the exhausted troops halted on a line extending from the
French cathedral town of Noyon through Chauny to La Fere. There
they were joined by reenforcements amounting to double their loss.
Guns to replace those captured or shattered by the enemy were brought
up to the new line. There was a breathing space for a day, while
the British made ready to take part in the next great encounter.

This fourth week in August marked a decisive period in the history
of the Great War. All the French armies, from the east to the west,
as well as the British army, were in retreat over their frontiers.
To what resolution had the French commander in chief come? That
was the question on every lip. What at that moment was the real
situation of the French army? Certainly the first engagements had
not turned out as well as the French could have hoped. The Germans
were reaping the reward of their magnificent preparation for the
war. Their heavy artillery, with which the French army was almost
entirely unprovided, was giving proof of its efficacy and its worth.
The moral effect of those great projectiles launched from great
distances by the immense German guns was considerable. At such
great distances the French cannons of 75, admirable as they were,
could make no effective reply to the German batteries. The French
soldiers were perfectly well aware that they were the targets of the
great German shells while their own cannon could make no parallel
impression on the enemy.

The German army revealed itself as an extraordinary instrument
of war. Its mobility and accouterments were perfect. It had aver
a hundred thousand professional non-commissioned officers or
subofficers, admirably suited to their work, with their men marching
under the control of their eye and finger. In the German army the
active corps, as well as the reserve carps, showed themselves,
thanks to these noncommissioned officers, marvelously equipped.

In the French army the number of noncommissioned officers by profession
totaled hardly half the German figures. The German army, moreover,
was much more abundantly supplied with machine guns than the French.
The Germans had almost twice as many, and they understood how to
use them in defense and attack better than the French. They had
moreover, to a degree far superior to that of the French, studied
the use of fortifications in the field, trenches, wire entanglements,
and so on. The Germans were also at first better trained than t