etching from Soissons to Rheims, a distance of about 30 miles.

The Huns were driving on the entire front, but the Crown Prince with
crack troops was to have the honor for which he had long been
striving--that of crossing the famous Marne and taking Paris. His troops
had reached the river between Dormans and Chateau-Thierry at the very
spot where the Third German Army had swept across the stream on August
25, 1914. Paris was less than 50 miles away.

Here and there at other points the Germans had been held by the French
and English, but as part of the strategy of the French command the enemy
had been permitted to advance at this point through lines which would
cost him a terrible toll of lives. The French meantime were
concentrating on the enemy's flank with the hope of breaking through and
pocketing part of the Crown Prince's advancing forces.

Whatever the intent, the Germans were resisting the efforts to stop
them. The question was, where would the advance end? The answer was
furnished by America.

The enemy had attempted to broaden his Marne salient and had stretched
as far south as Chateau-Thierry. It is supposed his purpose was to
compel General Foch to meet shock with shock by throwing in his reserve
forces, since the German advance had then almost reached shelling
distance of Paris.

But the German command had not taken the Americans into their
calculations, for here the Prussians met Uncle Sam's fighting men and
their French supports and were smashed and thrown back.

Fighting in their own way, in the open, against superior forces, the
Marines and troops of the National American Army fought their way to
victory, routing the enemy and wresting from them positions absolutely
necessary to their further advance.

Immense forces of Germans had been thrown into the fray when the
American division, to which the Marines were attached, was ordered into
the breach. The bulk of the forces, called to help halt the Huns, were
hours away from the fighting front and were being brought up for the
purpose of holding a secondary position where they would take up the
fighting when the French fell back.

They had captured Cantigny after elaborate preparations under the
direction of the French, but here there were no preparations. The
American commanders wanted to attack the advancing enemy. The Allied
leaders doubted the ability of the Americans to stop the Boche in open
combat.

The American commanders pleaded to make