CONTINUATION OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
The third part of the battle of the Marne, called by some the Battle
of Montmirail, was not marked by special incident. General d'Espérey's
part was to hold firm, and this he did. Not only by reason of the
British assistance on the left, but also because the strong army
of General Foch to the right was a new army, of greater strength
than was known to General von Moltke and the German General Staff.
The battle of Montmirail was won by the steady resistance of the
Fifth Army to the hammer blows of the German right, and to the quick
advantage seized by General d'Espérey when the British weakened
the flank of the force opposing him. On September 8, 1914, General
d'Espérey had not only held his ground, but had driven General
von Kluck back across the Grand Morin River at La Ferté-Gaucher,
and also across the Petit Morin at Montmirail. Since the British
had butted the Germans back from the Petit Morin at La Trétoire,
these three days of fighting in the battles of Coulommiers and
Montmirail had won the Allies advanced positions across two rivers,
and had so weakened the German right that it was compelled to fall
back on the main army and forego its important strategic advantage
on the east bank of the Ourcq River.
These three battles, Ourcq, Coulommiers, and Montmirail, constitute
the recoil from Paris, and at the same time they constitute the defeat
of what was hereinbefore shown to be one of the four fundamentals of
the great German campaign plan. With the situation thus cleared,
so to speak, one may now pass to the details of the second part
of the German plan, which was to engage the powerful Ninth and
Fourth Armies, under the command of Generals Foch and Langle,
respectively, to break through them, if possible, but at all hazards
to keep them sufficiently menaced to disable General Joffre from
sending reenforcements therefrom to the army of General Sarrail,
on which the whole force of the army of the crown prince was to
be hurled.
The next section of the Allied armies, then, was General Foch's
Ninth Army, which encountered the German drive at Fère Champenoise,
and which resulted in the severe handling of General von Bülow's
forces. With characteristic perception of the difference between
a greater and a lesser encounter, General Foch called his share
of the battles of the Marne, the "Affair of the Marshes of St.
Gond." This did not culminate until Wednesday, September 9, 1914,
so that the German retreat there was one day later than the final
retreat of General von Kluck.
The clash between the armies of General von Bülow and of General
Foch began, as did the battle wrath along the whole front, at dawn
of that fateful Sunday, September 5, 1914. General Foch, a well-known
writer on strategy, had devised his army for defense. He was well
supplied with the famous 75-millimeter guns, holding them massed in
the center of his line. His extreme right and left were mobile and
thrown partly forward to feel the attack of the invading army. But,
in spite of all preparations, General Foch found himself hard-set to
hold his own on September 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1914. The battle continued
incessantly, by night as well as by day, for the artillerists had
found each other's range. There was comparatively little hand-to-hand
fighting at this point, General Foch only once being successful
in luring the Germans to within close firing range. The results
were withering, and General von Bülow did not attempt it a second
time. There seems reason to believe that General von Bülow had
counted upon acting as a reserve force to General von Kluck during
the latter's advance, and that, consequently, he did not think it
prudent to risk heavy loss of life until he knew the situation to
westward of him. There was some sharp "bomb" work at Fère Champenoise
on September 8, and then came the night of the 8th.
It will be remembered that at the close of the battle of Montmirail
on the evening of September 8, 1914, the western flank of Von Bülow's
army had been exposed by the advance of General d'Espérey and the
retreat of General von Kluck. Information of this reached Foch,
and despite the danger of the maneuver, he thrust out his mobile
left like a great tongue. That night the weather turned stormy,
facilitating this move. At one o'clock in the morning, the statement
has been made, word reached General Foch indirectly that air patrols
had observed a gap in the alignment of the German armies between
General von Bülow's left and General von Hausen's right.
During the darkness and the rain, therefore, General Foch had worked
two complete surprises on General von Bülow. He had enveloped the
German commander's right flank, and was safely ensconced there
with General d'Espérey's army behind him, since the latter had
by now advanced to Montmirail. At the same time he had thrust a
wedge between Von Bülow and General von Hausen, threatening General
von Bülow's left flank as well. The first was a seizure of an
opportunity, executed with military promptness, the second was a
bold _coup_, and its risk might well have appalled a less experienced
general.
Considering the westernmost of these movements first, it will be
seen at once how the enveloping action brought about the "Affair of
the Marshes of St. Gond." General von Bülow's army was stretched in
an arc around the marshes, which, it will be remembered, have been
described as a pocket of clay, low-lying lands mainly reclaimed, but
which become miry during heavy rains. It was General von Bülow's
misfortune, that, on the very night that his flank was exposed,
there should come a torrential downpour. These same marshes had
figured more than once before in France's military history, and
General Foch, as a master strategist, was determined that they
should serve again. When the rain came, he thanked his lucky stars
and acted on the instant.
When the morning of September 9, 1914, dawned, the left wing of
General Foch's army was not only covering the exposed flank of
General von Bülow's forces, but parts of it were two miles to the
rear. Under the driving rain, morning broke slowly, and almost
before a sodden and rain-soaked world could awake to the fact that
day had come, General Foch had nipped the rear of the flank of
the opposing army, and was bending the arc in upon itself. Under
normal circumstances, such an action would tend but to strengthen
the army thus attacked, since it brings all parts of the army into
closer communication. But General Foch knew that the disadvantages
of the ground would more than compensate for this, since the two
horns of General von Bülow's army could not combine without crossing
those marshes, now boggy enough, and growing boggier every second.
The task was harder than General Foch anticipated, for the same
rainy conditions that provided a pitfall for the Germans were also
a manifest hindrance to the rapid execution of military maneuvers.
But, in spite of all difficulties, by evening of that day, the
flank broke and gave way, and two entire corps from General von
Bülow's right were precipitated into the marshes. Forty guns were
taken--to that time the largest capture of artillery made by the
Allies--and a number of prisoners. Hundreds perished miserably,
but General Foch held back his artillery from an indiscriminate
slaughter of men made helpless in the slimy mud. Thus ended the
"Affair of the Marshes of St. Gond," which broke still further
the German right wing.
Thanks to General Foch's further activities, General von Bülow
had troubles upon his left wing. When dawn of this same day or
torrential rain, September 9, 1914, broke over the hill-road that
runs from Mareuil to Fère-Champenoise, at which point lay the left
of General von Bülow's army, it witnessed a number of 75-millimeter
guns on selected gun sites commanding the right flank of the German
right center. General Foch's daring, the success of the maneuver,
and the fact that the conduct of all the French armies on that
day and the day following seems to be with the full cognizance of
this venture, led inevitably to the conclusion that those brilliant
feats, conceived by General Foch, had been communicated to General
Joffre in time for the French General Staff to direct the French
armies to the right and left of General Foch to cooperate with
his action. Had General Foch been less ably supported, his wedge
might have proved a weak salient open to attack on both sides.
But General Foch's main army to the west kept General von Bülow
busy, and General Langle's army to the east fought too stubbornly
for the Duke of Württemberg to dare detach any forces for the relief
of General von Bülow. General von Hausen's Saxon Army was weak,
at best.
What were the forces that operated to make this particular point
so weak are not generally known. As, however, the divisions from
Alsace were much in evidence three or four days later, it is more
than probable that these divisions were intended for service at this
point, and also to reenforce General von Kluck's army, but that,
by the quick offensive assumed by General Joffre on the Ourcq, and,
owing to the roundabout nature of the German means of communication,
these expected reenforcements had not arrived. The German official
dispatches point out that General von Bülow's retreat was necessitated
by the retreat of General von Kluck. Of this there is no doubt, but
even military necessity does not quite explain why General von
Bülow bolted so precipitately. His losses were fearful, and the
offensive of General Foch rendered it necessary for the Germans
to fall back on the Aisne.
The armies of the Duke of Württemberg and of the crown prince may
be considered together, for they were combined in an effort to
pierce the French line near the angle at Bar-le-Duc. General Langle
held on desperately against the repeated attacks of the Duke of
Württemberg. Ground was lost and recovered, lost again and recovered,
and every trifling vantage point of ground was fought for with a
bitter intensity. Though active, with all the other armies, on
September 5 and 6, 1914, it was not until September 7 that General
Langle found himself strained to his utmost nerve. If he could
hold, he could do no more, and when night fell on September 7, no
person was more relieved than General Langle. Yet the next day was
even worse. Instead of slackening in the evil weather, the German
drive became more furious. The exhausted Fourth Army fought as though
in a hideous nightmare, defended their lines in a sullen obstinacy
that seemed almost stuporous, and countercharged in a blind frenzy
that approached to delirium. It was doubtful if General Langle's
army could hold out much longer. But, when General von Bülow was
compelled to retreat, when General Foch turned his attention to
General von Hausen's Saxon Army, and when General Joffre found
himself in a position to rush reenforcements and reserves to the
aid of General Langle, a new color was given to the affair. The
defense stiffened, and as rapidly as it stiffened, so much the
more did it become patent that the Duke of Württemberg could not
afford to be in an exposed position far in advance of all the other
attacking armies. Wednesday, September 9, 1914, revealed to the
German center the need of falling back on the crown prince's army,
which was the pivot on which the whole campaign swung.
Meantime, the crown prince's army had been steadily victorious.
The weak French army under General Sarrail had been pushed back,
yielding only foot by foot, back, back, along the rugged hill country
of the Meuse. A determined stand was made to protect the little
fort of Troyon, ten miles south of Verdun, for had the Germans
succeeded in taking this, Verdun would have been surrounded. No
army and no generalship could have done more than the Third Army
and General Sarrail did, but they could not hold their ground before
Troyon. On September 7, 1914, the way to Troyon was open, and the
army of the crown prince prepared to demolish it. Then came September
9, 1914, when the allied successes in the western part of the Marne
valley allowed them to send reenforcements. Thus the Third Army
was perceptibly strengthened and hope for Troyon grew. One day
more, certainly two days more, and nothing could have saved Troyon,
but with the whole German line in retreat, the army of the crown
prince could not be left on the advance.
Incredible though it may seem, when the army of the crown prince
besieging Troyon withdrew, that little fort was a mere heap of
ruins. There were exactly forty-four men left in the fort and four
serviceable guns. Even a small storming party could have carried
it without the least trouble, and its natural strength could have
been fortified in such wise as to make it a pivotal point from
which to harry Verdun.
At the extreme east, on that ring of wooded heights known as the
Grande Couronne de Nancy, and drawn up across the Gap of Nancy,
the Second French Army, under General de Castelnau, successfully
resisted the drive of the Crown Prince of Bavaria. Great hopes had
been placed on this attack, and on September 7, 1914, the German
Emperor had viewed the fight at Nancy from one of the neighboring
heights. Surely a victory for the German arms might come either at
the point where stood the German Emperor or where led the crown
prince. But the fortunes of war decided otherwise. Far from losing
at Nancy, the French took the offensive. After an artillery duel of
terrific magnitude, they drove the Bavarian army from the forests
of Champenous and took Amance. The line of the Meurthe was then
found untenable by the Germans, and on September 12, 1914, General
de Castelnau reoccupied the town of Luneville, which had been in
the hands of the Germans since August 22, 1914.
With General von Kluck in retreat on September 7, 1914, General
von Bülow hastening to the rear on September 8, 1914, with the
Duke of Württemberg falling back on September 9, 1914, and the
Imperial Crown Prince and the Bavarian Crown Prince retreating
to an inner ring of defense on September 10, 1914, the battles
of the Marne may, in a measure, be said to have concluded. As,
however, the new alignments were made mainly by reason of the
topographical relationships of the Marne and the Aisne Rivers and
the territory contiguous thereto, it is perhaps more in keeping
with the movement to carry forward the German retreat across the
Marne as a part of the same group of conflicts.
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