation." The irony of such a criticism

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 317

applied to one's own success is very
typical of the French mind.

Each of these errors needs correction.
The combatant, even he of the highest
grade and the most comprehensive view,
will always lay stress upon the enormous
element of chance, of the unexpected and
of the unlooked-for development ; and if
you consider the isolated epigrams, the
obiter dicta of the great commanders, you
will find them repeatedly hinting at or
declaring that their very victories were
thus achieved in spite of them. Their
defeats they will nearly always ascribe to
this factor of uncalculated disturbance.

The immortal work of Napier, perhaps
the greatest of military histories, and,
moreover, the study of a campaign pro-
ceeding from the pen of one who fought
throughout its progress, is visibly anxious
throughout to guard against an exaggera-
tion upon this side ; but even so Napier,
who saw with his own eye and felt with
his own body the crash and rush of
battle, does not entirely escape the error.
Read, for example, his marvellous syn-
thesis of Corunna, that miracle of the
British infantry, and you will hardly dis-

3i8 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

cover how much was due to Moore's
typically national and English eye for a
defensive position.*

But that other error which the student
makes is far more formidable, and of a far
worse effect upon history, because for
one combatant who has related a military
event we have a dozen writers who have
presented it without active experience,
and whose minds have been over-influ-
enced by the tendency of the intelligence
to exaggerate its own effect upon human
affairs.

The trench warfare was certainly not
foreseen by the Allies. As certainly it
was not foreseen by the enemy. He had
prepared nothing for it. His just ap-
preciation of the value of machine guns,
and his initial overwhelming superiority
therein, was based, as we know well
from his manoeuvres and from many years
of his orders, upon the idea that the
machine gun would be invaluable in the

* I say " typically national and English," and I
could support this phrase with a hundred examples.
Consider any one of Wellington's positions from Tala-
veras to Waterloo ; hundreds of years before there is
the example of Crecy, and between the two innumerable
subjects supporting such a thesis.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 319

check of local counter-offensives, and even
in the prosecution of rapid attack. Its
value for permanent defence he seized
when he was constrained to that per-
manent defence. It is greatly to his
credit that he should so rapidly have ap-
preciated the new conditions. But he did
not plan them. The German was the
superior of the Frenchman and of the
Englishman in the first design of trenches.
The Allies learnt from, copied, and ulti-
mately surpassed the German in this art.
But that he had foreseen the necessity of
such a vast system, that he had imagined
the war ever capable of turning to a
clinch of immobile positions, 500 miles
in length from the Swiss mountains to
the sea, there is not only no evidence to
show, but conclusive evidence against.
All his plan was for a rapid offensive, in
which he was morally certain of imme-
diate and overwhelming success. Acci-
dent and circumstance external to his
design were his tutors in this matter.
The lesson was not learnt before 1914.
It only began to be learnt in the autumn
of that year, and during the actual prog-
ress of the campaign. His vast accumu-

320 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

lation of heavy artillery he had prepared
wisely for the reduction of limited per-
manent works, which he rightly judged
would fall to the modern siege train, but
unzvisely for use in active operations of
movement wherein he wrongly conceived
that this superiority would, under modern
conditions, outweigh the comparative im-
mobility of forces designed to reliance
upon heavy guns.

When trench warfare was established
his position of a superiority in this arm
was invaluable to him during all the early
period in which the Allies could not de-
liver one shell of large calibre to his
twenty. But he had prepared his great
pieces and their munitionment for no
such object. He had prepared them for
use in the field, and believed them con-
sonant to a rapid advance. How wrong
he was here, his failure to surround any
one of the Russian armies during the
great Eastern offensive in 191 5, and his
earlier failure at the Grand Couronne,
his failure at the centre of the Marne
and with the 1st Army, and later at
Verdun, sufficiently prove. His great
pieces were, indeed, far more mobile than

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 321

they could have been before the advent
of petrol traction, but they still cramped
his movements. The bringing up of the
pieces themselves, and still more the
bringing up of their exceedingly heavy
munitionment, imposed upon him time
after time delays which prevented the
carrying through of an offensive.

The trench warfare which was estab-
lished in this third week of September
1 914, and which rapidly developed until
it became for months the normal type
upon all the Western front, was imposed
upon the Germans by their defeat, and,
so far from being a complete system,
organized and thought out before the
outbreak of war, nearly all its features
developed as novelties in the course of
the winter 19 14-15, while continual addi-
tions and further novelties were imposed
upon the enemy by necessity as the cam-
paign proceeded. We must, therefore,
conceive of the new conditions as some-
thing of a surprise to either party in
the conflict : an unexpected development
more quickly appreciated by the German
because it was to his advantage to study

and extend a defensive system to which
11. 21

322 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

he found himself reluctantly constrained ;
less rapidly grasped by the Allies because
they still continued, though the thing
was now beyond their power, to desire a
prolongation of that successful counter-
offensive initiated by the victory of the
Marne.

That almost inevitable tendency by
which we see the difficulties of our own
side in war, and forget the correspond-
ing difficulties of the opponent, led opin-
ion among the Allies to a serious over-
estimate of the enemy's calculations in
the matter of defensive war. Armies
flushed with victory, and proceeding
rapidly from the Marne to the Aisne in
pursuit of a partly disorganized and
thoroughly defeated opponent who was
still greatly their superior in numbers,
were checked. The check bewildered and
disappointed the expectant victors, and it
was natural and fatal that such a dis-
appointment should conjure up visions
of yet another superiority in foresight
upon the part of the foe.

But if we put ourselves in the position
of the German Higher Command we
shall see things in a very different light.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 323

Here was a General Staff which had for
forty years planned and perfected aggres-
sive war. It knew that it could fall upon
the West — where its opponents had long
been concerned with a thousand civic
activities apart from military organiza-
tion, and had of late years even neglected
this department of the State — with every
moral and material advantage. It knew
that in the supreme factor of numbers
this opponent was not comparable to it-
self. It took for granted — and there was
no violent exaggeration in such a view —
that complete victory would be achieved
immediately. Every order given to the
German troops during the advance amply
and conclusively proves this. The whole
nature of the advance proves it. The last
commands, so shockingly ironical in the
light of what followed, prove it, if it were
necessary, still better. Remember that
naive and simple order from the Crown
Prince's Staff issued upon the evening of
the 5th of September, presupposing an
immediate entry into Bar-le-Duc.

A command in this mood finds itself,
and is stupefied to find itself, caught,
held, hurled back, and at last pinned by

324 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

those inferior forces which, not a week
before, it had regarded as a mere prey.
That the defeated party in such a catas-
trophe should produce and develop a
tenacious defensive, should save what it
could and should cling to the first oppor-
tunity for a halt, is no more than the
crude necessity of its position. That it
should have foreseen and prepared for it
there is neither evidence nor probability.

Trenches were, indeed, dug upon the
Aisne position by troops still in the rear
after the first news of the Marne was
appreciated by the German command —
but not before. The defensive positions
which checked the Allies were positions
which had the advantage of three days'
preparation. They were not positions
prepared of long date in the bureaus of
a War Office.

If yet more proof were required for
what is now so clear, it would be afforded
by the fact that much the greater part of
the line between the plateau of Craonne
and the Forest of Argonne, which stood
unchanged by even so much as a few
yards for nearly twelve months up to the
great French offensive in September 191 5,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 325

was not the line established immediately
after the Marne, but a new line estab-
lished by a slight German offensive under-
taken after the first rally.

It is even more conclusive to note that
the long, sinuous line from the corner by
Noyon to the North Sea was established
in the mere accidents of combat, and did
not settle down to a permanent form until
months of undecided movement back and
forth had elapsed. The French use for
the whole affair an excellent metaphor.
They speak of a line " crystallizing,"
comparing the fluid movements back and
forth before there has been time to estab-
lish permanent defence to the state of a
strong solution, and the final settlement
of that line in solid form to the precipi-
tation of the matter contained in solution,
and to its organization in hard crystalline
form. It is an excellent parallel. An-
other metaphor, which I have seen used
by English writers, is that taken from the
formation of ice in water. They speak
of the line " freezing " into its final posi-
tion, and that also expresses the same idea.

There is in connection with this estab-
lishment of permanent trench warfare, and

326 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

of a particular line which it follows from
the foothills of the Jura to the dunes of
Nieuport, one aspect which has further
misled opinion to some extent.

It is the fact that this line, as it came
to be established, included a considerable
portion of what is politically Allied terri-
tory, and, therefore, permitted the enemy
to be fighting upon alien soil. That such
a situation heavily handicaps the Allies
and is heavily in favour of the enemy in
some respects is obvious. It is none
the less accidental, and, further, it con-
tains elements adverse to the enemy, which,
though obscure for so many months, may
yet appear before the end of the cam-
paign.

The series of points in the retreat
where the Germans were able to " hook
on," to rally and to dig themselves in,
formed a chain which stretched across
French territory, left them in a very
complete occupation of Belgium, and con-
tinued their political mastery over por-
tions of several French departments.
What is more important, it gave them
the use of at least three-quarters of the
machinery, metal, and coal available in

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 327

France and Belgium for the purposes of
war.

Such a situation also permitted (for
what that is worth in war — and it is
worth very little) the somewhat chaotic
and sporadic anger of a defeated enemy
to kill civilians subject to the alliance,
and to ruin monuments and private wealth,
the property of the Belgians and the
French. It has caused the complete
devastation, inevitable to the narrow trench
zone, to affect not German but French
cultivation and buildings. What is far
more serious, it created at first a cer-
tain timidity and hesitation — happily now
abandoned — in the action of the Allied
artillery. The fact that every shell de-
livered at long range upon German com-
munications and nodal points behind the
lines risked the lives of Frenchmen and of
Belgians somewhat hampered, especially
at first, the use of the guns. Politically
this accident has had a prodigious
effect, for it has left the civilian popu-
lation of the enemy until quite recently
under a complete illusion of victory,
and one can trace its results in an
almost comic degree through the Press

328 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

of certain of the Allies, and of nearly all
the neutrals.

An accident none the less it remains,
and not a design. And it is an accident
which may well have results ultimately
contrary to those we have just been
mentioning. The form into which the
line crystallized has not proved favour-
able to the German defensive. It has
been far too long, and, therefore, far too
wasteful. It has led to a perpetual fric-
tion and a perpetual expense of men for
the maintenance of what is a purely
political and in no way a strategic posi-
tion in Belgium. It has produced a great
salient which on the map appears to be
pointing at Paris, but which as a strategic
situation is awkward in the extreme. So
true is this that the shock under which
the enemy reeled, and from which he did
not wholly recover when he was struck
by the incomplete Allied offensive of
September 191 5, was only made pos-
sible by the form of that salient ; and
when, six months later, the Germans,
after gigantic preparation, delivered their
counter-attack they were confined to one
of few and difficult regions — the region

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 329

of Verdun — instead of having the choice of
the whole line, as they would have had
if that line had been straighter. They
dared not, apparently, adventure into the
advanced portion of the salient, a con-
centration the cutting off of which would
be an irreparable disaster.

When, if ever, a retirement is neces-
sary through a diminution of effectives, to
fall back from a line of such a shape
will be a very different matter from the
withdrawing of a straightened and well-
co-ordinated chain.

Lastly, the political bait or lure of Bel-
gium attaches to the accident of the present
line. Not that it stands as a necessity in
the covering of Antwerp, the chief asset,
but that it almost compels the forces hold-
ing it to cover the Belgian capital and the
line of the Yser. The Germans have con-
structed behind that front, as we know, a
secondary defensive position shorter and
more logical. But the retirement to it
from the extreme points of the salient,
something which they have certainly
now studied in every detail, would be
a tremendous business, and it is to be
presumed that the line, strategically awk-

330 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

ward though politically advantageous, will
be maintained to the very end — to an in-
conclusive peace, if the enemy have the
power or we the folly to admit such an
anti-climax ; to the very last shreds of
resistance if the war be pressed by Euro-
pean civilization to its just end, and to
the destruction of its would-be murderers.

One last matter is, I think, quite con-
clusive of the thesis maintained in these
pages, and I would particularly beg the
English reader to direct his attention to it.

If the grotesque and impossible con-
ception of the trench line established in
the West being one of deliberate German
choice were true, what of the Straits of
Dover and of the two tremendous defeats
of the enemy upon the Yser in his attempt
to reach their shores ?

Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, the smaller
ports of St. Valery and Etaples, even
Dieppe, if you will, were at the enemy's
mercy before the Battle of the Marne.
He neglected them because a diversion
towards them would have confused his
simple, obvious, apparently indefeasible
scheme of crushing at once the whole
Allied force in the West. When that

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 331

scheme of his came tumbling to the
ground upon the 9th of September, is
it to be imagined that he abandoned of
free will a second opportunity for the
possession of the Channel ports ? Is it
conceivable that he ignored their value
for the reduction of Great Britain, or
that he merely woke up by a sort of
afterthought to his crying necessity, and,
acting upon that afterthought, threw
away the best of his original forces and
his irreplaceable trained officers in the
futile massacres before Ypres ?

The thing is quite inconceivable. He
stands upon the line he now holds be-
cause he was condemned to stand there,
because he had no chance of standing
farther, and was yet under no necessity,
unfortunately for us at this moment —
fortunately, perhaps, in the ultimate issue
— of falling farther back. Though the
statement may still raise a smile in
those whom a long war has fatigued and
perhaps soured, though it would have
appeared quite extravagant some few
months ago, I will still maintain that the
ultimate trace of the trench line in the
West is as much an accident for the

332 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

enemy as for us, and an accident which
may ultimately prove advantageous to the
just issue of the war.

But as yet this thing was only begin-
ning. As yet the entrenched position,
though of such prodigious length (from
Verdun to Compiegne as the crow flies,
omitting all curves of the line, it is not
far short of 140 miles), had an exposed
flank which, with superior numbers, might
be turned. The French, with gravely in-
ferior numbers, attempted to turn it. The
new German line reached only to the Oise.
Between the Oise and the Channel was
a very broad belt in which armies might
yet manoeuvre. And already before dark-
ness set in upon that Wednesday, the
1 6th of September, Maunoury was be-
ginning to work round up the Oise valley
with certain of his units, and to threaten
the exposed right of the enemy.

From that moment for a full month
and more all the interest of the campaign
turns upon the measure of success which
this new development northward of the
entrenched German line achieved. Turn
that line, or even threaten its communi-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 333

cations, it could not. Inferior numbers
do not turn the positions of entrenched
superior numbers, and the attempt to
do so was the attempt to work a miracle.
But the Allies did prevent those superior
numbers from counter-enveloping in their
turn, and, what is perhaps more remark-
able, they prevented in this new develop-
ment (which has been called " The Race
to the Sea ") the seizure of the Channel
ports by the Germans — with what enor-
mous consequences to the future of the
war was then but dimly seen, but within
a year was clearly apparent.

All the 17th and all the 18th of Sep-
tember, the Thursday and the Friday,
the Allies, while holding the German left
strongly by repeated attacks, were still
working up painfully beyond the Oise.
The advanced bodies of Maunoury's left
which Joffre had reinforced had reached
the neighbourhood of Lassigny, and I
have heard, but not with sufficient evi-
dence, that one body of daring cavalry
made a dash at the main German line of
communication far to the north and cut
a bridge upon the great railway that fol-
lows down the Oise valley.

334 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

This line of communication was the
very vital artery of the German position,
and that the Allies, with inferior numbers,
should have been allowed to threaten it
even for a moment is one of those many

Sketch 75.

points in the history of the campaign
which will puzzle or baffle the future
historian.

Why, indeed, did the Germans, still
enjoying such an excess of effectives com-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 335

pared with their opponents, allow the
turning movement to take place at all ?

To-day, because the " Race to the Sea "
actually occurred, and was won by the
Allies, we take it for granted. But the
more one considers what the enemy's
opportunities were, the more astonish-
ing does that result appear. They were
entrenched, and could presumably hold
their entrenchments with less men than
those required to attack them. They
had masses of rolling stock and the chief
centres of the French northern railway
system at their mercy. They had this
great superiority in numbers. They surely
knew what the Channel ports would mean
to them. They certainly were vitally con-
cerned for their great railway down the
Oise valley (which cut, they were lost).
They indeed thoroughly saved this from
attack, but they allowed it for a moment
to be imperilled. They initiated no turn-
ing position against the French ; on the
contrary, they allowed the French to take
the initiative in this. They even failed at
the end of the business to use the re-
maining rapidly closing space between the
armies and the sea, and when — far too

336 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

late — they did mass a great bolt to strike
the left of the Allied line at Ypres, it only
so struck against a door locked and
bolted against them.

Why did an army in such a situation,
having achieved the initial advantage of
securely holding this entrenched line from
Compiegne to the Argonne, lose its last
opportunities ? It is far too early to pro-
vide the answer, and I should not presume
even to suggest it. But we may usefully
set down a list of factors in the position,
all of which certainly existed, some or all
of which combined may ultimately ex-
plain the mystery, but the relative weight
of which among themselves we are as yet
unable to determine.

i . The army which fled from the Marne
and entrenched itself on the Aisne and the
line of the Suippe across Champagne to
the Argonne was, after all, a badly de-
feated army ; and though you are superior
in numbers, if you have recently suffered
a severe blow you cannot act with the
freedom and rapidity which was possible
to you while you were in the tide of suc-
cess. Your gaps must be replenished ;
your battered units reconstructed and con-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 337

firmed. Your cadres, which in places will
have been half obliterated, must be re-
newed. We have noted that it was fvwt
days (from the 12th to the 18th of Sep-
tember) between the rally of the enemy
on his entrenched line and his first vigor-
ous counter-offensive from the left.

2. From long before the Marne, and
all during the Marne, there had been an
excessive concentration upon the left or
east of the German line, due to that
original error in his conception, the idea
given him by the Grand Couronne, that
the French had also principally concen-
trated in the east. The Germans, with
their detailed method, were not particu-
larly rapid in their use of railways, and
the bringing of considerable masses from
east to west in sufficient time was beyond
their power.

3. Though their railway gauge is the
same as the French, it is possible that we
overestimate the rolling stock at their
disposal. You must set eighty trains at
least to a division. They had had no
time to double single lines or to con-
struct new ones, and the French had
naturally during the retreat withdrawn

H. 32

338 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

as many wagons and locomotives as they
could.

4. As their movements showed in the
next few days, the Germans possibly or
probably still relied more upon a counter-
offensive against the French centre and the
driving of a wedge between Foch and the
4th Army. This would be consonant with
all we know of their attachment to routine,
and their repetition not only of successful
strokes, but of strokes that had nearly
succeeded. All through their action in
this war this character has been apparent.
The whole plan of the war was but a vast
repetition of 1870 in its initial stages.
The victory they conceived was a sort of
magnified Sedan, an envelopment of the
French round by the left, their own
right ; and even in the details of the
campaign we have continually seen the
same tendency from that day onwards.
The attack on the sector of Verdun, for
instance, in process as I correct the
proofs of this book, is but a large
edition of precisely similar efforts which
had proved successful nine months before
in Galicia.
We may, therefore, conjecture for what

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 339

the conjecture is worth, that the Germans
clung too long to the idea of a counter-
offensive piercing the French centre near
Rheims, just as they had attempted, and
failed, to pierce the centre at La Fere
Champenoise. It was not, as we shall
see, until the 28th of September that
this plan was wholly given up, and if
they were wedded to it they clearly could
not at the same time make their principal
effort to the west.

5. We are the more prepared to believe
that they hoped to retrieve their fortunes
by this pushing of a wedge through the
French centre, from the fact that they
developed a corresponding and contem-
porary attack upon the heights of the
Meuse, proposing to combine with their
pressure against the 4th Army in Cham-
pagne the ruin of the 3rd Army under
Sarrail in the Verdun district, by striking
again at the forts upon the Upper Meuse,
crossing that river, and appearing in Sar-
rail's rear. They did in fact, as we shall
see, get as far as St. Mihiel, and actually
occupied a bridge-head beyond the river
at that point ; and as late as the 24th of
September it looked as though they were

340 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

going to succeed in putting a great army
over the Meuse. But such a concentration
on the east prevented the use of men to
the west along the Oise.

6. Lastly, there was the embarrass-
ment of Belgium and of Antwerp. Facile
as was the task of occupying little and

20 Titles' 40

Sketch 76.

neutral Belgium and destroying its de-
fence, they had from the beginning grossly
underestimated the difficulties even of
such a task. Right through the first
year and a half of the war, up to the
moment in which these lines are written,
the mere occupation of Belgium has cost

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 341

them more men than they had dreamt
would be necessary, and in these earlier
days, the September and early October
of 1914, they had not yet even accom-
plished the preliminaries of that task.
The Belgian Army still in existence,
sheltered behind the forts of Antwerp,
was capable of offence against their com-
munications, and was about to under-
take that offence.

Whatever be the true proportion to be
given to any one of these causes in the
whole combination, the enemy did as a
fact allow the French turning movement
with inferior forces to get the start of him
on the Oise near Noyon.

Already by the 16th General Joffre was
withdrawing forces from all along the line
to form two new armies, to which were
given the titles 7th Army and 10th Army,
and these once formed were sent up by rail,
with that rapidity in the use of this com-
munication which has been of such value
to the French throughout the campaign,
to positions north of Maunoury's turning
movement.

It was upon Sunday, the 20th of
September, that the 7th Army was in

342 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

line. Castelnau had been brought round
from the east to command it ; a wise
choice of a man who had proved him-
self so thoroughly at the Grand Cou-
ronne. He was able to take a line up

2/

so ~2*fiCes

/oo

Arras • |

MAUD'HUYlO*,

Albeit.

?ero tine

CASTELmu7*r?^
Ibyi

Soissons

Sketch 77.

through Roye in front of Chaulnes to
the Somme, near Peronne.

The 10th Army was concentrated in its
turn during the next ten days, and by
the 30th of September was pushed up
north, continuing to Castelnau's line, and

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 343

covering Albert and Arras as far as towards
the region of Lens.#

This 10th Army was put under the
command of General Maud'huy. His
promotion had been very rapid and thor-
oughly deserved. At the beginning of
the campaign he had held the rank of a
general of brigade at the age of fifty-
seven, fighting in Lorraine, his brigade
being the 80th, and forming part of the

* The numbering of these forces continues the puzzle
we noted in an earlier page upon the numbering of the
armies at the Marne. We saw there that in order of
formation Foch's army should logically have been the
7th, and it is perplexing to find a force gathered so late
as the 20th of September bearing this number long after
the so-called 9th Army had been organized. It is still
more perplexing to see the army in front of Albert, organ-
ized ten days later, bearing the number of 10, while, to
complete the mystery, the 8th Army, the last of the
series, does not appear until the very end of the move-
ment in the extreme north. If the French, like the
Germans, had had a very considerable excess of men
whom they could bring forward at leisure we might
imagine these forces to have been present somewhere
behind the line, and only brought up as they were
needed, but the French had no such advantage. The
new armies did indeed contain certain rapidly trained
and novel elements, especially the Marine contingents,
but their nucleus, or rather their bulk, was composed
of forces which had already been in the field and had
been taken from other parts of the line. The problem,
therefore, of this system of enumeration remains un-
solved. We shall, I presume, be able to understand it
after the war, but not until then.

344 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

40th Division in the 8th Corps. He had
appeared in the retreat commanding a
division, and in the Battle of the Marne
commanding a corps — the 18th, in the
5th Army. He was now, in three weeks,
arrived at the rank of an army com-
mander controlling a whole group of
corps, and with independent initiative en-
trusted to him in the Higher Command
— a striking example of the flexibility
which the French determination upon vic-
tory could impose upon the whole service.
With the formation of Maud'huy's
army, the French line threatening to turn
the German, and extending up north-
ward to the sea, had almost reached the
Belgian frontier only a fortnight after
the first hints at such a movement had
appeared. It was high time for the
Germans to follow suit ; not only in the
disposition of their troops (for these
had already, of course, met every French
development northward by a counter-
stroke and an attempt at counter-envelop-
ment at each successive prolongation of
the French line), but by changes also in
the disposition of their mass and in the
partition of their commands.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 345

The attempt to destroy Sarrail and the
French right had failed by the 24th of
September. From that day onwards it
was clear to the German commanders that
they could not cross the Meuse in force
at St. Mihiel, and so take Sarrail from
behind. The attempt to drive a wedge
in through the French centre had failed
by the 28th, and the enemy awoke to the
fact that the centre of gravity of the war
had shifted northward. He began to
move troops up from east to west and
from south to north, and to change his
generals. He left Alsace with probably
no more than one army corps to guard
it ; gave over to Strantz (whose effort
against the Meuse at St. Mihiel, just
alluded to, I will presently describe) the
guard of all that frontier. He began to
send the Bavarians north to the plains
of Flanders and of the Artois from the
positions where they were still uselessly
massed upon their old scene of defeat
in Lorraine. He sent up the Duke of
Wurtemberg, also, with many of his men
from the neighbourhood of Argonne, fill-
ing the gap with older men, reserves
arrived from Germany. He did the

346 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

same thing with Buelow's position be-
tween Rheims and the Aisne, mov-
ing that commander and his troops up
to the west, and right beyond Kluck.
Not less significant was the replacing of
General von Moltke, hitherto Chief of the
General Staff, by General von Falkenhayn,
the Minister of War. And with the 6th
of October the presence of great masses
of German cavalry near Lille showed that
the enemy was only waiting for the fall of
Antwerp — the significance of which event
must be appreciated upon a later page —
to use the gap still remaining between
the end of the extending Allied line and
the sea.

Precisely at this moment was effected
by the Allies a similar and most important
redistribution of troops, consisting in the
transference of the whole British Army
upon the Aisne right northward to the
sector of Ypres. But before dealing with
this I will go back to describe in detail
what those last efforts were in the centre
and upon the Meuse, for the piercing of
the French centre and the destruction of
the French right, to which I have just
been alluding, and the failure of which

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 347

we must understand if we are to grasp
why the Germans delayed so long in at-
tempting to win the race to the sea, and
also how that delay was due to their
disappointment at the other end of their
line.

If we sketch out upon the map the
whole German line from the Swiss fron-
tier to Compiegne at the moment when
the pursuit after the Battle of the Marne
was checked by the entrenched German
rally, we find it to be of this shape. In
that alignment what I have called the
effort in the German " centre " (that is,
the centre of the new line between Verdun
and Compiegne) was made just east of
Rheims at A. It was upon the 17th of
September that Foch, who lay in front of
this German centre at A, lost the heights
round Rheims, and all that day his army,
from which units had already been taken
for the new formations, decided upon by
JofTre twenty-four hours earlier, had a
very hard task. That same corps of the
Guards which he had beaten so deci-
sively at La Fere Champenoise the week
before had received new guns and fresh
drafts, and was pressing him hard. It was

348 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

Buelow who commanded this attack, and
he relied not a little upon the difficulty
which Langle, with the 4th Army, also felt
to the right of Foch in holding his own
against a similar counter-offensive there

Antwerp

io MU£S &>

Compline

Wafgeaf
StMihieland
crossing of River
Trfeuse gained
fy Crermans

,<S?

^^ma^^^^Jj^

C&3WV

&PV

X

STKAHTZ.

Sketch 78.

undertaken by the Germans between A
and B. All the 18th this pressure con-
tinued. At one moment it actually reached
the railway which runs across the Cham-
pagne eastward from Rheims, and the
German advance at that moment had all

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 349

the appearance of forcing Foch's line.
It was during that same Friday, the
1 8th, that the bombardment at Rheims
began, following upon which came the
first news of the attack upon the cathe-
dral. It is an incident that has never
been explained, and that remains to this
day inexplicable save to those who can
profess (as surely many should be able to
do) a knowledge of German psychology.

The Cathedral of Rheims stands out an
enormous mark at such a range of 7,000
yards. Whether that mark was chosen
through the wantonness of a subaltern, or
in obedience to the highest command of
all, we do not know. Still more extra-
ordinary was the bewilderment of the
enemy upon finding the effect produced
upon neutrals by this extraordinary act,
and his subsequent belated apology and
orders to spare the monument for the
future. The whole thing is a riddle, the
solution of which might be of value if it
would lead us to understand the enemy's
mind, and therefore, perhaps, his errors
in strategy. For most men in the old
civilization of Europe the act itself, but
still more the sudden recantation of it

350 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

and the failure to continue on the same
lines, make no sense at all. It was doing
oneself the maximum of harm for the
minimum of result. But to leave that
side issue, which is of no military im-
portance, and to continue the story of the
German effort.

The pressure upon the centre con-
tinued for over a week, and at its maxi-
mum intensity the enemy reached down
to the almost suburban village of Neu-
villette, upon the other side of the town
at N, upon the sketch map just given.

It was not until the 28th of September
that, presumably owing to reinforcement,
Foch could recover himself ; but on that
day the recovery was complete. The sta-
tion of Prunay was retaken, the railway
line cleared, the main road just to the
north crossed, and in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the city itself the enemy was
driven back all the way to Brimont. The
front as a whole was disengaged, and the
attempt to break the French centre by a
counter-offensive had failed.

We shall not, however, understand what
the full scheme was, nor how near it came
to success, unless we read in connection

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 351

with this attack upon the centre the con-
temporary attack upon the heights of the
Meuse behind Sarrail.

The scheme was not only to break the
French centre at A (in the same map),
but at the same time to come round
behind Sarrail (who was at the moment
pressed by the Crown Prince's army)
and destroy the French right wing. From
Toul southward past Nancy stretched
the mass of the French 2nd Army ; but
between Toul and Verdun the French
relied mainly upon the fortified heights
of the Meuse, and held them with very
small forces. It was upon these heights
of the Meuse that the new blow was
struck.

We left Sarrail, after the victory of the
Marne, it will be remembered, with a
small force of less than six divisions,
three of which were the older men of the
Reserve. Against this and the garrison
surrounding Verdun something like fifteen
divisions were at work. The Crown Prince
deployed against Sarrail four full corps of
two divisions each, some of whom prob-
ably counted a reserve division as well ;
and while Sarrail was suffering this pres-

352 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

sure of superior numbers, just at the
moment also when the German counter-
attack upon the centre was developing,
upon the 20th of September, a new army,
consisting of some eleven divisions recently
arrived from Germany, struck in against
the forts of the Meuse, right behind Sar-
rail. It was commanded by that same
Strantz whom we saw earlier wheeling
round with his one corps to attack the
northern flank of the Grand Couronne
position, and it had been drawn from
the depots in the south of Germany.

This attack depended for its success
not only on those very greatly superior
numbers unrolled against the thin line
of troops opposed to it, but on the un-
broken experience of this war — that per-
manent fortification would go down be-
fore the modern siege train. Such a train
accompanied the new army, and the first
great shells began to fall on Fort Troyon,
the central part of the line, on this Sun-
day, 20th September. Troyon did not
fall, but at the same time the guns opened
on the Camp des Romains fort, and on the
third of the forts in the centre, the fort
of Liouville. All three works were sub-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 353

jected to the same intensive bombardment
for several days. Resistance was merely
a question of time and of the quality of
the troops. Troyon and Liouville, bat-
tered all to pieces, yet found it possible,
the one to repel, the other to ward off an
infantry attack after five days of the
enemy's efforts. The Camp des Romains
was rushed after three. With its fall the
German advance occupied St. Mihiel on
the river, crossed and held a bridge-head
on the far side. At that moment it looked
as though the French right wing under
Sarrail was lost, and as though the full
weight of forces, more than double his
own, would now converge upon him from
in front and from behind. But what fol-
lowed was yet another proof of how
throughout this war the German effort
is dependent upon mere numbers.

There was no reinforcement from the
rear possible for Sarrail. There were no
reserves available. But, with some little
aid from the depleted troops to the south,
Sarrail just managed to relieve Troyon
and Liouville, and to block all further
progress of the enemy beyond the river.

The German stands to this day, after
11. 23

354 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

twenty months, where he stood then —
just barely holding on to a bridge-head
west of the Meuse, with the French
trenches upon the hill above.

Here was shown what value still at-
tached to permanent works, thoroughly
though the war had exploded the old
theory which relied upon them. It was
the resistance of Liouville and of Troyon
which had condemned the Germans to so
very narrow a front at the point where
they touched the Meuse, and it was the
narrowness of this front which prevented
their pressing forward and taking Sarrail
in reverse.

Though this failure, coupled with the
failure of the German centre a day or
two later, had decided the security of the
French right, the Crown Prince made one
last effort against Sarrail from the north
as late as the 3rd of October. It broke
down altogether, and this curious sub-
sidiary enemy scheme, which at one mo-
ment seemed not far from success, was
at an end. He was now compelled to
abandon all hope of advancing from the
entrenchments where he had rallied,
and to consider, somewhat hurriedly, the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 355

necessity of meeting the rapidly-extending
French line in the west, which had already
reached beyond Arras, which his coun-
termoves had, indeed, prevented from
menacing the main railway, but had not
prevented from checking all opportunities
of a general turning movement against the
Allies by the west and north.

This was the moment when Antwerp
was at last tackled by the enemy forces
in Belgium. The task of its capture was
so slight that the result was a foregone
conclusion ; but its resistance had at least
this value, that no great effort could be
made to pass through the remaining gap
between the end of the French line and
the sea until Antwerp was disposed of.

The fall of the city, from its immense
strategic and economic importance to the
naval and commercial power of Great
Britain, produced an effect upon opinion
here upon which I need not linger. As
a military event we must be content to
deal with it very briefly, for it was but
subsidiary to the general problem. The
historian of the future will, I think, ask
why the Germans attacked Antwerp so
late. He may even ask whether the

356 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

enemy could not see what cried aloud to
him upon the map— the remaining gap
open between the French Army and the
shore. That this gap did cry aloud to

Sketch 79.

him we may make certain. Why he de-
layed so long in attacking Antwerp, only
official documents, ultimately available and
now not known, will inform us.

The first shells were not directed against

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 357

the outer forts of Antwerp until that same
28th of September which had seen "the
close and failure of the German attempt
upon the French centre in Champagne.
Three days later the southern forts had
fallen, and the Belgian commanders and
Government proposed the really obvious
course of withdrawing the army while
there was yet time. For it was clear that
the organization of this little neutral
Power, and the condition of its muni-
tionment and guns of position, were quite
inadequate to resisting the enemy's siege
train. Their wise resolution was delayed,
as we know, by the promise of aid from
this country. We also know in this
country the nature, the extent, and the
value of what was promised. We know
to the full its inadequacy, and I should
mar my book if I were to admit here the
adjectives proper to such a plan.

These reinforcements, 6,000 in number,
arrived upon 4th October. The next two
days were filled with a field battle, to
enable the Germans to approach their
heavy artillery towards the inner forts ;
the bombardment of the city itself was
begun on the 7th. Upon the 9th, a little

358 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

after noon, the first German officers drove
into the abandoned town, and signified
to its remaining authorities that it was
under their authority.

I call the town abandoned because the
great bulk of its population had fled — some
across the frontier into Holland, some
westward by the road which had seen the
successful retirement of the Belgian Army.
For this retirement was successful, al-
though considerable bodies, misdirected in
the darkness, were lost to the war by cross-
ing the Dutch frontier, where they suffered
internment ; and though a portion of the
British contingent, through a misdirec-
tion of orders, were left too late, and fell
into the hands of the enemy.*

Here it may be asked how any retire-
ment was possible at all. Antwerp lies
cooped up within its forts against the
Dutch frontier, as the foregoing sketch map
has shown. The retirement was effected
along the line of the arrow towards the
west. Why did the Germans, advancing

* The total number interned in Holland was not
quite 20,000, of whom I understand that rather over
1,500 were British ; 800 of the British contingent out of
a total of 6,000 fell as prisoners of war to the enemy, 37
were, I believe, killed, 193 were wounded.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 359

in such numbers against the city, leave
that gap open ?

To this, as to a dozen other similar
questions we might put in the course of
the war with regard to the enemy's
blunders, there is as yet no reply. We
only know that he did, as a matter of fact,
fail to cross the Scheldt. He made no
serious attempt at it. He had not even
occupied Ghent, which lay open to his
hand. He had remained upon his own
side of the stream, and that for no reason
which the mind of man can conceive,
or which he or any of his apologists have
been able to put forward.

This belated attack upon Antwerp,
coupled with the incredible omission to
seal up issues from the town, was one of
the factors in the closing of the northern
issue for the German armies. Antwerp,
as we have seen, was not occupied until
the 9th of October, and already there
had begun the last of those great move-
ments for closing up the gap of which I
spoke some pages back. The British Army
had begun its famous and secret muta-
tion from the banks of the Aisne to Ypres,
the gap it left being filled, as unit after

360 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

unit left, by the older men of the French
reserves. It was as early as the 3rd of
October that the first British unit, Gen-
eral Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division, was
moved. In a fortnight the whole mass of
three army corps had been passed by rail
right round the back of the armies with-
out a hitch, and in a secrecy so complete
that the enemy had no knowledge what-
soever of the movement. By the 19th of
October, before the effect of Antwerp
could be felt upon this front — or at any
rate before the enemy had brought up
his armies against it — the last units of the
1 st British Corps were detraining at St.
Omer. The great German mass which
had hoped to pass between the end of the
Allied line and the sea had long been in
movement, but it was too late. The door
was shut. The Race to the Sea had been
won by the Allies.

There was to follow — now that it was
too late — an enormous effort upon the
part of the Germans to break out, which
effort we call in this country " The Battle
of Ypres," though it included, of course,
blows equally expensive and equally futile
against the last northern sectors of the line

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 361

which the French and Belgians held be-
tween Ypres and the coast.

With that tremendous failure, in its own
negative way a thing as decisive as the
Battle of the Marne itself, I am not here
concerned, and with its advent I terminate
this part of my study.

I have dealt thus briefly and super-
ficially with the Race to the Sea because
I am considering it only as a sequel to
the Marne, and only showing in the
roughest and most general fashion how
the extension of the line from Compiegne
northward sealed the results of that great
action. A fuller consideration of the Race
to the Sea belongs rather to the story of
Ypres, and the actions upon the Yser,
than it does to the story of the Marne.

Summary of the Sequel to the
Marne.

When we survey as a whole these ap-
parently confused movements which filled
the last weeks of September and the first
days of October 19 14, and which ulti-
mately prolonged the line from the Aisne

362 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

to the Northern Sea, we shall, subject to
the reserves inevitable in a general state-
ment, be able to give it a diagrammatic
form which is also an explanation of its
nature. That form may be illustrated in
the accompanying sketch.

Sketch 80.

The original line of the Aisne (using
that term for the whole line from in front
of Noyon to in front of Verdun) we will
represent by the full line AB upon the
sketch. The coast of the Channel we will
represent by the line CD, shading the

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 363

critical portion between Dunkirk at D
and Boulogne at C, Calais at E. This
critical portion commanded the Straits
of Dover.

Then the progress northward may be
compared to a series of clutches hand
over hand made by one opponent against
the other alternately, until the full ex-
tension of the line is reached, and no
further progress is possible to armies
having reached salt water.

You have the first attempted turning
movement by the French at I. ; the
Germans check this, and produce a turn-
ing attempt of their own at II. ; the
Allies checking this, again, with a further
attempted turning movement at III. ; the
Germans in turn producing their answer
to this at IV., and so on throughout V.,
VI., VII., VIII., and IX., with which
last the gate is finally closed and the
German forces contained.

In this process I think that history will
remark an almost inexplicable German
failure.

It is true that the French, and later
the British, were occupied in an effort
to turn the enemy's line, and failed to

364 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

achieve that result. But, on the other
hand, we must remember that the funda-
mental character underlying the whole
war till many months after this date
was the immense numerical superiority
of our opponent in mere effectives, and
his overwhelming superiority in machines.
It might conceivably be maintained as a
possibility that an inferior force should
have succeeded by surprise and very great
rapidity in turning the original German
flank at A, supposing the Germans to
have been abnormally slow in movement
and abnormally — almost miraculously —
blind to their danger. They were, of
course, neither : they could move more
quickly than we could, because their
movements were on short lines from
within ; ours on long lines from without.
They had established a stronger defensive
by far between A and B than were our
corresponding newly entrenched lines in
front of them from F to G. They could,
therefore, hold from A to B with a less
number of men than we needed to pre-
vent their breaking out again from that
front. On the top of this they had more
men than we had wherewith to meet our

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 365

turning movement as it progressed ; and
the marvel is, not that we failed to turn
their line, but that they failed to prevent
us from denying them the Straits of Dover ;
and that they found themselves, in spite
of their superior numbers and interior
lines, pinned to a final trench position
which forbade them the use of the Channel
ports. In the result it was this which
condemned them to the utterly unfruitful
sacrifice to which they submitted them-
selves in front of Ypres later on.

Such is the first note we make upon
the sequel to the Marne. The Germans
had added to the enormous blunder which
got their eight driven back and pinned by
the opposing five the further blunder of
letting those inferior opponents close the
northern gate and complete their barring
in and containing of a superior foe.

But while activity of intelligence was
thus the great asset of the French, and
had strategically triumphed, there was to
appear in the immediate future another
matter which neither side had foreseen —
a thing novel, peculiar to this entrenched
warfare (coupled with modern defensive
power), and one which nearly redressed

366 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

the balance in favour of the Germans. I
mean the new conditions which rendered
heavy artillery the capital arm of the
next few months ; and to that point I
will turn before ending this book.

With the fixing of the enemy to a
trench line, and his confrontation against
a closed defensive line of our own, ter-
minate the second phase of the great
war and the immediate effects of the
Battle of the Marne. Prussia and her
allies and dependants had attempted con-
quest over the West with forces enor-
mously superior, and, humanly speaking,
certain of success. Prussia had allowed
herself to be beaten, pinned, and driven
to earth by armies only two-thirds of her
own in size. She had made a belated and
disordered effort to prevent the establish-
ment of lines that now contained her right
up to the sea, and she had failed.

Had there alone been present in the
situation the factors already apparent in
these first portions of the war, the con-
clusion of the campaign, though perhaps
long postponed, would have maintained a
similar character to the end. Succeeding

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 367

efforts to recover freedom of manoeuvre
would have followed, each a little less
vigorous and a little less intense than the
last, until in the conclusion of the affair
Prussia and her allies would have yielded
to exhaustion. Perhaps six months, per-
haps twelve, would have decided such an
issue.

But there was present another and
novel element which was to prove of the
utmost weight in the future of the cam-
paign, to disturb many a calculation, to
give the enemy a new lease of power, and
in part to transform the character of the
war.

This novel element was a wholly
unexpected development in the role of
artillery.

To mark the character of this transi-
tion, and to comprehend the cause of all
that followed, it is essential that I should
conclude this study of the second phase
by presenting to my readers as clearly as
I can the nature of this revolution.

At the moment when Prussia declared
war upon civilization in the summer of
1 9 14 it was the common opinion, or rather

368 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

certitude, of all the General Staffs — and
of none more than the Prussian — that
modern war would take the following
form, and be determined by the follow-
ing weapons : —

The victorious army, vigorously pur-
suing an offensive in the open field, would
envelop or break its opponent ; it would
accomplish this by fire from its field guns,
and perhaps by additional fire from heavy
pieces rendered sufficiently mobile to take
the field. Succeeding to such prepara-
tions, the attack of the infantry in suc-
ceeding lines, their fire power from rifles,
and sometimes their actual shock, would
be the ultimate and decisive blow that
would bend round before it or drive in
the opposing formation.

For a campaign of this kind it was
possible to calculate the reserve of muni-
tions necessary to its conduct for a certain
length of time, and the rate of production
per month or day necessary to supply any
prolongation of such expenditure of shell.

Such reserves or stocks of shell the
French, the Russians, the Austrians, and
the Germans had alike prepared, and their
arsenals were designed and organized to a

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 369

further rate of daily supply conceived to
be normal to a great modern war.

The greater part of this supply must,
in the nature of things, consist of muni-
tions for the field guns, since the lighter
pieces deliver immensely larger quantities
of shell in a given time of action than the
heavier ; and these munitions must for much
the larger part be oj shrapnel. Even for
the heavy guns shrapnel would be a con-
siderable proportion of their munition-
ment if they were to be used in the field
For shrapnel delivered against troops in
the field does execution of a totally differ-
ent sort from the execution of a high-
explosive shell.

A shrapnel shell is a case filled with
bullets, and itself on explosion designed
to burst into a great number of fragments.
These fragments and the bullets, upon
the expiry of the time to which the fuse
is set, or upon concussion, are discharged
over a wide area known as " the cone of
dispersion/' and within that area destroy,
if the fire be accurate, the troops opposed.

The high-explosive shell, on the other

hand — that is, a case filled not with many

pieces of metal, but one charge of some
11. 24

370 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

unstable chemical compound which on
explosion produces a very powerful local
effect — has some moral result upon troops
in the open, the effect of which will be
discussed in a moment ; but its calcu-
lable material effect upon troops in the
open is inconsiderable compared with
that of shrapnel.

The high-explosive shell has a very
violent effect confined to a comparatively
small radius — that is, a radius small com-
pared with the calibre of the missile.
Where it falls the earth is all knocked to
pieces, and a shallow conical hole, larger
or smaller according to the size of the
shell and the nature of the soil, is blasted
into the surface, but the damage is con-
fined to a small area.

The result is that firing high-explosive
shell in the field at troops in the open,
though the great noise snakes men, and
the explosion will utterly destroy things
in its immediate neighbourhood, is a
waste of effort compared with the firing
of shrapnel against troops in the open.
To give a rough parallel, it is the difference
between shooting at game with shot and
shooting at them with an explosive bullet.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 371

Quick-firing field batteries playing upon
troops in the open would, in a given
time, do fifty fold the execution that a
similar weight of gun-metal in the shape
of heavy pieces attacking the same troops
with high-explosive shell could hope to
effect. Such was not only the obvious
truth from a priori considerations, but
the truth also arrived at by experience
in the South African War, as well as in
the great Manchurian campaign. These
amply confirmed theories which no man
could reasonably doubt, and which no
one doubts to-day except, perhaps, a few
politicians who have imperfectly learnt
their briefs.

But though these truths are of the im-
portance and certitude just described,
though shrapnel was the missile deter-
mining all open war, and though its accu-
mulation was ample for the work to be
done in such a war, it is clear that the
whole use of shrapnel and of its accumu-
lation turns upon the conception of troops
manoeuvring in the field.

Now, by an accident which no one had
foreseen, the great war within a few weeks
of its inception turned into trench war-

372 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

fare. I say " an accident which no one
had foreseen," using that phrase some-
what loosely, for individuals here and there
had hazarded the guess that a great modern
war would degenerate into trench war-
fare before it ended. But military opinion
as a whole had not foreseen this, no more
upon the enemy's side than upon our own.
Trench warfare was possible because the
enormous numbers mobilized permitted
the trenches to extend over hundreds of
miles, and to repose upon flanks that could
not be turned. To hold a line of trenches
the flanks of which are not secure is obvi-
ously to invite disaster. It is to destroy
your mobility without obtaining any cor-
responding advantage ; and if your enemy
is so foolish as to dig himself into a
limited line with open, unprotected spaces
at either end, you can by either of these
ends turn him, come round upon him,
and destroy him. But the vast numbers
put forward in this great war soon de-
veloped lines of trenches from the Car-
pathians to the Baltic, and from the Swiss
mountains to the North Sea, which either
had no gaps, or gaps nowhere so broad
as to permit of the passage of troops in

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 373

great numbers, and the turning of the
defence.

But once such trench warfare was estab-
lished two things appeared, each unex-
pected, and each of them transforming
the nature of the campaign. First, the
high - explosive shell, not the shrapnel,
became unexpectedly the essential missile.
Secondly, the supply of shell needed was
unexpectedly extended — multiplied enor-
mously and beyond all previous calcu-
lation.

1. The first of these new developments,
I say, was the elimination of the role
which shrapnel plays in open war, and
the substitution for it as the chief missile
weapon of the high-explosive shell.

Shrapnel is useful in destroying en-
tanglements in front of a trench. It has
its uses for the " searching " of a trench,
especially for the " searching " of com-
munication trenches when troops are pass-
ing up and down them, and its fire can
check at the outset the attempt of troops
to leave their trenches and attack. But
shrapnel cannot destroy a trench. The
artillery preparation necessary for pound-
ing earthworks of any sort — and trenches

374 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

in the field are nothing else — the turning
upside down of such prepared lines, the
confusing and dazing of their occupants,
and the breaking up of their parapets and
shelters, falls entirely upon the high-ex-
plosive shell, and upon the high-explosive
shell of some calibre. Heavy guns larger
than field-pieces, guns of 4, 5, 6, 8 inch,
and even more, must be used in such
work, and must supplant the field-piece.

The moment trench warfare breaks up,
and mobile warfare takes its place, these
conditions are again reversed. Shrapnel
replaces the high-explosive shell, and the
field-piece comes to its own again as
against the heavy gun.

It is, of course, true that the heavy gun
and the high-explosive shell used in very
great numbers against troops that cannot
reply, even though they be mobile troops
in the open, do an immense amount of
execution, and can blast a way through
any resistance. They can fire from ranges
where they are out of danger from the
field batteries.

But an army reasonably well equipped
with heavy guns as well as amply provided
with field guns and their munitionment,

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 375

could always meet and defeat another
equal army which relied only upon its
heavy artillery. Roughly speaking, reli-
ance upon heavy artillery destroys the
power of rapid decision in the field.

We had, then, this situation with the
late autumn and early winter of 19 14 : —

Great nations were engaged in war,
each possessing its great stock of muni-
tions for artillery. But each had accumu-
lated such a stock under the conception
that the war would be fought in the open.
Finding that the war turned, as a matter
of fact, into trench warfare, and suddenly
called upon to provide high-explosive shell
principally instead of shrapnel principally,
and discharge that shell from large guns
4 inches and upwards, instead of from
field-pieces, all were taken aback. Each
group of combatants had now to take
part (from October 19 14) in a sort of
race to see which could ultimately out-
produce the other in a type of shell
which neither was fully prepared for.

Such was the first of the two new and
unexpected things which transformed the
nature of the campaign.

2. The second new and unexpected

376 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

thing we have also seen. It was this :
Not only was the foundation, so to speak,
of artillery work turned by the necessi-
ties of trench warfare from being mainly
a shrapnel foundation to mainly a high-
explosive foundation, and from being
based mainly upon the 3-inch shell of the
field batteries to being based mainly upon
the 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and even 11 inch shell
and upwards of the heavy batteries, but
at the same time it was discovered that
the amount of such shell needed for
trench work was not twice or thrice or
tenfold the old calculated amount of shell
needed for field work, but immensely
more — one hundredfold and two hun-
dredfold. The old stocks and reserves,
the old calculations of what would be
necessary for so many months of war,
went utterly by the board. A mobile
war, with troops manoeuvring in the open,
might, in addition to a number of minor
actions, develop, say, five or six great
battles at the most in the course of,
say, three months. The rest of the time
would be passed in the retreat, the pur-
suit, the manoeuvring and counter-manoeu-
vring of the various troops, and only on

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 377

the decisive days would there be a great
expenditure of ammunition.

But when the war developed (to every
one's surprise) into a mere siege work
against trenches upon either side, the
pounding against trenches which was
necessary to wear down an opponent was
a matter of ceaseless fire hour after hour
and day after day for months, and that
along a line of hundreds upon hundreds
of miles.

The whole of this novel situation may
be compared to the situation of two com-
peting engineers, each engaged in cutting
two neighbouring canals through soil of
which each believes that he knows the
resistance and the quantity. Shortly after
the inception of their task the whole
problem is transformed by an earthquake.
The amount of soil to be cut away
surpasses their original calculations one
hundredfold and more. Neither has pro-
vided the instruments necessary to the
new state of affairs ; each is at a loss, but
accident may have provided one of the en-
gineers with a great temporary advantage.
He may — not because he foresaw that
there would be an earthquake, but for

378 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

totally different reasons — be possessed of
instruments which his competitor lacks,
and which enable him to deal with the
new conditions earlier and more readily
than his competitor can.

Such was the position of the Austrians
and the Germans when they found them-
selves faced by the unexpected conditions of
the new trench warfare. For two reasons
purely accidental to the new development,
and in no way due to any foresight of
theirs, the enemy enjoyed for months a
great superiority over the Allies ; the Allies
suffered a corresponding handicap against
the enemy.

What these two conditions were I shall
now proceed to describe.

The first was the enemy's possession,
largely through the industry and clever-
ness of the Austrians, of a very large
mobile siege-train.

This provision of heavy guns, with their
munitionment, and, of course, with the
plant behind them in the factories to pro-
duce more such munitionment, this store
of large shells of high-explosive type was
quite unconnected with the present trench
warfare, or any foresight thereof. Never-

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 379

theless it came from one of the enemy's
good guesses. The enemy had, as we
have seen in a previous volume, differed
from the French school in believing that
isolated permanent works of small area
could, now that distant fire was capable
of regulation from the air, be overwhelmed
by a large modern siege-train. This guess
proved to be right in the earlier days of
the war, though it had but little effect
on the later campaign, because the lesson
of Namur and Liege was learnt at once
by the French, who threw out field works
round their great fortresses, early ceased
to rely upon the old permanent works,
and thus saved Toul and Verdun, and
in general the fortified line of the east.
But though the enemy in providing this
siege train, this store of large, high-
explosive shell, and this vast plant for
the continued production of the same,
had done so in connection with work
which the French did not allow them
to perform, such a supply came in quite
unexpectedly useful when trench war-
fare developed. There stood the great
pieces already to hand, their mobility
carefully planned and arranged for (that

380 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

is, the traction for them provided), their
stock of munitions still very large, and the
plant for continuing it enormous. There
also stood the great stack of high ex-
plosive, the prime materials for which,
and the plant for making which, the
Western Allies lacked. The enemy had
prepared such a plant for one use. To
his surprise and pleasure it suddenly
appeared of immediate and incalculable
value in quite another.

The second cause of the enemy's initial
advantage in trench warfare was not even
the product of a right guess in a totally
different field, but the product of a wrong
guess altogether.

This sort of ironical result, whereby an
error turns out to one's advantage in spite
of oneself, is curiously common in the
history of war.

The Germans, and the Austrians copy-
ing them, had guessed that in modern
warfare large high-explosive shell used
against troops in the open field would
be of such great effect that it was worth
while dragging the heavy cannon and
the very heavy munitionment required,
and tying the army down to such a weight.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 381

In other words, they thought it worth
while to sacrifice mobility to the presence
of large pieces firing high-explosive shell
upon the enemy's troops.

The French and English did not accept
this theory, and they were right. The
execution done against troops in the open
by this kind of munitionment was not
worth the delays and occasional stoppages
it involved. The Manchurian War had
proved this as had the South African. As
against troops manoeuvring in the open,
shrapnel, once more, was the only really
useful type of shell ; and the tremendous
series of actions called the Battle of the
Marne proved this beyond all contradic-
tion. It may even be said with some
justice that the presence of very heavy
pieces and their cumbersome train of
supply was among the causes that led
to Kluck's defeat in front of Paris. But
when the war degenerated into trench
warfare, beginning on the lines above the
Aisne, and reaching up gradually to the
North Sea, the enemy found himself un-
expectedly advantaged by his very error.
That error, which would have been fatal
to him in the open field, now provided

382 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

him with just the weapon needed for the
new form of fighting which neither he
nor his opponent had expected, and which
had developed blindly out of mere force
of circumstance in the second month of
the war. That error had given him a
number of heavy pieces immensely supe-
rior to those of the Allies, munitionment
for them, and the plant and stock of
materials at home for a new supply.

I have said that there are not a few
examples in the history of war of errors
thus turning unexpectedly to the profit
of the side that makes them. A classic
instance is the capital error of the French
in 1792 and 1793 with regard to the
standing power of their raw if enthusi-
astic troops. They all believed, from
Carnot downwards, that in time you could
get the huge, hastily-trained levies of the
Revolution to act in close formation, and
suffer without breaking the great losses
which the discipline of the eighteenth
century had made possible to its very
strict professional armies. They were
utterly wrong. The young levies nearly
always scattered when they met fire, and
could only be got to advance in loose

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 383

formations which were the despair of
their officers. Nevertheless, it was pre-
cisely out of this error on the part of
the leaders, and this weakness on the part
of the recruits, that there developed the
famous " Tirailleur " formation which, in
the next year, 1794, served as one of the
principal causes of French victory, and
was retained throughout the wars of the
Empire.

The enemy, then, when trench war-
fare developed, found himself superior to
the Allies in this matter of heavy artillery
and its munitionment of high-explosive
shell, and his superiority, which was over-
whelming, was fourfold. (1) He had far
more heavy guns. (2) He had a much
larger stock of shell ready for them.
(3) He had at home a considerable plant,
though not yet a sufficient one, for the
production of further munitionment of
this kind. And (4) he had, both within
his own territory and in the foreign terri-
tory he occupied in North France, Bel-
gium, and Poland, much the greater part
of the machines and mechanics of Europe
at his disposal.

384 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

With the Allies it was far otherwise.
The French had a somewhat better chance
than the British, because their arsenals
were designed for the supply of many
great fortresses, and a certain amount of
plant of the sort required for producing
heavy guns and large shell was present
upon her soil. But Britain was in a very
bad case. Superficial observers wondered
at the handicap against this country, of
whose industrial resources they had heard
so much. But they forgot that plant for
the production of one kind of industrial
product, though similar in species, would
be very different in detail from the plant
required for another. It is true that
Britain had great numbers of skilled ar-
tisans, a great deal of machines which
could ultimately be converted to the new
purposes, but she had no stock of material
corresponding to her new necessities. It
would certainly be many months before
she could produce upon anything like the
scale already possible to the enemy. It
would be at least six months or more
before she could produce upon the scale
(which the enemy himself was long in reach-
ing) demanded by the new trench warfare.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 385

The third member of the Great Alli-
ance was in the worst case of all. France
was badly handicapped, Great Britain still
more so ; but with Russia the peril was
far greater, and almost proved fatal to her
chances in the whole campaign. Russia
was not an industrial country. She was
and is an agricultural country, very little
developed upon the industrial side. She
lacked metals, and she lacked the means
of working them. She lacked the prime
material for the production of heavy guns
and high-explosive shell beyond the in-
sufficient stocks which had been thought
necessary to a modern war, and with a
reserve of which she had, like all the
other great countries, provided herself.
Russia, therefore, when this wholly un-
expected development appeared, suddenly
demanding high-explosive shell of large
calibre in one hundredfold the propor-
tion which had been expected upon all
sides before the war, was not only to
prove a handicap as against the enemy's
resources, but to be unable, when the
crisis came, to overcome that handicap
after the fashion happily possible to the

older civilizations of France and Britain.

11. 25

386 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

She would be compelled to depend upon
munitionment from abroad, but this could
only reach her doubtfully through Arch-
angel during the warmer months, and
even then over a thousand miles of rail-
way, three hundred of which were narrow
gauge, with little rolling stock ; or over a
distance of 6,000 miles from the ports of
the Far East, most of it single track, and
none of it provided with any really large
stock of wagons.

The result of the developments we have
just been studying was in the main this : —

The German General Staff found they
had failed altogether in their original
offensive plan. They had completely lost
the West, and had there been driven to
earth, and were contained. Their Aus-
trian ally had badly broken down in a
more general fashion. The Austro-Hun-
garian armies had not been defeated by
inferior numbers, as had the Germans at
the Battle of the Marne, but they had
shown a sort of looseness in plan, and a
capacity for going to pieces in the field
which made their independent and co-
ordinated action less and less to be relied

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 387

upon, and the necessity of their ultimate
control by Berlin more and more clear.

What with the Austro-Hungarian break-
down and the German defeat, there was
but one loophole of escape for the enemy
after he had failed in the Battle of Ypres
to break out from the pressure which con-
tained him in the West. That loophole
was afforded by the unexpected revolu-
tion in the use of heavy artillery and large-
calibre high-explosive shell, which the
trench warfare had, to the surprise of all
the Higher Commands, and none more
than the enemy's, manifested. Austro-
Germany was able to take advantage of the
situation for the reasons given above, and
took advantage of it at once. During the
winter months it would be possible for
the Central Empires to produce heavy
munition at a vastly greater rate than it
would be possible for the Allies to pro-
duce the same. It. would be possible for
the Central Empires, therefore, to appear
in the ensuing spring ready with a for-
midable superiority in fire power of the
only sort available against trenches. That
superiority would not last very long. The
Western Allies in particular would be

25 a

388 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

laying down plant as fast as they could,
and would meanwhile, through their com-
mand of the seas, be able to obtain some —
but very insufficient — munitionment from
abroad. By the late autumn of 191 5 at
latest the balance would be restored in
the West. It was, moreover, probable
that the West could hold against any
attack in the intervening period, even
though the superiority of munitionment
remained during that period with the
enemy. But the Eastern front of the
Allies was far more vulnerable. Russia
could not begin to supply herself with
a sufficiency of large guns and of heavy
munitionment for them. She would be
hopelessly inferior in this regard with the
opening of the spring of 191 5. She would
remain inferior throughout the summer,
and probably through the next winter as
well.

Therefore the enemy might justly make
some such calculation as this : —

" I cannot break the line which con-
tains me in the West, but I can break
the line which contains me in the East.
It is, of course, quite useless, save for
purposes of parade and of affecting civilian

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 389

opinion at home, merely to shift the Rus-
sian line, and to push the Russian armies
back. That would only postpone my in-
evitable defeat. But I believe it possible
to strike so hard that the Russian line
shall actually dissolve, the Russian armies
lose their cohesion, the offensive power of
Russia for the future disappear. At the
best I can, when I have broken their front
with my immense superiority in heavy
artillery at the reopening of the fine
weather, divide the Russian forces into
two or more portions, and get round and
capture one set of their armies after an-
other. Such a proceeding will leave Russia
without any striking power remaining to
her. I shall have done to Russia what I
did to France in 1870. She will have no
real armies left, and she will be compelled
to accept a separate peace. That done, I
am at once in quite a new and much
more favourable position. I can then
come back West unhampered by any
necessity of using men and munitions
in the East. I shall be again in a most
formidable superiority against my only
remaining foes. I shall be able to destroy
the resistance of the Western Allies, and

390 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

I shall thus have decided the war in my
own favour upon a totally new plan,
thanks to this accidental superiority I
have just discovered in what now turns
out to be the chief factor of success — a
superior weight of heavy guns and their
munitionment in high-explosive shell for
use against trenches. I shall be the more
certain of retaining my position because
I shall always have an immense superi-
ority in mere numbers of men against
the Western Allies alone. At the worst,
if I fail to envelop the Russian armies in
detail, I shall yet, during their retreat, cost
them such enormous losses in men and
material as will leave them incapable of
further effort. Russia finds it as difficult
to make rifles and machine guns as she
does to make shell and cannon. Her losses
in small arms alone in a pressed retreat
which I can certainly force upon her will
be such that, even if her armies retain
their organization, even if they remain
technically in being, they can never dur-
ing the course of the war be restored to
any formidable strength. I shall in this
way, therefore, probably obtain a separate
peace from Russia, and in any case be

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 391

free to neglect my Eastern front save for
a certain number of men and guns to
watch upon it. This would leave me not
quite as strong as my complete success
against Russia would leave me, but at
any rate strong enough to turn back West
and decide the issue there."

The enemy failed in both these alter-
native calculations.

In the first, which was really decisive,
he failed altogether. He never enveloped
a single Russian army. He was wholly
unable to put Russia out of action by the
final and complete methods of which 1870
had left their imprint upon German
strategy.

In the second best of his aims he much
more nearly succeeded. The retreat to
which he compelled Russia in the next
phase of the war cost our ally far more
men than it cost him — perhaps over a
million men in prisoners alone — with a
loss in rifles which was almost disastrous.
But the success, though considerable,
could not be pushed to an ultimate con-
clusion. The Russian armies, as we shall
see, remained in being, their organization
complete, and their power of recruitment

392 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

within a certain lapse of time, and even
of rearmament, unimpaired. Neither
could a separate peace be imposed upon
Russia, nor was the condition of the
Russian forces at the end of that great
Eastern campaign such that the Central
Empires could afford to leave upon the
East a mere watching body, and to bring
their weight back again Westward.

On the contrary, what happened, as we
shall see in the next volume of this series,
was a result in the main inconclusive,
and, therefore, adverse to the Central
Empires, whose permanent anxiety it was
to conclude the war.

Germany attempted to obtain the Vis-
tula line during the winter, as a prelude
to her blow to be delivered in the spring.
Meanwhile, during the same winter her
ally lost Galicia, and found itself fighting
with difficulty upon the summit of the
Carpathian line. The embarrassment of
Austria-Hungary had the great advantage
to the enemy of giving him one united
control, for Berlin assumed complete direc-
tion of the whole campaign. That unity
enabled the great blow against Russia to
be successfully struck in the last days of

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 393

April 191 5 ; the great Russian retreat
followed, with the consequences we have
briefly set down. Those consequences
did not involve the disappearance of Russia
from the field. They left the campaign as
a whole a problem in terms of time and
attrition — that is, a problem in terms of
slow and regular development. They in-
creased, in spite of an occupation of new
territory, the exhaustion, as they also ex-
tended the already too-extended fronts of
the Austro-Germans. And they brought
the nations of Europe into the second
winter of the war, with no approach to
a decision in favour of the Central Em-
pires, with the rapidly approaching ex-
haustion of efficient reserves of those
Empires, and with the gradual rearma-
ment, the rapid increase in munitionment
and in men, of the Western Allies.

CONCLUSION.

We are now in a position to summarize
the Marne and its sequel in a few phrases
which, though brief and general, can be
exact.

The German Empire, long preparing
for a campaign that should rid it of rivals,
and give it the mastery over Europe, had
maintained its preparation with singular
secrecy, and had organized it in detail,
if not with skill. It had in particular
depended upon a system of espionage
hitherto unknown in human history, and
unsuspected by any of the older and more
stable civilizations which it proposed to
master. It had acquired for this task the
leadership of Central Europe, and could
count as effectives for its purpose all the
available manhood governed by the Houses
of Hapsburg and of Hohenzollern.

To the East it had to fear a rival very
populous, but ill-organized and particu-
larly lacking in the industrial opportunities

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 395

necessary to modern war. That rival was
the Russian Empire.

Its task upon its other frontiers in the
West was the immediate and apparently
facile destruction of a competitor which
it believed to be in political decay — the
French people. It had against this more
actively organized but despised rival an
overwhelming superiority in number. The
unexpected entry of Great Britain into
the war promised complications of a very
serious sort if the war should be pro-
longed ; but in its first stages Great
Britain could add to the armed forces of
the French not more than a twentieth or
so, and those first stages would be decisive.

The German Empire, distributing its
allies and subjects after the simple fashion
dictated by the circumstance — the Austro-
Hungarians in such and such numbers to
meet the slow Russian mobilization ; a
few of its own corps to watch its own
side of the Russian menace on the north
— marched immediately westward, violat-
ing the neutrality of Belgium, and sweep-
ing down through the open country
of Northern France upon a plan which
fully utilized its numerical superiority.

396 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

It had the whole of the initiative. It had
immensely stronger offensive power. It
could accordingly produce a more ex-
tended line than its adversary. It swept
back, and proposed to envelop, the in-
ferior force opposed to it.

It was at the maximum of its developed
energy, at the highest degree of its mo-
mentum, upon September 5, 19 14: just
sixteen days after the first main contact
had been taken upon the line of the Sambre
and the Meuse.

In such a situation did the French
Higher Command catch a precise moment
and a precise distribution of the line con-
genial to their counter-offensive. They
effected a surprise on the west with one
small portion of their forces (one-four-
teenth). The German effort was checked.
So far as this western surprise was con-
cerned, however, it nearly recovered it-
self. But even as the western part was
in process of recovering itself, on the
fourth day, the great host was mortally
struck fifty miles away at its centre. The
invading line fell back, and its initiative
and offensive were at an end. It had
failed. This was the Battle of the Marne.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 397

Next the pursuit compelled it to dig in.
It was reduced to holding entrenched
positions. It tried to break out in the
centre and the east. It failed for all its
superior numbers. It then tardily turned
its energies to the prevention of that now
triumphant weaker force opposed to it
from turning its flank by the west. It
countered hurriedly as best it could, but
too late, the increasing extension of its
opponent's line, still hoping that some
gate could be forced again before that
line should close. No such gate was
forced. The line reached the sea. The
armies of the German Empire, which two
short months before had been legitimately
confident of a victory, as certain as human
calculation could make it, were now pinned
to lines stretching from the Swiss moun-
tains to the North Sea. From these lines
it has been their effort, furiously under-
taken at long intervals, to break out ; an
effort in which they have gradually wasted
their superiority in number, first of men,
then at last even of industrial power. They
have seen the numerically insignificant
British contingent increased miraculously,
if I may use the word without exaggera-

398 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

tion — increased, at any rate, in a degree
unknown to any past example of Euro-
pean warfare — and presenting in its active
combatant form alone, and in France
alone, within eighteen months of develop-
ment, a tenfold multiplication of number.
The German Alliance has in the same
interval made effort upon effort of a
subsidiary kind : to compel her less-
organized, under-armed Eastern foe to
a separate peace ; to disturb by internal
quarrels the civilization she originally at-
tacked ; to move in her favour, for what it
was worth, the remaining neutral fraction
of the white races ; to terrorize small neu-
trals ; to shake the maritime supremacy
and the commercial machinery of Great
Britain ; to menace her enemies through
the Mahomedan world by I know not
what ill-considered and exaggerated effects
upon the Near East.

Meanwhile, throughout all those months
the Western front has remained the car-
dinal theatre wherein the fate of the world
must be decided, and Gaul, for the third
time in history, has been the arena of
Europe.

All that Western situation, the core of

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 399

the whole story, is no more than an ex-
tension of the Marne.

It is this consideration which gives to
that stupendous action its moral, as a mere
account of its numbers and breadth of
ground gives it its material, grandeur.

The great campaign is not concluded
at the moment in which these lines are
written. Its future is completely veiled,
though the last of the enemy's " shaking
of the bars " — the Battle of Verdun —
would seem, even as I write this, to be
another failure, the most stupendous of
all. But though it is impossible to predict
the conclusion of any human affair, least
of all the conclusion of these supreme
affairs, until the full course is run, and all
their effects are apparent, yet it is not
rash to say of the Marne that it should
stand alone among the great decisions of
human history. Nor is it an exaggeration
to say, even to-day while the war is still
raging, that the Marne already takes a
larger place (as well as one unique) than
any of the short, decisive, famous days,
its predecessors.

The Battle of the Marne secured Europe
not from an external peril, as did Tours

4oo A GENERAL SKETCH OF

and Chalons from the Arab and the Hun,
but from one internal and spiritual. It
decided that most profound of all issues
which can appear within a man's own
soul or within that of a nation, or within
that of a whole vast tradition, such as is
the tradition of Christendom — I mean
whether the lesser should conquer the
greater, the viler the more noble, the
more changeable the more steadfast, the
baser the more refined.

The Marne was that moment of issue
in which a soul is saved or lost. The
enormity of consequence with which
those four blazing September days were
filled, our generation — an inch away from
them, so to speak — cannot gauge at all.
We know generally, and generally state,
that the Germanies have learnt their lesson
imperfectly from the south and from the
west ; we know that of the Germanies
Prussia was the basest part. We know,
upon the analogy of all historical things,
small and great, that the less creative, the
dullest and the worst element may de-
stroy, and has frequently attempted to
destroy, the vital, the more creative, and
the best. We appreciate — but dully and

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 401

confusedly, like men not yet fully recov-
ered of a fever, their bodies still full of
pain and their minds clouded — that the
presence of death is removed, and that the
corner of the road is turned ; there is
even a landscape before us. We owe that
salvation to the Marne.

But all these things are still in flux,
unstable within our minds. Those for
whom the large presentment of history is
absent or imperfect or forgotten, and
those who grasped very slowly (being in
a secure place) the magnitude of the affair,
may still, even after twenty months, ask
me, perhaps with irony, whether I have
not distorted to exaggeration the vast scale
of those September days.

No, I have not so distorted them.
Upon the contrary, I find here in these
concluding words of mine a sort of im-
potence. The thing is far too great for
my pen. Said St. Jerome of the Auxiliaries
sacking Rome at last : " Perdidi vocabu-
lum." I might repeat that phrase.

I have throughout this book dealt with
the story of the Marne as military prob-
lems should be dealt with, I think — that
is, so that one indifferent to the victory

402 A GENERAL SKETCH OF

of either side should be able from my
narrative to comprehend the movement
of troops and their effect, and be dis-
turbed by nothing more.

Had it been my task to turn to the
awful reality, the living powers at work
behind and beneath these phenomena of
strategy and of tactics, I would surely
have attempted a vision of personal spirits
in conflict far beyond the scale of man-
kind. In such an attempt I should have
failed. A thousand years will pass, and
no historian will ever successfully record it.

Note on the opposing Numbers at the Marne (see p. 35).

No official list has been published yet of the German
units present at the Battle of the Marne. Several writers
upon the battle have, as I have said, received informa-
tion, not exactly official but trustworthy, as proceeding
from men who had taken part in the action. Of the
various lists so drawn up, that which allows least numbers
to the enemy, and gives us, therefore, a minimum, enu-
merates the corps as follows : —

With Kluck .... 5 Corps (including the 9th,

which is sometimes put
down to Buelow's com-
mand) .
With Buelow ... 4 Corps (including the Guard).
With Hausen ... 4 Corps.
With the 4th Army to

the east of Hausen . 5 Corps.
With the Crown Prince 5 Corps.

Total ... 23 Corps.

THE EUROPEAN WAR. 403

This list does not give the massed German forces south
of Verdun, but we know that the concentrated attack
upon the Grand Couronne, which had not finished when
the Marne opened, was made with 8 corps, for they were
identified, and there were certainly 2 corps more upon
the very long stretch between the Swiss frontier and
Nancy.

This source of information, therefore, allows for
33 corps apart from the independent cavalry divisions.
Now, even if there were only two divisions in each of
these corps, and if no third division had ever been present
with any German corps, we would get from this list
twice as many divisions as there were corps — that is,
66 divisions.

Every other list I have seen ascribes 6 corps instead of 5
to the Crown Prince, while the greater part also find
another corps, the nth, acting in the centre. There is
little doubt that these 2 extra corps were present, which
would raise our minimum number to 70 divisions.

Further, we know positively that at least one division,
left up in the north upon the flank of Kluck's advance,
came down during the great action and appeared upon
the last day but one of the Battle of the Ourcq, mena-
cing the French flank there.

Again, Maubeuge fell on the 6th of September. To
contain Maubeuge certainly not less than two divisions
were necessary, more probably three or even four, for
the garrison alone consisted of two divisions. It is not
credible that this force was left idle during the three
ensuing critical days after it was released by the fall of
Maubeuge. Some of these divisions must have appeared
upon the Marne ; and even if only one appeared, that
would give us 72 divisions.

But all this, as I have said, is allowing only two divi-
sions to each German army corps. Now we know that
several of these corps brought with them a third reserve
division, though how many of these formations peculiar
to the German service there were is difficult to establish
until the casualty lists already analyzed are available.
Even if there were only 4 or 5, that would bring the total

4o4 THE EUROPEAN WAR.

number of divisions up to 76 or yy for the German force
actually fighting during the days of the Marne.

The strength of the Allied army is much easier to
establish, for we know it in some detail. You have 4
divisions originally present with the French 6th Army ;
6, not of full establishment by any means, with the
British contingent ; 11 with Esperey and the 5th Army;
8 with Foch ; with Langle and the 4th Army there were
6 divisions ; while Sarrail commanded 6| nominally — but
a depleted 6\. This gives us 41 \ divisions. But the
4 divisions of the 6th Army grew to 9 before the Battle
of the Ourcq by reinforcement, so we have a total of
46^ divisions for the French. To these must be added
what remained south of Verdun. How many were here ?
I doubt if there were more than 4 divisions. There may
possibly have been 5. My reason for saying this is that
we know the Grand Couronne to have been defended with
numbers less than half of the attack, and we know that
the eastern armies had been skinned to the very barest
limit by the withdrawal of men to feed the new "Mass
of Manoeuvre," the 6th and the 9th Armies. We also
know that the 2 divisions which enabled Sarrail to stand
were withdrawn from the east just before the battle. I
doubt whether, when the full truth is known, more than
51 divisions will be found present upon the French
lines when the battle opened, excluding the independent
cavalry divisions. It is difficult to see how, in the evi-
dence as yet available, there were as many as 53. There
may have been 52.

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