“The day of September 8 turned out the most arduous for Manoury; the Germans, making attacks of extreme violence, won some success.  They occupied Betz, Thury-en-Vallois and Nanteuil-le-Haudouin.  Yon Kluck attacked all his force on the right, and it was at that time he who threatened Manoury with an encircling movement.  The Fourth French Army Corps, sent forward at full speed by General Joffre and arriving at the spot, had the order to allow itself to be killed to the last man, but to maintain its ground.  It maintained it.  It succeeded toward evening in checking the advance of the Germans.  In a brilliant action the army of Manoury took three standards.  It rallied the main body of its forces on the left and prepared for a new attack.

“During this time the British army, following on the retreat of part of the forces of Von Kluck, was able to make headway toward the north.  It was the same with the Fifth French Army.  The British, leaving behind it on September 6 the Rosoy-Lagny line, reached in the evening the south bank of the Great Morin.  On the 7th and 8th they continued their march; on the 9th they debouched to the north of the Marne below Chateau Thierry, flanking the German forces which on that day were opposing the army of Manoury.  It was then that the German forces began to retreat, while the British army, pursuing the enemy, took seven cannon and many prisoners and reached the Aisne between Soissons and Longueval.  The British army continued till before Coulommiers, and after a brilliant struggle forced the passage of the Little Morin.  The Fifth French Army under General Franchet d’Esperey made the same advance.  It drove back the three active army corps of the Germans and the reserve corps that it found facing it.  On September 7 it pressed forward to the Courtacon-Cerneux-Monceaux-les-Provins-Courgivaux-Esternay line.  During the days that followed it reached and crossed the Marne, capturing in fierce combats some howitzers and machine guns.

“General Foch showed admirable sang-froid and energy.  At the most critical moment, the decisive hour of the battle, he accomplished a magnificent maneuver, which is known under the name of the maneuver of Fere Champenoise.  Foch noted a rift between the German army of Von Buelow and that of Von Hausen.  The German Guard was engaged with the Tenth Division of the reserve in the region of the marshes of St. Gond.

“On September 9 Foch resolutely threw into this rift the Forty-Second Division under General Grossetti, which was at his left, and his army corps of the left.  He thus made a flank attack on the German forces, notably the Guard which had bent back his army corps on the right.  The effect produced by the flank attack of Manoury on the right of General von Kluck’s army was renewed here.  The enemy, taken aback by this audacious maneuver, did not resist and made a precipitate retreat.  On the evening of the 9th the game was thus lost to the Germans.  Their armies of the right and of the center were beaten and the retreat followed.  The Imperial Guard left in the marshes of St. Gond more than 8,000 men and almost all its artillery.  Victory henceforth began to perch on the Allied banners over all the vast battle field.”