weakened the flank of the force opposing him.  On September 8, 1914, General d’Esperey had not only held his ground, but had driven General von Kluck back across the Grand Morin River at La Ferte-Gaucher, and also across the Petit Morin at Montmirail.  Since the British had butted the Germans back from the Petit Morin at La Tretoire, 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 Fere Champenoise, and which resulted in the severe handling of General von Buelow’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 Buelow 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 Buelow did not attempt it a second time.  There seems reason to believe that General von Buelow 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 Fere Champenoise on September 8, and then came the night of the 8th.