t river.

"He requested me to effect a change of front to my right--my left
resting on the Marne and my right on the Fifth Army--to fill the
gap between that army and the Sixth. I was then to advance against
the enemy on my front and join in the general offensive movement.
German troops, which were observed moving southeast up the left
bank of the Ourcq on the Fourth, were now reported to be halted and
facing that river. Heads of the enemy's columns were seen crossing
at Changis, La Ferte, Nogent, Chateau-Thierry, and Mezy.

"Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging
on Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy
were located in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais,
La Ferte-Gaucher, and Dagny.

"These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, September
6, at sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle
opened on a front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in
front of the left flank of the Sixth French Army, through Lizy on
the Marne, Maupertuis, which was about the British center, Courtacon,
which was the left of the Fifth French Army, to Esternay and
Charleville, the left of the Ninth Army under General Foch, and
so along the front of the Ninth, Fourth, and Third French Armies
to a point north of the fortress of Verdun."

Sunrise on Sunday morning, on a summer day in sunny France, was
the setting for the grim and red carnage which should show in the
next five consecutive days that the German advance was checked,
that the southernmost point had been reached, and that for a long
time to come it would tax the resources of the invaders to hold
the land that already had been won. General Joffre had so arranged
his forces that the most spectacular--and the easiest--part fell to
the British, and it was accomplished with perfection of detail. But
the honors of the battles of the Marne lay with General Sarrail's
army and with the "Iron Division of Toul."

On the same morning, this special army order, issued by Sir John
French, was read to the British troops:

"After a most trying series of operations, mostly in retirement,
which have been rendered necessary by the general strategic plan
of the allied armies, the British forces stand to-day formed in
line with their French comrades, ready to attack the enemy. Foiled
in their attempt to invest Paris, the Germans have been driven to
move in an easterly and southeasterly direction with th