a million men were
concentrated on this point. The armies of General von Buelow, General
Hausen and the Duke of Wuerttemberg were massed in the center of the
line. There, however, General Foch's new Ninth Army was prepared
to meet the attack. It will be remembered that, in the disposition
of the troops, these respective armies were facing each other across
the great desolate plain, the ancient battle ground. If the German
center could break through the French center, and if at the same
time General von Kluck, commanding the German right, could execute
a swift movement to the southeast, the Fifth French Army would
be between two fires, together with such part of the Ninth Army
as lay to the westward of the point to be pierced. This strategic
plan held high promise, and it would have menaced the whole interior
of France southward from the plain of Champagne, but even this
second part of the plan, important as it was, does not appear to
have been the crucial point in the campaign.

The glory of the victory, if indeed victory it should prove, as
the successes of the previous two weeks had led the Germans to
believe, was to be given to the crown prince. With a great deal
of trouble and with far more delay than had been anticipated, the
crown prince's army had at last managed to get within striking
distance of the forefront of the great battle line. His forces
occupied the territory north of Verdun to a southern point not
far from Bar-le-Duc. Here the German secret service seems to have
been as efficient, as it failed to be with regard to conditions
only fifty miles away. General Sarrail's army, which confronted
the army of the crown prince, was somewhat weak. It consisted of
about two army corps with reserve divisions. Nor could General Joffre
send any reenforcements. Every available source of reenforcements
had been drawn upon to aid the Sixth Army, encamped upon the banks
of the Ourcq, in order that Paris might be well guarded. No troops
could be spared from the Fifth and Ninth Armies, which had to bear
the brunt of the attack from the German center. General Sarrail,
therefore, had to depend on the natural difficulties of the country
and to avoid giving battle too readily against the superior forces
by which he was confronted. It was a part of the plan of the French
generalissimo, however, to feel the strength of the German center,
and if it proved that they could be held, to release several divisions
and send them to t