and the Pyrenees districts, were
concentrated for the purpose.

I recalled a remark I had heard: "What a pitiful little offensive that
was!" It was made by one of those armchair "military experts" who
look at a map and jump at a conclusion. They appear very wise in
their wordiness when real military experts are silent for want of
knowledge. Pitiful, was it? Ask the Germans who faced it what they
think. Pitiful, that sweep over those mountain walls and through the
passes? Pitiful, perhaps, because it failed, though not until it had
taken Chateau-Salins in the north and Mulhouse in the south. Ask the
Germans if they think that it was pitiful! The Confederates also failed
at Antietam and at Gettysburg, but the Union army never thought of
their efforts as pitiful.

The French fell back because all the weight of the German army was
thrown against France, while the Austrians were left to look after the
slowly mobilizing Russians. Two million five hundred thousand men
on their first line the Germans had, as we know now, against the
French twelve hundred thousand and Sir John French's army fighting
one against four. To make sure of saving Paris as the Germans
swung their mighty flanking column through Belgium, Joffre had to
draw in his lines. The Germans came over the hills as splendidly as
the French had gone. They struck in all directions toward Paris. In
Lorraine was their left flank, the Bavarians, meant to play the same
part to the east that von Kluck played to the west. We heard only of
von Kluck; nothing of this terrific struggle in Lorraine.

From the Plateau d'Amance you may see how far the Germans came
and what was their object. Between the fortresses of Epinal and of
Toul lies the Trouee de Mirecourt--the Gap of Mirecourt. It is said that
the French had purposely left it open when they were thinking of
fighting the Germans on their own frontier and not on that of Belgium.
They wanted the Germans to make their trial here--and wisely, for
with all the desperate and courageous efforts of the Bavarian and
Saxon armies they never got near the gap.

If they had forced it, however, with von Kluck swinging on the other
flank, they might have got around the French army. Such was the
dream of German strategy, whose realization was so boldly and
skilfully undertaken. The Germans counted on their immense force of
artillery, built for this war in the last two years and out-ranging the
French, to demoralize the French infant