“We got back very slowly on account of the gun, and the men went wild with excitement that we had got one gun complete and the mechanism and belt of the other.”

With such incidents the pursuit of the Germans across the Marne and to the Aisne was replete, and so thoroughly did the advance French and English troops scour that country that when the morning of September 13, 1914, dawned there was scarcely a German soldier left on the southern side of the Aisne, west of Rheims.

The administration of the German armies meanwhile had been markedly changed.  In the turning movement on the Marne the plan was clearly outlined, each commander had his instructions, and that was all.  But with the need for changes of plan there was need for a directing head, and Field Marshal van Heeringen was sent in a hurry to take charge of the Aisne.  This placed both General von Kluck and General von Buelow into subordinate positions.  Field Marshal von Heeringen held a deserved reputation as one of the most brilliant as well as one of the most iron-willed of the German military leaders.  He had been the backbone of the crown prince’s movement against Troyon, a movement which, given a day or two longer, might have meant the capture of Verdun.

This was not the only factor that was framing up to give the German armies a decided advantage.  The essential factor of the Aisne was the arrival of General von Zwehl and his guns.  On September 13, 1914, at 6 a. m., Zwehl arrived in Laon, and in less than an hour he was in action on the Aisne front.  The story of General von Zwehl and his guns is essential to an understanding of the causes that rendered the British victory of the Aisne a barren and a fruitless victory at best.

The week of September 5-12, 1914, witnessed the entire series of the battles of the Marne, which drove the Germans across the Marne and across the Aisne, as well as a German victory which exerted almost as powerful an influence in favor of the invaders as the check at the Marne did for the defenders.  This victory was the fall of Maubeuge.  It is going too far to say—­as several military writers have done—­that General von Zwehl saved Germany, and that unless he had arrived as opportunely as he did the “German retreat to the Aisne valley would have been changed into a disastrous and overwhelming rout.”  But it is not going too far to say that the successful holding of the Aisne line was due to the victor of Maubeuge.

General von Zwehl was one of the iron-jawed battle-scarred warriors of 1870, a man with a will as metallic as his own siege guns, and a man who could no more be deflected from his purpose than a shell could be diverted in its flight.  He had been set to reduce Maubeuge and he had done so with speed and with thoroughness.  Maubeuge was not protected by open-air earthworks, but by a circle of armor-plate concrete forts.  To the mighty siege guns handled by General von Zwehl, these were no trouble, for Von Zwehl had not only the