GERMAN RETREAT
That morning of the 8th, then, saw General von Kluck in full retreat.
His frontal attack on General d'Espérey had failed and the Fifth
French Army had advanced. The British were at his flank, and besides,
they had been able to spare some of their heavy artillery to send to
the Sixth Army under General Maunoury, to enable him to cross the
Ourcq. It is by no means certain that even with this assistance could
the Sixth Army have silenced the terrible fire of those howitzers,
but General von Kluck dared no longer leave his artillery there, it
must be taken with him on his retreat, or become valuable booty.
Leaving a few batteries to guard the crossings of the river, the
Ourcq division of the German right retreated in good order, to
rejoin their comrades who had been so unexpectedly mauled by the
British. The honor of this day was, curiously, not to the victorious,
but to the defeated army. Had General von Kluck done nothing other
than conduct his army in retreat as he did, he would have shown
himself an able commander. Sir John French and General d'Espérey
followed up their advantage. The artillery fire of the British
was good and in a running fight, such as this retreat, the light
field artillery of the French did terrible execution. The brunt of
the British fighting was at La Tretoire. General d'Espérey fought
steadily forward all day, driving the retreating army as closely
as he could, but proceeding warily because of General von Kluck's
powerful counterattacks. The fighting was continuous from the first
break of daylight until after dusk had fallen, and it was in the
twilight that the French Army at last carried Montmirail on the
Petit Morin, a feat of strategic value, since it exposed the right
flank of Von Bülow's army, exposed by the retreat of General von
Kluck.
From this review of the forced retirement of General von Kluck,
it will be seen that the German right was compelled to sustain an
attack at three points, from the Sixth French Army on the banks of
the Ourcq, from the British army in the region of Coulommiers and
from the Fifth French Army near Courtaçon. Each of these attacks
was of a widely different character. The result of this attack
lias been shown in the summary of the three days (four days on
the Ourcq) which resulted in the British capture of Coulommiers
and in the French capture of Montmirail. This was General Joffre's
counteroffensive, and it developed in detail almost exactly along
the lines that he had laid down.
The scene of the fighting across the west bank of the Ourcq was that
of a wide-open country, gently undulating, dotted with comfortable
farmhouses, and made up of a mosaic of green meadow lands and the
stubble of grain fields. The German heavy guns came into action
as soon as the French offensive developed. Tremendous detonations
that shook the earth, and which were followed by sluggish clouds
of an oily smoke showed where the high-explosive shells had struck.
Already, by the evening of the first day's fighting, there were
blazing haystacks and farmhouses to be seen, and the happy and
smiling plain showed scarred and rent with the mangling hand of
war. On the 6th, a sugar refinery, which had been held as an outpost
by a force of 1,800 Germans, was set on fire by a French battery.
The infantry had been successful in getting to within close range
and as the invaders sought to escape from the burning building,
they were picked off one by one by the French marksmen. The French
infantry, well intrenched, suffered scarcely any loss. It was in
brilliant sunshine that the fire broke out, and the conflagration
was so fierce that the empty building sent up little smoke. The
flames scarcely showed in the bright light, and to the onlooker, it
seemed as if some rapid leprous disease was eating up the building.
The situation was horrible for the Germans, either to be trapped and
to perish in the flames, or to face the withering French infantry
fire without any opportunity to fight back. Less than 300 of the
occupants of the refinery won clear.
Wherever the forces met, the slaughter was great and terrible.
In the excitement and the eagerness of the first offensive, the
French seemed to have forgotten the lessons of prudence that the
long retreat should have ingrained into their memory, and they
sought to take every village that was occupied by the Germans with
a rush. The loss of life was greatest at a point four miles east
of Meaux. There, on a sharp, tree-covered ridge, the Germans had
intrenched, and gun platforms had been placed under the screen
of the trees. An almost incessant hail of shrapnel fell on these
lines, and the French infantry charges were repulsed again and
again, with but little loss on the German line. But, meantime,
village after village had been attacked by the French and carried
with the bayonet, and on Sunday, September 6th, 1914, that part
of the battles of the Marne which dealt with the driving back of
the Germans to the line of the Ourcq, was in some of its feature
like a hand-to-hand conflict of ages long gone by. Yet, overhead
aeroplanes circled, on every side shells were bursting, the heavy
smell of blood on a hot day mingled with the explosive fumes, but
the Zouaves and the Turcos fought without ceasing and with a force
and spirit that went far to win for the French the cheering news
that village after village had been freed of the invaders.
When the night of that Sunday fell, however, on the line of the
Ourcq, the balm of darkness seemed to be almost as much a forgotten
thing as the blessedness of silence. There was no darkness that
night. As the Germans evacuated each village they set fire to it.
The invaders actually held their machine guns at work in the burning
village until the position was no longer tenable. The wind blew
gustily that night, and all the hours long, the Germans collected
their dead, built great pyres of wood and straw and cremated their
comrades who had fallen on the field of honor.
The next day, at this point, developed fighting of the same general
character. One of the most heroic defenses of General von Kluck's
army was that of the Magdeburg Regiment, which held its advanced post
ten minutes too long and consequently was practically annihilated.
Although the French had everywhere shown themselves superior with the
bayonet and at close infighting, even as the Germans had displayed
an incredible courage in advance under gunfire, and rightly held
their heavy artillery to be the finest in the world, in the mêlée
around the colors of the Magdeburg Regiment, there was nothing to
choose for either side. The lieutenant color bearer was killed, in
the midst of a ring of dead, and not until almost the whole regiment
had been killed under the impact of far superior numbers, were the
tattered colors taken into the French lines. It was on this day,
Tuesday, September 8, 1914, that the British army realizing that
it had turned the flank of General von Kluck's southern divisions
sent its heavy batteries to the pressure on the banks of the Ourcq.
A graphic picture of the artillery side of the fighting on the
Ourcq was given by one of the artillery officers detached from the
British force.
"Meaux was still a town of blank shutters and empty streets when
we got there this morning," he wrote, "but the French sappers had
thrown a plank gangway across the gap in the ruined old bridge,
built in A. D. 800, that had survived all the wars of France, only
to perish at last in this one.
"Smack, smack, smack, smack go the French guns; and then, a few
seconds later, four white mushrooms of smoke spring up over the far
woods and slowly the pop, pop, pop, pop, of the distant explosions
comes back to you. But now it is the German gunners' turn. Bang!
go his guns, two miles away; there is a moment of eerie and
uncomfortable silence--uncomfortable because there is just a chance
they might have altered their range--and then, quite close by, over
the wood where the battery is, come the crashes of the bursting
shells. They sound like a Titan's blows on a gigantic kettle filled
with tons of old iron.
"At Trilport there is a yawning gap, where one arch of the railway
bridge used to be, with a solitary bent rail still lying across
it. And, among the wreckage of the bridge below, lying on its side
and more than half beneath the water, is the smashed and splintered
ruin of a closed motor car.
"Beyond the town was a ridge on which the French batteries were
posted. We could see the ammunition wagons parked on the reverse
slope of the hill. More were moving up to join them.
"The village beyond, Penchard, was thronged with troops and blocked
with ambulance wagons and ammunition carts.
"Through the rank grass at the side came tramping a long file of
dusty, sweating, wearied men. They carried long spades and picks
as well as their rifles. They had come out of the firing line and
were going back to Penchard for food.
"Topping the next ridge... the hill slopes steeply down to the
hamlet of Chamvery, just below us. The battery which I mentioned
just now is in the wood on this side of it to our right. The Zouaves'
firing line is lying flat on the hillside a little way beyond the
village, and behind them, farther down the hill, are thick lines of
supports in the cover of intrenchments. It is a spectacle entirely
typical of a modern battle, for there is scarcely anything to see
at all. If it were not for those shells being tossed to and fro
on the right there, and an occasional splutter of rifle fire, one
might easily suppose that the lines of blue-coated men lying about
on the stubble were all dozing in the hot afternoon sun.
"Even when some of them move they seem to do it lazily, to saunter
rather than to walk.... It is only in the cinematograph or on the
comparatively rare occasions of close fighting at short range that
men rush about dramatically. For one thing, they are too tired to
hurry; and anyhow, what is the use of running when a shell may
burst any minute anywhere in the square mile you happen to be on?
"I walked with the company officers who were planning a fresh advance,
map in hand. They had gained the village in which we were that
morning, but at tremendous loss.
"'Out of my company of 220,' said one captain, 'there are only
100 left. It's the same story everywhere--the German machine guns.
Their fire simply clears the ground like a razor. You just can't
understand how anyone gets away alive. I've had men fall at my
right hand and my left. You can't look anywhere, as you advance,
without seeing men dropping. Of our four officers, two are wounded
and one dead. I am left alone in command.'"
This hand-to-hand fighting for the possession of villages on the
west bank of the Marne, this heavy loss to the French troops by
the German artillery, and this sudden check at the Ourcq itself,
until British heavy batteries were sent, marks the character of
what may be called the battle of the Ourcq, the westernmost of
the battles of the Marne. As General von Kluck had divided his
forces, in order to carry out the attempt to pierce the left of
General d'Espérey's army, the German forces in the battle of the
Ourcq were outnumbered almost three to one. In spite of these odds
against them, the extreme German right held for four days the position
it had been given to hold.
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