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 TrÉtoire. 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 has 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 battle.

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.[Back to Contents]