The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors
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the authority of General Galliéni as military governor, the prefect of Paris, and the prefect of police.
On his appointment to the command, Galliéni did what he could to strengthen the defenses. Trenches were dug, wire entanglements were constructed, and hundreds of buildings that had been allowed to spring up over the military zone of defense were demolished in order to leave a clear field of fire. The gates of the city were barred with heavy palisades backed by sandbags, and neighboring streets also were barricaded for fighting. Certain strategic streets were obstructed by networks of barbed wire, and in others pits were dug to the depth of a man's shoulders. The public buildings were barricaded with sandbags and guarded with machine guns.
But while Paris was preparing for siege and assault the French staff were concentrating their efforts on making a siege impossible by a decisive stroke against the German advance.
Hardly had the Government left the city when tidings arrived that instead of marching on Paris, General von Kluck had swung southeastward toward the crossing of the Marne. This news was obtained by the allied flying corps, which had made daring flights over the enemy's line.
CHAPTER XII
THE MARNE—GENERAL PLAN OF BATTLE FIELD
On September 4, 1914, the bugler of Destiny sounded the "Halt!" to the retreat of the armies of the Allies from the Belgian frontier. The marvelous fighting machine of the German armies, perhaps the most superb organization of military potency that has been conceived by the mind of man, seemed to reach its limit of range. Success had perched upon the German eagles, and for two weeks there had been a steady succession of victories. Nevertheless the British and French armies were not crushed. They were overwhelmed, they were overpowered, and, under stern military necessity, they were forced to fall back.
Day after day, under the swinging hammer-head blows of the German drive, the flower of the forces of the Allies had been compelled to break. A little less generalship on the part of the defenders, or a little more recklessness behind that smashing offensive might have turned this retirement into a rout. Even as it was, the official dispatches reveal that, while occasional and local retirements had been considered, such a sweeping retreat was far from contemplated by Generals Joffre and French. German official dispatches bear testimony to the intrepid character of the defenders sullenly falling back and contesting every inch of the way, as much as they do to the daring and the vivid bravery of the German attackers who hurled themselves steadily, day after day, upon positions hastily taken up in the retreat where the retirement could be partly repaid by the heaviest toll of death.
The great strategical plan of the Germans, which had displayed itself throughout the entire operations on the western theatre of war from the very first gun of the campaign, came to its apex on this September 3, 1914. If the allied armies could develop a strong enough defense to halt the German offensive at this point, and especially if they could develop a sufficiently powerful counteroffensive to strike doubt into the confident expectations of the armies of the Central Powers, then the strategical plan had reached a check, which might or might not be a checkmate, as the fortunes of war might determine. If, on the other hand, the stand made by the Allies at this point should prove ineffective, and if the counteroffensive should reveal that the German hosts had been able to establish impregnable defenses as they marched, then the original strategic plan of the attackers must be considered as intact and the peril of France would become greatly intensified.
It is idle, in a war of such astounding magnitude, to speak about any one single incident as being a "decisive" one. Such a term can only rightly be applied to conditions where the opposing powers each have but one organized army in the field, and these armies meet in a pitched battle. None the less, the several actions which are known as the Battles of the Marne may be considered as decisive, to the extent that they decided the limit of the German offensive at that point. The German General Staff, taking the ordinary and obvious precautions in the case of a possible repulse, chose and fortified in the German rear positions to which its forces might fall back in the event of retreat. These prepared positions had a secondary contingent value for the Germans in view of the grave Russian menace that might call at any moment for a transfer of German troops from the western to the eastern front.
The Battle of the Marne stopped the advance of the main German army on that line, forcing it back.
Battle of the Marne—Beginning on September 5, 1914.
The scene of the battle ground is one of the most famous in Europe, not even the plains of Belgium possessing a richer historical significance than that melancholy plain, the Champagne-Pouilleuse, upon whose inhospitable flats rested for centuries the curse of a prophecy, that there would the fate of France be decided, a prophecy of rare connotation of accuracy, for it refrained from stating what that fate should be. Yet the historic sense is amplified even more by remembrance than by prophecy, for in the territory confronting that huge arc on which 1,400,000 German and Austrian soldiers lay encamped, awaiting what even the German generals declared to be "the great decision," there lies, on the old Roman road running from Châlons a vast oval mound, known to tradition as "the Camp of Attila." In that country, a Roman general, Aetius, leading a host of soldiers of whom many were Gauls, broke a vast flood wave of the Huns as those savage Mongol hordes hurled themselves against Rome's westernmost possession. On that occasion, however, the Visigoths, under their King Theodoric, fought side by side with the Gauls. Then, the dwellers on the banks of the Rhine and on the banks of the Seine were brothers in arms, now, that same countryside shall see them locked in deadly conflict.
The morale of tradition is a curious thing, and often will nerve a sword arm when the most impassioned utterance of a beloved leader may fail. There were few among the soldiers of France who forgot that in the south of this same plain of Champagne-Pouilleuse was the home of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, patriot and saint, and more than one French soldier prayed that the same voices which had whispered in the ear of the virgin of Domremy should guide the generalissimo who was to lead the armies of France upon the morrow. Here, tradition again found old alliances severed and new ones formed, for the Maid of Orleans led the French against the English, while in the serried ranks awaiting the awful test of the shock of battle, English and French soldiers lived and slept as brothers.
The topography of the region of the battle field is of more than common interest, for modern tactics deal with vaster stretches of country than would have been considered in any previous war. This is due, partly, to the large armies handled, partly to the terrific range of modern artillery, and also to what may be called the territorial perceptiveness which aeronautical surveys make possible to a general of to-day. While war has not changed, it is true that a commander of an army in modern campaign is compelled to review and to take into account a far larger group of factors. A modern general must be capable of grasping increased complexities, and must possess a synthetic mind to be able to reduce all these complicating factors into a single whole. The first factor of the battles of the Marne was the topographical factor, the consideration of the land over which the action was to take place.
Let the River Marne be used as a base from which this topography can be determined. The Marne rises near Langres, which is the northwest angle of that pentagon of fortresses (Belfort, Epinal, Langres, Dijon, and Besançon), which incloses an almost impregnable recuperative ground for exhausted armies. From Langres the Marne flows almost north by west for about fifty miles through a hilly and wooded country, then, taking a more westerly course, it flows for approximately seventy-five miles almost northwest, across the Plain of Champagne, past Vitry-le-François and Châlons, thence almost due westward through the Plateau of Sézanne, by Epernay, Château Thierry, La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and Meaux to join the Seine just south of Paris. In the neighborhood of Meaux, three small tributaries flow into the Marne—the Ourcq from the north, and the Grand Morin and Petit Morin from the east. The Marshes of St. Gond, ten miles long from east to west and a couple of miles across, lie toward the eastern borders of the Plateau of Sézanne, and form the source of the Petit Morin, which has been deepened in the reclamation