THE “EFFECT OF SUCTION”
I. FRENCH AND D’ESPÉREY STRIKE NORTH
The unescapable dilemma of the Joffrean strategy had developed into
a second and peremptory phase. In deciding to withdraw from the Brie
plateau and the Marne, rather than risk his rear and communications
for the chance of a victory on the Seine, Kluck, or his superiors,
had, doubtless, chosen the lesser evil. The marching wing of the
invasion was crippled before the offensive of the Allies had begun; but
Gallieni’s precipitancy had brought a premature arrest upon the 6th
Army. Beside this double check, we have now to witness a race between
two offensive movements——Bülow and Hausen pouring south with the
impetuosity of desperation, while, along their right, the British Force
and the French 5th Army struck north between the two western masses of
the enemy with the fresh energy of an immense hope. Which will sooner
effect a rupture?
Logically, there should be no doubt of the answer. Kluck was mainly
occupied with Maunoury; Bülow, with Foch. Between them, there
was no new army to engage the eight corps of Sir John French and
Franchet d’Espérey. The cavalry and artillery force of Marwitz and
Richthofen, strong as it was, could do no more than postpone the
inevitable——always provided that Maunoury and Foch could hold out.
Every day, the pull of Kluck to the north-west and of Bülow to
the south-east must become more embarrassing. French writers have
applied an expressive phrase to the influence of this pull——“effet de
ventouse,” effect of suction——though hardly appreciating its double
direction. The maintenance of a continuous battle-line is axiomatic
in modern military science. It follows from the size of the masses
in action, the difficulty, even with steam and petrol transport, of
moving them rapidly, and their dependence upon long lines of supply.
The soldier bred upon Napoleonic annals may long for the opportunity
of free manœuvre; all the evolution of warfare is against his
dream. An army neither feeds nor directs itself; it is supplied and
directed as part of a larger machine executing a predetermined plan.
Superiority of force is increased by concentration, and achieves
victory by envelopment of the enemy as a whole, or his disintegration
by the piercing of gaps, a preliminary to retail envelopment or
dispersal. A course which loses the initial superiority and requires
a considerable change of plan is already a grave prejudice; when to
this is added a necessary expedient leading to an extensive disturbance
of the line, prudence dictates that the offensive should be suspended
until the whole mass of attack has been reorganised in view of the
new circumstances. The German Command dare not risk such a pause.
It persisted; and the penalty lengthened with every hour of its
persistence. The more Kluck stretched his right in order to cover his
communications by Compiègne and the Oise valley, the wider became
the void between his left and the II Army, constantly moving in the
opposite direction. When French and d’Espérey found this void, a like
difficulty was presented to Bülow——to be enveloped on the right, or to
close up thither, leaving a breach on his other flank, which the Saxon
Army would be unable to fill. Thus, Maunoury’s enterprise on the Ourcq,
though falling short of full success, produced a series of voids, and,
at length, a dislocation of the whole German line, which was only saved
from utter disaster by a general retreat.
[Illustration: Opening of the ALLIED OFFENSIVE
British Front & D’Espérey’s Left
Sept. 6, 6 a.m.]
General Franchet d’Espérey, who had been brigadier in 1908, divisional
commander in 1912, a gallant and energetic officer now fifty-eight
years of age, successful with the 1st Corps at Dinant and St. Gerard
in Belgium, and in the important battle of Guise, had, on September 3,
succeeded Lanrezac at the head of the largest of the French armies,
the 5th. Its task——in touch with Foch on the right, and with the
British, through Conneau’s cavalry corps, on the left——was to press
north toward Montmirail, against Kluck’s left (III and IX Corps, and
Richthofen’s cavalry divisions) and the right wing of Bülow (VII
Corps and X Reserve Corps). In later stages of the war, the junction
of two armies often showed itself to be a point of weakness to be
aimed at. With four active corps and three divisions of reserves
in hand, d’Espérey had, even before the German withdrawal began,
a considerable advantage——indicating Joffre’s intention that it
should be the second great arm of his offensive, that which should
make the chief frontal attack. On the other hand, the enemy held
strong positions along the Grand Morin, and, behind this, along the
Vauchamps–Montmirail ridge of the Petit Morin. During their retreat
the Allies had used the opportunity offered by the valleys of the
Marne and its tributaries for delaying actions; these streams were now
so many obstacles across their path. The first French movement, on
September 6, was powerfully resisted. On the left, the cavalry occupied
Courtacon.[63] At the centre, the 18th and 3rd Corps co-operating
(prophetic combination——Maud’huy, Mangin, and Petain!), the villages
of Montceaux-les-Provins and Courgivaux, on the highroad from Paris to
Nancy, which was, as it were, the base of the whole battlefield, were
taken by assault. On the right, the 1st Corps was stopped throughout
the forenoon before Chatillon-sur-Morin by the X Reserve Corps.
D’Espérey detached a division, with artillery, to make a wide detour
and to fall, through the Wood of La Noue, upon the German defences east
of Esternay. Thus threatened, the enemy gave way; and the market-town
of Esternay was occupied early on the following morning. The 10th Corps
continued the line toward the north-east, after suffering rather heavy
losses beyond Sezanne.
On the morning of September 7, the air services of the 5th Army
reported the commencement of Kluck’s retreat; and soon afterwards a
corresponding movement of Bülow’s right was discovered to be going on
behind a screen of cavalry and artillery, supported by some infantry
elements. D’Espérey had no sooner ordered the piercing of this screen
than news was brought in of the critical position of the neighbouring
wing of Foch’s Army, the 42nd Division and the 9th Corps, through
which Bülow’s X and Guard Corps were trying to break, from the St.
Gond Marshes toward Sezanne. He at once diverted his 20th Division to
threaten the western flank of this attack (which will be followed in
the next section) about Villeneuve-lès-Charleville. Meanwhile, rapid
progress was being made on the centre and left of the 5th Army. Between
Esternay and Montmirail extend the close-set parklands called the
Forest of Gault, with smaller woods outlying, a difficult country in
which many groups of hungry German stragglers were picked up during the
following days. Through this district, the 1st Corps and the left of
the 10th, with General Valabrègue’s three divisions of reserves behind,
beat their way; while, farther west, in the more open but broken fields
between the Grand and the Petit Morin, the 18th and the 3rd Corps made
six good miles, to the line Ferté Gaucher–Trefols. More than a thousand
prisoners were taken during the day, with a few machine-guns and some
abandoned stores.
We have seen (pp. 124–5, 131) the British Expeditionary Force at
the beginning of a like novel and exhilarating experience. Its five
divisions, having seized Coulommiers on the night of September 6, had
pressed on to the Petit Morin, and, from its junction with the Marne
eastward to La Trétoire, where obstinate opposition was offered, had
secured the crossings. D’Espérey’s left wing thus found its task
lightened; and the 18th and 3rd Corps were ordered to sweep aside the
remaining German rearguards, and to strike across the Petit Morin
on either side of Montmirail. September 8 was thus a day rather of
marching than fighting, except at Montmirail, on whose horse-shoe
ridge the enemy held out for some hours.[64] In the evening, General
Hache entered the picturesque town, and set up his quarters in the old
château where Bülow’s Staff had been housed on the previous day. On
the left, Maud’huy pushed the 18th Corps by Montolivet over the Petit
Morin, and after a sharp action took the village of Marchais-en-Brie.
On the right, the 1st Corps was checked at Courbetaux and Bergères,
the German VII Corps having come into line; so that the 10th Corps,
between Soigny and Corfelix, had to turn north-westward to its
assistance. This was scarcely more than an eddy in the general stream
of fortune. The moral effect of a happy manœuvre goes for much in the
result. The British and d’Espérey’s men forgot all their sufferings
and weariness in the spectacle of the enemy yielding. British aviators
reported Kluck’s columns as in general retreat, certain roads being
much encumbered. Bülow had necessarily withdrawn his right to maintain
contact; his centre and left must follow if the pressure were continued.
The hour of decision approached. During the morning of Wednesday,
September 9, Sir John French’s 2nd and 1st Corps crossed the Marne at
Luzancy, Sââcy, Nanteuil, Charly, and Nogent-l’Artaud. This part of
the valley was scarcely defended; and a brigade of the 3rd Division
had progressed 4 miles beyond it by 9 a.m. Anxious news for the German
Staff. Unfortunately, our right was arrested until afternoon by a
threat of attack from Château-Thierry; and, lower down the river about
La Ferté, the 3rd Corps, still represented only by the 4th Division and
the 19th Brigade, was stopped until evening before the broken bridges
and rifle-parapets on the northern bank. Some guns then carried over
near Changis bombarded the German artillery positions beyond the Ourcq,
a notice to quit that had prompt effect. Château-Thierry was left to
the French 18th Corps, which occupied the town that night. Meanwhile,
Smith-Dorrien and Haig entered the hilly country about Bezu, Coupru,
and Domptin, on the road from Château-Thierry to Lizy-sur-Ourcq.
Marwitz vainly essayed to obstruct the northward movement. Beaten in an
action near Montreuil-aux-Lions, he informed Kluck that he could do no
more, and hurried back to the line of the little river Clignon, about
Bussiares and Belleau, which were reached by 4 p.m. A little later,
British Aviators brought in word that the enemy had evacuated the whole
angle between the east bank of the Ourcq and the Marne, and that, on
the other hand, the withdrawal of the German I Army was creating a
void beyond Château-Thierry: the cavalry of Richthofen, sent thither
by Bülow, was in the same predicament as that of Marwitz farther west.
At daybreak on September 10, Pulteney’s Corps left the Marne behind.
Meeting no serious resistance, the British crossed the Clignon valley,
and by evening occupied La Ferté-Milon, Neuilly-St. Front, and Rocourt.
These were marching days for the 5th Army. Conneau’s cavalry,
reinforced by an infantry brigade and extra batteries, passed the
Marne at Azy on the 9th, and, harrying Bülow’s right flank, reached
Oulchy-le-Château next day. The 18th Corps, with the reserve divisions
in support, pushed on from Château-Thierry toward Fère-en-Tardenois;
and the 3rd Corps, which had occupied Montigny, half-way between
Montmirail and the Marne, on the 9th, forced the passage, under heavy
fire from the hills at Jaulgonne, on the 10th. The 1st Corps had a
heavier task. Having progressed as far as the Vauchamps plateau, it was
wheeled back to the south-east to help the 10th Corps, which d’Espérey
had transferred to Foch’s Army of the centre, now in the gravest peril.
II. BATTLE OF THE MARSHES OF ST. GOND
While the 6th Army, within sight of the Ourcq, was suffering its
great agony, while the “effect of suction” was showing itself in the
Anglo-French pursuit of Kluck, very different were the first results at
the centre of the long crescent of the Allied front. Kluck was saved
by his quick resolution, together with Marwitz’s able work in covering
the rear. Bülow was in no such imminent danger. His communications with
the north were at first perfectly safe. The situation of his right
wing, which must either fall back or lose contact with the I Army, was
awkward; but, doubtless, Kluck’s success would soon re-establish it.
The circumstances indicated for the remainder of the II Army and the
neighbouring Saxon Corps an instant attempt to break through the French
centre, or at least to cripple it, and, with it, all Joffre’s offensive
plan. The very strategic influence which helped the British and
d’Espérey, therefore, at first threw a terrible burden upon Foch and
the “detachment” which on September 5 was renamed the “9th Army”; yet
it was by this same influence that, in the end, though by the narrowest
of margins, he also won through.
[Illustration: The MARNE RE-CROSSED.
Morning of Sept. 9.]
The theatre of this struggle is the south-western corner of the flat,
niggardly expanse of La Champagne Pouilleuse, lying between the
depression called the Marshes of St. Gond and the Sezanne–Sommesous
railway and highroad. It is very clearly bounded on the west by
the sharp edge of the Brie plateau; on the east it is bordered by
the Troyes–Châlons road and railway. Sezanne on the west, and Fère
Champènoise at the centre, are considerable country towns; the right is
marked by the permanent camp of Mailly. To the north of Sezanne, the
hill of Mondemont, immediately overlooking the marshes and the plain,
and the ravine of St. Prix, on the Epernay road, where the Petit Morin
issues from the marshes and breaks into the plateau, are key positions.
The Marshes of St. Gond (so called after a seventh-century priory,
of which some ruins remain) witnessed several of the most poignant
episodes of Napoleon’s 1814 campaign “from the Rhine to Fontainebleau.”
They were then much more extensive. Between the villages of
Fromentières and Champaubert, there survives the name, though little
else, of the “Bois du Desert,” where 3000 Russian grenadiers are said
to have been slain or captured by Marmont’s cuirassiers, while hundreds
of others were drowned. A month later, Blücher was back from Laon
attacking on the same ground; and Marmont and Mortier were in full
retreat along the road to Fère Champènoise. Pachod’s national guards,
the “Marie Louises,” turned north to the marches of St. Gond as to a
refuge. The Russians and Prussians surrounded them; and only a few of
the French lads escaped by the St. Prix road. To-day the marshes are
largely reclaimed and canalised; but this clay bed, extending a dozen
miles east and west, and averaging more than a mile in breadth, fills
easily under such a rainstorm as fell upon the region on the evening
of September 9, 1914, and at all times it limits traffic to the three
or four good roads crossing it. The chief of these, from Epernay to
Sezanne and Fère Champènoise respectively, pass the ends of the marshes
at St. Prix and Morains; the former is commanded by Mondemont; the
latter by Mont Août, near Broussy.
Was this “last barrier providentially set across the route of the
invasion”[65] forgotten? Joffre’s earlier plan did, indeed, involve
the abandonment of all the plain extending to the Aube; the decision
to stand on the line of the marshes was a consequence of Gallieni’s
initiative. Foch’s Army had been carried beyond them in its retreat,
but, fortunately, not far beyond. On the morning of September 5,
advance columns of Bülow’s left had entered Baye; patrols had reached
the Petit Morin bridge at St. Prix, and the north-centre of the marshes
at Vert-la-Gravelle. A little more dash, and the Germans would have
possessed themselves of all the commanding points. It was about 10 a.m.
that Foch received the Generalissimo’s order closing the retreat: “The
9th Army will cover the right of the 5th Army, holding the southern
passages of the Marshes of St. Gond, and placing a part of its forces
on the plateau north of Sezanne.” Foch at once directed the appropriate
movements; and, by the evening of September 5, the following positions
were reached:
_French Left._——Driven, back from St. Prix by forces belonging to
Bülow’s X Active and Reserve Corps, the 42nd Division (General
Grossetti) held the neighbouring hills from Villeneuve-lès-Charleville
and Soisy to Mondemont.
_Centre._——During the afternoon, Dubois advanced the 9th Corps
(Moroccan Division and 17th Division) from Fère Champènoise to
Broussy and Bannes, and thence pushed two battalions over the marshes
to Toulon-la-Montagne, Vert-la-Gravelle, and Aulnizeux in face of
the Prussian Guard Corps, the main body of which was at Vertus. The
Blondlat Brigade of the Moroccan Division attacked Congy, but failed,
and fell back on Mondemont. The 52nd Reserve Division was in support
about Connantre.
_French Right._——The 11th Corps (General Eydoux) rested on the east end
of the marshes at Morains-le-Petit, and from here stretched backward
along the course of the Champagne Somme to Sommesous, with the 60th
Reserve Division behind it. They had before them the Saxon XII Active
Corps and one of its reserve divisions. At Sommesous, General de
l’Espée’s Cavalry Division covered a gap of about 12 miles between
Foch’s right and de Langle de Cary’s left at Humbauville.
Thus, on the eve of the battle, the 9th Army, inferior to the enemy
in strength, especially in artillery, presented to it an irregular
convex front. Bülow was at Esternay on the west; Hausen was approaching
the gap on its right flank; the centre was protruded uneasily to and
beyond the St. Gond Marshes. The expectation of General Headquarters
had, apparently, been that the German onset would fall principally on
the right of the 5th Army. Foch was, therefore, instructed to give aid
in that direction by pushing his left to the north-north-west, while
the rest of his line stood firm until the pressure was relieved. In
the event, these rôles were reversed: it was d’Espérey who had to help
Foch. The original dispositions, however, had a certain effect upon the
course of the battle. They gave the 9th Army a pivot on the Sezanne
plateau; and the obstinacy with which this advantage was retained seems
to have diverted the German commanders, till it was too late, from
concentrating their force on the other wing, the line of attack from
which the French had most to fear.
[Illustration: FOCH’S FRONT
_Sept. 6, morning._
_Sept. 7, night._]
Foch was the offensive incarnate; but, on the morning of September
6th, he could do no more than meet, and that with indifferent success,
Bülow’s attack upon his left-centre. He was weakest where the enemy was
most strong: a large part of the French guns could not reach the field
for the beginning of the combat; the 9th Corps, in particular, felt the
lack of three groups of artillery it had left in Lorraine. Failing this
support, the two battalions holding Toulon-la-Montagne were quickly
shelled out of their positions. In vain Dubois, commanding the 9th
Corps, ordered the Moroccan Tirailleurs to march on Baye, and the 17th
Division to retake the two lost points. A crack regiment, the 77th,
crossed the marshes and entered Coizard village, Major de Beaufort,
cane in hand, on a big bay horse, at its head, crying to his men,
shaken by rifle fire from the houses: “Forward, boys! Courage! It is
for France. Jeanne d’Arc is with us.” The 2nd and 3rd battalions went
on, and tried to climb Mount Toulon. The fighting continued all day,
ending in a painful retreat to Mont Août through two miles of swampy
ground, in which the men plunged up to the waist rather than risk the
shell-ploughed causeway. The Guard followed as far as Bannes, and
the X Corps occupied Le Mesnil Broussy and Broussy-le-Petit, where
the French batteries arrested them. Small French detachments clung to
Morains and Aulnay through the day and night; otherwise, the north of
the marshes was lost. Against the left, Bülow was less successful. The
42nd Division and the Moroccan Division withstood repeated assaults of
the X Corps at Soisy-aux-Bois and on the edge of the St. Gond Wood. The
struggle, however, was most severe: Villeneuve, occupied on the evening
of September 5, was lost at 8 a.m. on the 6th, recaptured an hour
later, lost again at noon, and recovered at night. On the right, the
11th Corps had to evacuate Ecury and Normée under heavy fire; Lenharrée
and Sommesous were partially in flames, but still resisted.
Unawed, in his quarters at Pleurs, Foch wrote the following order for
the morrow:——“The General Commanding counts on all the troops of the
9th Army exerting the greatest activity and the utmost energy to extend
and maintain beyond dispute the results obtained over a hard-pressed
and venturesome enemy.” Many of the generals, lieutenants, and men may
have thought these last words too highly coloured. Foch himself knew
more of the real situation. He knew, as did Bülow, how gravely the
latter was prejudiced by Kluck’s predicament. Already, the prospect
had arisen of the I German Army being gripped by the closing vice of
Maunoury and the British. Already, d’Espérey’s great force was moving
north along Bülow’s flank toward Montmirail. Joffre’s masterstroke
was revealed. Was the victory that Berlin and the armies counted as
certain to slip away at the eleventh hour? For the first time in a
triumphant generation, a German Army was in danger of defeat; nay, all
the armies were in danger. Astounding change of fortune! The greycoat
soldiery, dulling their weariness in the loot of cottages and farms,
the subaltern officers, making free with the wine cellars of old manor
houses, did not know it; but such was the fact. Their commanders were
not the men easily to take alarm; yet, at this moment, alarm must have
struck them.
III. DEFENCE AND RECAPTURE OF MONDEMONT
The grand manœuvre of envelopment had failed. The alternative plan
remained: to smash the French centre and roll up the lines on either
side. On the morning of September 7, this effort began with a fierce
onslaught across the ravine of the Petit Morin against the Sezanne
plateau from Mondemont to Villeneuve.
On Foch’s extreme left, nothing was gained. The 42nd Division was now
receiving perceptible support from the 10th Corps of the 5th Army,
which during the day, as we have seen, completed the clearance of the
Forest of Gault, to the west of Villeneuve. Toward Mondemont, however,
the X Active Corps made some progress, throwing the defenders back to
the western borders of Soisy, again taking Villeneuve, and reaching
through the St. Gond Wood nearly to the hamlet of Chapton. The bare
crest called the Signal du Poirier gave the German gunners an excellent
platform, with views over a large part of the French lines. One of
their chief targets was the château of Mondemont, a two-story mansion,
dating from the sixteenth century, with pepper-pot corner towers,
enclosing a large square courtyard. General Humbert had set up here his
Staff quarters; but by noon the bombardment had become so severe that
he had to leave it to advanced posts of the Moroccan Division, first,
however, insisting on taking a proper lunch in the salle-à-manger with
the trembling family. These were sent to the rear, and Humbert moved
to the neighbouring château of Broyes. In a later stage of the war,
Humbert struck me rather as the thinker, a quiet, keen intelligence,
and a fine gentleman. At this earlier time, one of the youngest
generals in the French Army, he appears rather as the man of spirited
action. Beaming with gay confidence, he abounded in the _gestes_ that
the French soldier so loves. Once several members of his escort were
killed by a shell exploding in their midst; like Grossetti, afterwards
to be known as “the Bull of the Yser,” danger only stimulated him. “The
Germans are bottled up,” he said; “Mondemont is the cork. It must be
held at any price.” At 5 p.m., a combined attack, by parts of the 42nd
and Moroccan Divisions, with the 77th regiment of the 9th Corps, was
made with the object of freeing the Mondemont position. Little ground
was gained, and the losses were very heavy; it was a momentary relief,
no more.
At length the German Command recognised that the French defence was
weakest toward and beyond Fère Champènoise, and that a simultaneous
attack by both their wings, with most strength on the east, might
shatter it. First, however, the flank of the Guard Corps along the
marshes must be cleared. This preliminary occupied the whole of
September 7. On the west, Oyes was taken during the morning in the
advance on Mondemont. On the east, the French companies outlying at
Morains and Aulnay had to abandon these villages at 8 a.m., under
threat of being taken in reverse along the railway. Morains is only
four miles by highroad from Fère Champènoise; and here the picked
infantry of the Guard were striking at the junction of the 9th and
11th Corps, with solid Saxon regiments closing in upon the latter to
the south-east. Seeing their danger, Radiguet and Moussy concerted a
movement by which, during the afternoon, Aulnizeux was taken and the
German advance checked. In the evening, at the third attempt, the enemy
recovered the village; and in the last hours of the night his general
offensive along the Sezanne and Fère roads began. It will be convenient
to follow first the western arm of the attack.
At 3 a.m. on September 8, after a sharp cannonade, the French
machine-gunners on Mondemont Hill observed spectral forms approaching
in open order——these were advanced parties belonging to the X Corps,
with some elements of the Guard. They were easily repulsed; and,
immediately afterwards, the much-thinned ranks of the 42nd and Moroccan
Divisions, with the 77th regiment of the 9th Corps, were launched anew
towards St. Prix. Although Bülow had received reinforcements, and had
placed more batteries between Congy and Baye, the Moroccans occupied
Oyes and its hill and the Signal du Poirier by 8 a.m., while the left
of the 42nd carried Soisy at the point of the bayonet. Unfortunately,
the debacle that was happening coincidentally on Foch’s right put any
exploitation of this success out of the question. A fresh defensive
front had to be created south of the marshes, facing east; the 77th
regiment was recalled to St. Loup in the middle of the afternoon for
this purpose. The 42nd Division seems to have been shaken by this
removal of a sorely-needed support; and Bülow, promptly advised of it,
ordered his columns forward once more.
On an islet in the west end of the marshes, between the villages of
Villevenard and Oyes, stand a Renaissance gateway and other remnants
of the ancient Priory of St. Gond, and in their midst the humble
dwelling of “the last hermit of St. Gond,” as M. le Goffic calls him,
the Abbé Millard, corresponding member of the French Antiquarian and
Archæological Societies. A victim of dropsy, the Abbé was laid up
when the approach of the Germans was announced. “So, then,” he calmly
remarked, “I shall renew my acquaintance with Attila.” His housekeeper,
a typically vigorous Frenchwoman, would have no such morbid curiosity.
“You have no parishioners but the frogs, Monsieur le Curé; and they
can take care of themselves against your Attila. Come along”——and,
bundling some valuables into a wheelbarrow, and giving Father Millard
a stick, she carried him off into safety. As they left, a body of
Senegalese sharpshooters came up, and began to build across the highway
an old-fashioned barricade of tree-trunks, carts, and blocks of
stone. “Some barbed wire and a continuous trench, such as the Germans
use, would have been better,” remarks M. le Goffic; “but we remained
faithful to our old errors, and, nearly everywhere, our men fought in
the open or behind sheaves and tree trunks.”
After hours of an ebb-and-flow of bayonet charges and hand to
hand combats, the French lost in succession Broussy-le-Petit,
Mesnil-Broussy, Reuves, and Oyes——all the morning’s gain had vanished
by nightfall. With the Germans entrenched a mile away, and only a
single Zouave battalion in reserve, Humbert insisted that Mondemont
must be held; and his corps commander, Dubois, desperately seeking to
cover the void on his right with the 77th Regiment, told the officers
that retreat was not to be thought of. Heavy rain fell during the
evening, obstructing the movements of all the armies. On both sides,
that night, the chiefs knew that the issue was a matter of hours, of
very few hours. We saw in the first section of this chapter that,
on the evening of September 8, the left of the 5th French Army had
passed, and its centre reached, the Petit Morin, while the 10th Corps
immediately threatened Bülow’s flank at Bannay, only 2 miles west of
Baye. The “effect of suction” was working wonderfully. An order found
during the day on a wounded officer, directing that the regimental
trains should be drawn up facing north, showed the preoccupations of
the German Staff. If the Guard and the Saxons could complete the rout
of Foch’s right-centre, they might yet win through; but there was
no longer a moment to spare, for Bülow had no force capable of long
withstanding d’Espérey’s north-eastward thrust.
Against Foch’s left, Bülow played his last stake at daybreak on
September 9. A whole brigade, marching from Oyes under cover of mist,
brushed aside the two battalions of sharpshooters, mounted Mondemont
hill, and seized the château and village, which were rapidly provided
with a garrison and machine-guns. The 42nd Division was in course of
withdrawal at this time, its place being taken by the 51st Division of
the neighbouring army. Humbert still would not take defeat: borrowing
two battalions of chasseurs from Grossetti, he sent them to the assault
of the promontory. They failed. At about 10.30 a.m., the 9th Corps
lost Mont Août, the stronghold of Foch’s centre, and fell back upon
the lower hills between Allemant and Linthes. If the whole left and
centre of the 9th Army were not to be swept, after its right, into the
plain, the last footing on the Sezanne plateau must be held at any
price. But how? Many companies of the Moroccan Division had lost all
their officers and most of their men. The breakdown of his right had
driven Foch to an extreme expedient which we will presently follow more
closely——the transfer thither of the 42nd Division; all Grossetti could
do for Humbert after his early morning failure, therefore, was to lend
him his artillery for a couple of hours. From Dubois and his own corps,
Humbert was able again to borrow the 77th Regiment. After a massed fire
of preparation on the woods and slopes around the château of Mondemont
by nine batteries, the hungry, haggard survivors of the 77th, divided
into two bodies under Colonels Lestoquoi and Eon, approached the hill
from the west and east, while four companies gathered to the south of
the château as a storming force under Major de Beaufort.
We have already seen this only too chivalric officer defying the prime
conditions of modern warfare in the capture of Coizard; here is a yet
more pathetic exhibition of the ancient style of heroism. It was 2.30
of a bright afternoon, the air oppressive with heat, smoke, and dust.
The commandant called a priest-soldier from the ranks, and asked him
to give supreme absolution to the men who wished to receive it. They
knelt, and rose. The major, putting on his white gloves, then gave
the order to charge. Bugles sounded; the men ran forward “in deep,
close masses,” shouting and singing. Many fell before reaching the
garden of the château. De Beaufort, standing for a moment under a
tree to consider the next step, was shot dead. A few men got through
a breach in the garden wall, only to meet a rain of bullets from
loopholes in the house. A score of officers (including Captain de
Secondat-Montesquieu, a descendant of the great French writer) were
lost, with a third of the effectives. At 3.30, Colonel Eon withdrew the
remainder of the storming party.
For a breathing space only. The château was, in fact, besieged. Three
field-guns were brought within 400 yards of it; and at 6 p.m. three
companies advanced upon the quadrangle of buildings, four others upon
the village, at the foot of the hill. Forty minutes later, Colonel
Lestoquoi led his last remaining company forward, crying: “Come on,
boys; another tussle, and we are there.” This time, château, park,
farm, and churchyard, and finally the village, were carried. “I hold
the village and the château of Mondemont,” Lestoquoi reported to
General Humbert; “I am installing myself for the night.”
The battle of Mondemont was over; one wild ebb-wave, and the peace of
nature’s fruitfulness fell for all our time upon the riven fields, the
multitude of graves, the desolate marshes.
IV. FOCH’S CENTRE BROKEN
Far other and graver was the course of the eastern arm of the German
attack, after the loss of the marsh villages by the French 9th Corps on
September 7.
Dubois’ shaky line, along the south of the marshes, was continued
eastward by the 11th Corps (including, now, the 18th Division) from
near Morains to Normée, and this by the 60th Reserve Division, thence
to Sommesous, and the 9th Cavalry Division, reaching out to the left
of de Langle’s Army (the 17th Corps). These faced, respectively,
the Prussian Guard Corps, the Saxon XII Active Corps, and part of
its reserve. No great inequality, so far; but Bülow and Hausen were
bringing up reinforcements, and preparing a terrible surprise.
Throughout September 7, the Saxons had been hammering at Eydoux’ front
along the Somme-Soude. Lenharrée, defended throughout the afternoon
and evening by only two companies, became untenable during the night.
All the officers had fallen, Captain Henri de Saint Bon last of them,
crying to his Breton reservists of the 60th Division: “Keep off! Do
not get killed to save me.” On entering the village, and seeing what
had happened, the Saxon commander ordered his men to march before the
French wounded, saying: “Salute! They are brave fellows.” So began
the darkest episode, the nearest approach to a German victory, in the
battle of the Marne.
An hour before——at 3 a.m. on September 8——their guns pushed forward
under cover of darkness, the general assault by Bülow’s and Hausen’s
armies had begun. It was well planned according to the information of
those commanders, and, considering how serious an obstacle the marshes
presented to their centre, remarkably conducted. On the west, the
resolution of the defenders of Mondemont would have gone for nothing
without the increasing support of d’Espérey’s 10th Corps. At the
left-centre, the marshes gave Dubois sufficient cover to enable him to
wheel half his force eastward. Beyond that, the conditions favoured
the enemy, for the only main roads converged upon Fère Champènoise;
and, if the French were driven back, a dangerous block would inevitably
be produced. Against the extreme right, the Saxons were not in great
force; and, on that flank also, the neighbouring French Army gave vital
aid.
[Illustration: FOCH’S FRONT
Sept. 8–9.]
So, in the misty dawn of September 8, the greycoats, picked Prussians
and burly Saxons, swarmed forward, seeming to renew themselves
irresistibly. Foch, talking to his Staff overnight, had exclaimed that
such desperation suggested the need of compensating for ill fortune
elsewhere; and now he opened a black day with a characteristic phrase
of stubborn cheer: “The situation is excellent; I order you again
vigorously to take the offensive.” The situation excellent! Foch would
not use words of meaningless bravado; he may have been thinking of
d’Espérey knocking at Bülow’s side door. At this hour (7 a.m.), he
could not yet know that the loss of Lenharrée had been followed by
the turning of two regiments of the 20th Division, and two others of
the 60th Reserve Division, defending the passages of the Somme-Soude,
and that the lines on either side were crumpling up. So it was. From
a number of personal narratives, often contradictory and exaggerated,
we can draw an outline of what occurred in the surprise of Fère
Champènoise, without pretending to determine exactly where, or by what
failing of exhausted men, the confusion originated.
Before Normée, outposts of the 11th Corps, scattered by the sudden
fierceness of the onslaught, left uncovered the 35th Brigade (of the
18th Division), which lay bivouacked in the woods. One regiment, the
32nd, was surrounded, and only a half of its effectives, with a few
junior officers, escaped. The 34th Brigade, behind it, had time to fall
back without loss, through Connantre to Oeuvy, along with the survivors
of the 35th. The remnants of the defenders of Lenharrée retreated
toward Connantre, firing steadily. As far as Fère Champènoise, the
chase ran fast along the four roads, from Bannes, Morains, Ecury,
and Normée. In the little country town, crouched in a depression of
the hills, and so indefensible, an army chaplain[66] was conducting
service in the parish church, at 9 a.m., when bullets began to spatter
on the walls, and the first cries of flying men were heard above
the noise of breaking windows. At 10.30, the Prussian Guard entered
the town, drums and fifes playing. Presently, with bodies of Saxons
from Normée, they continued the pursuit, which proceeded more slowly
toward Connantre and Oeuvy and the valley of the Maurienne. Here and
there, small French groups turned at bay, because they could go no
farther, or hoping to stem the retreat. Thus, 200 men of the 66th and
32nd Regiments came to a stand in one of the dwarf-pine woods south
of Fère. They had no officer among them; but a sergeant-major named
Guerre took them in hand, and disposed them in four sections, “like the
square at Waterloo,” he said. One German attack was beaten off; but
when a field-gun came up, Guerre decided that the only hope was to
make a sortie. It cost the brave man his life. About 30 of his fellows
got away, including two privates, Malveau and Bourgoin, who, after
wandering in the German lines, and being directed by a dying German
officer, brought the flag of the 32nd Regiment during the evening to
the commander of the 35th Brigade.
Perhaps it was because of the convergence of roads upon Fère, noted
above, that, whereas the original breakdown occurred on Foch’s right,
the pursuit became concentrated upon his centre. The most important
consequence of this fact was that the German Command never discovered
the weakest part of the French front, and the dislocated right was able
to escape from restraint and to re-form. The greater part of the 60th
Reserve Division, which had extended from Vassimont and Haussimont
to Sommesous, where two regiments arrested the Saxon advance for two
hours, rallied early in the afternoon between Semoine and Mailly.
General de l’Espée’s cavalry, with some infantry elements, held up a
brigade of the Saxon XII Corps south of Sompuis; and the neighbouring
army of de Langle effectively engaged the XIX Corps between Humbauville
and Courdemange.
Westward of the main stream of pursuit, the position of Foch’s left was
more delicate and critical. At the extreme left, we have seen that,
during the morning, the 42nd Division recaptured Villeneuve and Soisy,
while the Moroccan Division reached St. Prix and the Signal du Poirier.
The 42nd held its gains throughout the day; but the 9th Corps, shaken
by frontal attack across the marshes, and left with its flank in the
air by the breakdown of the 11th Corps, had no choice but to withdraw
its right, and suffered heavily ere it could take up new positions.
Coming on from Morains, the Prussian Guard took the homesteads called
Grosse and Petit Fermes, on the way to Bannes, in reverse by the
east. Three French regiments were here thrown into confusion, cavalry
plunging into the batteries, and fugitives obstructing the roads. The
panic, however, was soon over. At 7.30 a.m., the retreat sounded; at
9 a.m., Moussy was reorganising the 17th Division on the line Mont
Août–Puits, with the 52nd Reserve Division in support. Hither the
faithful 77th Regiment was called from Mondemont during the morning to
help form an angular front, across which the Germans passed south in
pursuit of the scattered elements of the 11th Corps. The headquarters
of the 9th Army were moved back from Pleurs to Plancy, on the Aube.
Thus, at noon on September 8, the shape of the vast battle was markedly
changed. D’Espérey was on the Petit Morin near Montmirail, and his
10th Corps near Corfelix. From the latter point, Foch’s left extended
south-east to Connantre. His centre, broken in to a depth of ten
miles, was floating indefinitely in the valley of the Maurienne. The
right, supported by de Langle, giving no immediate anxiety, his first
problem, therefore, was to save the centre without losing the solidity
of the left. It is in such emergencies, when a few hours even of loose
and unsuccessful resistance may turn the balance, that the virtues
of a race and the value of traditions and training in an army reveal
themselves. The breakdown before Fère Champènoise did not degenerate
into a rout. Eydoux pulled the fragments of the 11th Corps together on
the line Corroy–Gourgancon–Semoine, and in the evening delivered a
counter-attack which gave him momentary possession of the plateau of
Oeuvy. Dubois aided this reaction by striking at the west flank of the
German advance. Early in the afternoon, after a preparatory fire by 15
batteries near Linthes, the 52nd Reserve Division was thrown eastward
toward Fère Champènoise. This effort failed, as did another in the
evening; and Dubois had to withdraw slightly, first from Puits to Ste.
Sophie Farm, then to Chalmont, while the Prussians held Connantre and
Nozay Farm.
V. FABLE AND FACT OF A BOLD MANŒUVRE
That evening, Foch conceived a manœuvre so characteristic of the man,
so evidently after his own heart, that the facts of its execution
have been hidden under a mass of sparkling fable. “If, by whatever
mental vision,” the master had said in one of his lectures, “we see a
fissure in a dam of the defence, or a point of insufficient resistance,
and if we are able to join to the regular and methodical action of
the flood the effect of a blow with a ram capable of breaking the
dam at a certain place, the equilibrium is destroyed, the mass hurls
itself through the breach, and overwhelms all obstacles. Let us seek
that place of weakness. That is the battle of manœuvre. The defence,
overthrown at one point, collapses everywhere. The barrier pierced,
everything crumbles.” That it was Foch, not Bülow, who had been on
the defensive makes no difference: Foch never thought of war in pure
defensive terms. Now he saw his opportunity.
There was no subtlety in the object. A rush which fails to produce a
complete breach opens a flank plainly inviting attack; and the Staff
at Plancy had had its eyes fixed all day upon the new German flank, 6
miles long, from Mont Août to Corroy. Twice the 9th Corps had struck
at it without success. The boldness of Foch’s design lay, not in
its objective, which was evident, but in the means proposed for its
execution. The right of the 9th Corps could do no more; its left, the
Moroccan Division, had lost the south bank of the marshes, and was hard
put to it to hold the hills around Mondemont. Nothing remained but the
42nd Division, which, though greatly fatigued, was in somewhat better
posture about Soisy. Two demands now competed in the mind of the French
commander. He regarded Mondemont as a key-position to be defended at
all costs; and the removal of Grossetti, without compensation, would
gravely endanger it. But more than in any position he believed in
forcing a result by a well-directed blow when the enemy offered the
chance. D’Espérey’s 10th Corps, it is true, had before it the chance
of breaking across Bülow’s communications at St. Prix and Baye; it had
otherwise no pressing call to make such a movement. Farther south,
there were both need and opportunity——the need of relieving the 9th
and 11th Corps, the opportunity of a decisive action. Grossetti, then,
must come to Linthes, and d’Espérey’s 51st Division, in reserve of
the 10th Corps, must take his place west of Mondemont. D’Espérey’s
loyalty in agreeing to this arrangement cannot be too warmly praised.
The comradeship of arms, so influential a factor in the victory of the
Marne, was nowhere more admirably illustrated.
But dawn on September 9 broke upon a situation aggravated to the
extreme, in which the projected manœuvre might well seem a blunder of
recklessness. Bülow and Hausen had summoned their exhausted men to
undertake a last essay. On the French left, Mondemont fell at 3 a.m.
Two hours later, the Guard and the two Saxon Corps burst upon the
centre and right with all their remaining force. Neither the 9th nor
the 11th Corps was in a condition to meet this trial; but, in general,
they faced it bravely. At 9 a.m., the 21st Division (11th Corps) could
resist no more, and fell back from Oeuvy to Hill 129, south of Corroy,
whence its commander, Radiguet, wrote to Foch: “My troops could not
hold out any longer under a bombardment such as we have suffered for
the last two hours. They are in retreat all along the line. It is the
same with the 22nd Division. I am going to try, with my artillery and
what I can gather of infantry, to rally on the plateau south of Corroy.
My regiments have fought admirably, but they have an average of only
four or five officers left.”
Foch replied from Plancy, at 10.15 a.m.: “The 42nd Division will arrive
on the front Linthes–Pleurs. Whatever be the position, more or less
in retreat, of the 11th Corps, we count on resuming the offensive
with the 42nd Division toward Connantre and Corroy, an offensive in
which the 9th Corps will have to take part against the (German) right
from Morains to Fère Champènoise. The 42nd Division has been on the
way since 8.30, and will be ready to go into action about midday.
The 10th Corps has liberated it. The 10th is at our disposition, and
has orders to support the Moroccan Division to prevent the enemy
penetrating to the west of the Marshes of St. Gond.” On receiving
similar instructions, Dubois sent two squadrons of hussars to make a
provisional link between the 9th and 11th Corps, and intimated to his
divisional commanders not only that they must stand firm, but that, in
the classic phrase of Joffre, “no failing will now be tolerated.”
Blind words, only to be justified on the lines of Nogi’s apophthegm:
“Victory is to him who can resist for another quarter of an hour.”
They were hardly uttered when Mont Août, the north-eastern bastion
of Dubois’ line, stubbornly defended for five days, was lost. Much
of the artillery of the Prussian Guard had been concentrated on this
outlying watch-tower of the Sezanne hills; and, in those early days of
the war, nerves were not so steeled that a position heavily bombarded
and definitely turned could be long held. Of the two brigades of the
52nd Reserve Division, the 104th had been detached to Moussy’s 17th
Division; the 103rd remained under the command of General Battesti.
Of the former, the 5th battalion, 320th Regiment, under Commandant
Meau (known as an author under the pseudonym “Jean Saint-Yves”) was
posted on the north slopes of Mont Août; two companies of the 51st
Chasseurs were on the east; and Lt.-Col. (afterwards General) Clandor,
with the 6th battalion, was in the wood at the foot of the hill. Meau,
with wounded head bound in bloody bandages, “like a Crimean veteran,”
as a combatant says, was keeping his men firm under a rain of light
and heavy shells commencing at about 9.30 a.m., and Clandor was also
determined to hold, when it suddenly became known that the 103rd
Brigade, on their right, had received an order to retreat, apparently
given by Battesi in alarm at the extent of the enemy’s advance.[67]
First in twos and threes, then in masses, the reservists left the woods
that cover the eastern slopes of the hill, and hurried westward, groups
of horsemen galloping past them, and gun-teams plunging through the
meadows. The whole line was thus shaken; and, shortly afterward, the
two batteries which had hitherto sustained the men on the crest were
silenced by German guns that had got round behind Ste. Sophie Farm.
At 11.45 a.m., Moussy gave Meau and Clandor orders to fall back; but
their obstinacy had its reward——Mont Août was never occupied by the
enemy. The debris of Battesti’s brigades were rallied during the early
afternoon on the hills of Allemant and Chalmont. A part of Moussy’s
Division was driven south, and, after a gallant recoil at Ste. Sophie
Farm, drew off to the west.
What had become of Grossetti and the 42nd, the last hope of the French
centre? From Soisy to Linthes is a march of only 12 miles, and they
were to have started at dawn——had started, Foch said, at 8.30 a.m.
Exhaustion, hitches in the replacement by the 51st, and the needs
of Mondemont may explain the harrowing delay. Messengers were sent
out, without result. Foch, fuming at Plancy, issued note upon note to
encourage his lieutenants. “Information shows,” he wrote at noon, “that
the German Army, after having marched without rest since the beginning
of the campaign, has reached the extreme limit of fatigue. Order no
longer exists in their units; regiments are mixed together; the Command
is confused. The vigorous offensive of our troops has thrown surprise
into the ranks of the enemy, who thought we should not offer any
further opposition. It is of the highest importance to profit by these
circumstances. In the decisive hour when the honour and safety of the
French Fatherland are at stake, officers and soldiers will draw from
the energy of our race the strength to stand firm till the moment when
the enemy will collapse, worn out. The disorder prevailing among the
German troops is a sign of our coming victory; by continuing with all
its force the effort begun, our army is certain to stop the march of
the enemy and to drive him from our soil. But every one must share the
conviction that success will fall to him who can endure longest.”
There were, in fact, disorders in the invading host. All morning,
Prussian and Saxon soldiery had been making public revel in Fère
Champènoise, breaking open and pillaging houses and shops, drinking,
dancing, and singing in the streets. Nevertheless, the fighting columns
advanced steadily. At 1 p.m. the Guard reached Nozay and Ste. Sophie
Farms and entered Connantre, and the Saxons Gourgancon. Radiguet’s
Division of the 11th Corps, after a brave stand at Oeuvy, drifted
before them, first to Fresnay, then to Faux and Salon. Foch did not
waver in his intentions. “The 42nd Division is marching from Broyes to
Pleurs,” he wrote at 1 p.m. “It should face east between Pleurs and
Linthes, so as to attack afterward in the direction of the _trouée_
between Oeuvy and Connantre. The attack will be supported on the
right by the 11th Corps, on the left by all available elements of the
9th Corps, which will take for their objective the road between Fère
Champènoise and Morains.” The meaning of the word _trouée_ as here
used must not be mistaken. It presumably meant the highroad to Fère
Champènoise. There was no such “gap” between the Prussian and Saxon
forces as some writers have imagined; and they were both, at the time
of this note, three miles or more south of the line Oeuvy–Connantre.
Though the situation was not so simple as the idea of a “gap” would
suggest, Foch had accurately gauged its character and the peculiar
weakness of the German advance. It has been noted that this was at
first inclined (partly by the lie of the roads) in a south-westerly
direction. One result was to relieve the pressure on the French extreme
right, where the 60th Reserve Division withdrew easily from Mailly to
Villiers-Herbisse, while de l’Espée’s cavalry received strong support
from the neighbouring army. On their east flank, therefore, the Saxons
had to move with care. On their right, the Prussian Guard had been
attracted westward, and there checked, at 4 p.m., by an attack of
portions of the 9th Corps. The Saxons had progressed more easily, and
had overrun the Prussians by several miles, thus prolonging the flank
at which Foch intended to strike. There was no “fissure” at this time,
but rather an overlapping; when, on the following day, a real gap
opened between Bülow’s and Hausen’s Armies (on the Epernay and Châlons
roads respectively), the retreat was too fast for the French to take
advantage of it.
Foch’s design was the classic combination of flank and frontal attack.
Grossetti was to drive east-north-east from Linthes–Pleurs, beside
the main road and railway, toward Fère Champènoise, while, on his
left, Dubois gave what aid he could in the same direction, and Eydoux
came up from the south. It was to be the same famous manœuvre that
Maunoury and the British had commenced three days before, without
immediate success, but from which the whole “effect of suction,” with
its momentous consequences, had arisen. Thanks to those three days of
heroic effort and sacrifice, Foch’s success was instant and complete,
though it was not such as the fables have it.[68] Indeed, the enemy
did not wait for the assault. He bolted. A doubtful story goes that a
German aviator observed the approach of Grossetti’s columns, and gave
Von Bülow’s Staff timely warning. The truth appears to be that the
German retreat had been ordered between 3 and 5 p.m. At 6, under a
red sunset, the 42nd Division arrived, and, supported by three, later
increased to five, groups of artillery, moved slowly forward from the
line Linthes–Linthelles, to bivouac near Pleurs.[69] The 9th Corps
alone came into touch with the enemy; and a rearguard resistance was
enough to impede its hastily re-formed ranks. At daybreak on the 10th,
the 34th Brigade entered Fère Champènoise, which had been evacuated the
previous evening, picking up 1500 stragglers; while the 42nd Division
was occupying Connantre, where 500 men of the Grenadier Guards were
made prisoner at the château. As Grossetti’s columns crossed the hills
in the dawn-light, the air was poisonous with rotting humanity, and
spectral forms arose begging for a cup of water. They were men wounded
in the surprise of the 8th who had lain in the open for nearly three
days.
The front of the 9th Army was restored; and, weary but exultant, it
prepared to go forward to the general victory. Whether, in the end,
the movement of the 42nd Division counted for anything in this result,
we can know, if ever, only when the German archives are opened. The
chief factor lay not in the form of any particular manœuvre, but in the
sheer persistence of the French centre. Foch and his men won by Nogi’s
“quarter of an hour.”