ng the withdrawal of
the French from German Lorraine, and now the war in the west was
being waged entirely on French soil.

Technically and strategically the French had been outdone by
superior numbers and the incapable defense of Namur, but no decisive
battle had been fought. Indeed in a maneuver for positions, the
Germans had won. The test was to come on the Marne. Had France been
beaten there, she would have been beaten for good. Her army would
have been so badly shattered that the Germans would then have been
able to have thrown such preponderance of force, in conjunction with
the Austrians, against the Russians that Warsaw (and perhaps
Petrograd) must have fallen in the first year rather than in the
second of the campaign. It would not be going too far to call the
Marne the greatest battle in all history, both because of the
numbers engaged and the result. Barring a later successful German
offensive it decided the fate of France and very likely the fate of
the war. All the trench fighting that followed, after all, only
nailed down as it were the results of the Marne.

The general public taking its news from the daily press, thinks of
the Marne as having been waged mostly in the neighborhood of Paris.
It also wonders why the Germans did not go into Paris when they were
so near. Any entrance into Paris was of secondary and of superficial
consideration. The object of an army is to beat an enemy's army. Had
the German army beaten the French on the Marne, then it had plenty
of time for its entry into Paris. If it lost the battle, it could
not have held Paris.

The fate of Paris was no less decided in eastern France than on the
banks of the Marne. Far and away from a spectacular point of view,
the most interesting portion of that decisive conflict was among the
hills and valleys and woods of Lorraine, where over a front of
eighty miles the Bavarians and the French swayed back and forth in
fierce pitched battle. For the Bavarians were striking at the French
right flank toward the gap of Miracourt and the German Crown Prince
was striking in the Argonne at the same time that Von Kluck was
striking at the French left. The Bavarians and the crown prince
failed, while Von Kluck extended himself too far and was nearly
caught in the pincers by Manoury's new army striking on his flank.
But the vital, the human, the overwhelming factor was that the
French infantry after retreat, when they might have been in
confusion and poor