ans were fiercely engaged. This battle was the one which
assured the safety of Paris.

On September 1 the German left and center were separated, but like a
letter "V" were approaching each other, with Paris as their objective.
Had the Allies attacked at that time they would have had to divide their
forces and, so weakened, give battle to two armies. By retreating they
drew after them the two converging lines of the V and when the Germans
were in wedge-shaped formation, attacked them on the flank and center at
Meaux and made a direct attack at Sezanne.

The four days' battle at Meaux ended with the Germans crossing the river
Aisne and retreating to the hills north and west of Soissons. Col. Allen
and Capt. Parker saw the end of the battle north of Sezanne, which
resulted in the retreat of the Germans to Rheims.

The battles, as Col. Allen and Capt. Parker describe them, were as
follows:

On the 8th the Germans advanced from a line stretching from Epernay and
Chalons, a distance of twenty-five kilometers (sixteen miles). In this
front, counting from the German right, were the Tenth, the Guards, the
Ninth and Twelfth Army Corps. The presence of the Guards, the _corps
d'elite_ of the German army, suggested that this was intended to be a
main attack upon Paris and that the army at Meaux was to occupy the
center. The four combined corps numbered over 200,000. The French met
them, they assert, with 190,000.

The Germans advanced until their left was at Vitry-le-Francois and their
right rested at Sezanne, making a column 15 miles long, headed west
toward Paris. The French butted the line six miles east of Sezanne, in
the forests of La Fere and Champenoise. It was here that the greater
part of the fight occurred. It was fighting at long distance with
artillery and from trench to trench with the bayonet.

THIRTY THOUSAND MEN KILLED

During the four days in which fortune rested first on one flag and then
on another 30,000 men of both armies are said to have been killed and a
considerable number of villages were wiped from the map by the artillery
of both armies.

Two miles from Sezanne a French regiment was destroyed by an ambush.
The Germans had thrown up conspicuous trenches and with decoys sparsely
filled them. From the forest in the rear the mitrailleuse was trained on
the French. The French infantry charged this trench and the decoys fled,
making toward the flanks, and as the French poured over the trenches the
hidd