ll
back on the main army and forego its important strategic advantage
on the east bank of the Ourcq River.

These three battles, Ourcq, Coulommiers, and Montmirail, constitute
the recoil from Paris, and at the same time they constitute the defeat
of what was hereinbefore shown to be one of the four fundamentals of
the great German campaign plan. With the situation thus cleared,
so to speak, one may now pass to the details of the second part
of the German plan, which was to engage the powerful Ninth and
Fourth Armies, under the command of Generals Foch and Langle,
respectively, to break through them, if possible, but at all hazards
to keep them sufficiently menaced to disable General Joffre from
sending reenforcements therefrom to the army of General Sarrail,
on which the whole force of the army of the crown prince was to
be hurled.

The next section of the Allied armies, then, was General Foch's
Ninth Army, which encountered the German drive at Fere Champenoise,
and which resulted in the severe handling of General von Buelow's
forces. With characteristic perception of the difference between
a greater and a lesser encounter, General Foch called his share
of the battles of the Marne, the "Affair of the Marshes of St.
Gond." This did not culminate until Wednesday, September 9, 1914,
so that the German retreat there was one day later than the final
retreat of General von Kluck.

The clash between the armies of General von Buelow and of General
Foch began, as did the battle wrath along the whole front, at dawn
of that fateful Sunday, September 5, 1914. General Foch, a well-known
writer on strategy, had devised his army for defense. He was well
supplied with the famous 75-millimeter guns, holding them massed in
the center of his line. His extreme right and left were mobile and
thrown partly forward to feel the attack of the invading army. But,
in spite of all preparations, General Foch found himself hard-set to
hold his own on September 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1914. The battle continued
incessantly, by night as well as by day, for the artillerists had
found each other's range. There was comparatively little hand-to-hand
fighting at this point, General Foch only once being successful
in luring the Germans to within close firing range. The results
were withering, and General von Buelow did not attempt it a second
time. There seems reason to believe that General von Buelow had
counted upon acting as a reserve force to General von K