e hills to the westward of the Ourcq.
By nightfall of September 5, 1914, the country west of the Ourcq
was in French hands. But to cross that river seemed impossible.
General von Kluck's heavy artillery had been left behind to hold
that position, and every possible crossing was covered with its
own blast of death.

Here General von Kluck's generalship was successful. It might have
been regarded as risky to leave 100,000 men to guard a river confronted
by 250,000 picked and reenforced French troops. But General von Kluck's
faith in German guns and German gunnery was not ill-founded. This
was the first of the open-air siege conflicts, and the French army
had no guns which could be used against the German heavy artillery.
Hence it followed that the brilliant work of the Sixth French Army
on this first day of the battles of the Marne achieved no important
result, for the long-range hidden howitzers, manned by expert German
gunners and well supplied with ammunition, defied all attempts at
crossing the little stream of the Ourcq.

This first day's fighting on the Marne revealed one of France's
chiefest needs--heavy artillery. The French light quick-firing gun
was a deadly weapon, but France had neglected the one department
of artillery in which the Germans had been most successful--the
use of powerful motor traction to move big guns without slackening
the march of an army. General von Kluck's artillery was impregnable
to the French. Indeed, the Germans could not be dislodged from the
Ourcq until the British Expeditionary Force sent up some heavy
field batteries. It was then too late for the withdrawal from the
Ourcq to be of any serious consequence in determining the result
along the battle front.

The afternoon of that day, when the Zouaves were driving the Germans
across the Ourcq with the bayonet and were themselves effectually
stopped by the German wall of artillery fire, General Joffre and
Sir John French met. At last the British commander received the
welcome news from the generalissimo that retreat was over and advance
was about to be begun.

"I met the French commander in chief at his request," runs the
official dispatch, "and he informed me of his intention to take
the offensive forthwith by wheeling up the left flank of the Sixth
Army, pivoting on the Marne, and directing it to move on the Ourcq;
cross and attack the flank of the First German Army, which was
then moving in a southeasterly direction east of tha