allow the German Fourth Army to flank the French Third (Ruffey's) Army on the latter's left, so that Ruffey was also compelled to retreat, until on the thirty-first he was in the Forest of the Argonne, east of the Aisne and west of Verdun. West of Verdun the Allies' forces were once more contiguous, and new armies were being formed and rushed up to support them. Within one month of the declaration of war, Germany had occupied much of northern France and was driving back the French forces upon Paris itself.

THE BATTLE OF NANCY

We have seen that the Second French (Castelnau's) Army had taken up a position around Nancy, after having been driven out of Alsace-Lorraine at Morhange. The line of Castelnau's forces stretched from St. Généviève through Nancy to Gerbéville. Nancy is surrounded by a chain of hills known as the Grand Crown of Nancy, and in addition Castelnau was supported by the fortress of Toul in his rear, so that the position of the French Second Army to the east of Paris was a strong one. On August 24, the German Sixth and Seventh Armies, strengthened by troops from Metz, fiercely attacked Castelnau's forces on the right. The German attack was a frontal one, since Verdun was between the right of the French Third Army and the left of the French Second Army, and Verdun was too dangerous to be in the German rear without being invested. At the same time, severe German attacks were launched upon the French left and centre.

On the right and left centre, the Germans were decisively defeated. France now showed that her field guns also were formidable weapons and they wreaked terrible vengeance upon the attacking Germans. On August 24, the German attack on the right was stopped, and on the two next days the Germans were driven back and the French right advanced. On the left centre, a terrific German attack on the evening of the twenty-fourth was vainly renewed three times, and that same night the Germans withdrew toward Pont-à-Mousson, leaving thousands of dead upon the field of battle. On other sections of the line, French counter-attacks were driven back with heavy loss, but the French line remained in its position. Thus foiled in their

direct attack, the German forces attempted no further action in this sector until heavy guns were brought up against Nancy on September 1.

To the south, also, the Germans were driven back. Their forces in Alsace-Lorraine were not so strong as their forces to the northwest of France, and the French had withdrawn many of their troops from the Alsace-Lorraine frontier to support the troops retreating upon Paris from the north, so that fighting along the Alsace-Lorraine frontier became quiescent. Between Verdun and Switzerland, at least, the Germans had been held close to the Franco-German frontier.

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Accordingly, by September 1 the Franco-British forces were once more facing the enemy in a continuous line and in a strong position. But the French High Command was in no mood to attempt to check the Germans as yet. The Franco-British forces in the west were connected only loosely with the French forces to the east, along the Alsace-Lorraine frontier; the fortifications of Paris were still too far away to act as support and to prevent dangerous flanking movements on the part of the German Army; a delay in action in France would give the Russians a chance to strike a decisive blow, which would compel Germany to withdraw some troops from the French to the Russian battle-fields; and, above all, the French forces shifting from the east to the west had not yet been able to join the Franco-British line in sufficiently large numbers to counteract the German numerical superiority. Accordingly, a still further retreat on the Allied left was ordered, a retreat to the Marne river, where Joffre had determined to make the last stand in a position in accordance with which he had conceived a skilful counter-attack.

After a stand, then, for little more than a day along the Aisne, a further Allied retreat was.ordered. General Ruffey was replaced by General Sarrail and General Lanrezac by General d'Esperey, in command of the French Third and Fifth Armies, respectively. From Verdun to the Somme the Allied forces withdrew slowly and in good order, although not without some sharp rear-guard engagements. At Villers-Cotterêts and at Nèry the British were sharply punished before they drove off their assailants. By September 2, the French government had removed its seat from Paris to Bordeaux, and Paris had been prepared for a siege. On September 3, the British reached the Marne, crossed it, blew up the bridges behind them, and withdrew some ten or fifteen miles farther south along the Grand Morin River. They were now both east and south of Paris. The oncoming Germans immediately threw bridges across the Marne and succeeded in attacking

the British at several points before the British took up their final positions. The British lines were to the southeast of Paris and left the city open to attack upon the northwest, since the British formed, or were supposed by the Germans to form, the extreme left of the Allied line. The German First Army was thus sorely tempted to march straight upon Paris; but von Kluck withstood the temptation, as such a plan would have removed his points of contact with the German Second Army to the east, and would have enabled the British army to become a wedge between the German First and Second Armies, able to attack the former on its left flank and the latter on its right flank. The tide of battle thus turned to the east of Paris, and the student of the Battle of the Marne must never forget that it was fought due east of Paris and that the entire German drive upon Paris threatened that city only from the east.

The French Fifth Army, now under the command of d'Esperey, followed the British in turning to the southeast and by September 4 had taken up positions to the east of the British. The French Fourth Army had swung even farther to the east, thus leaving a space between the French Fifth and Fourth Armies. Into this space, a force of the French troops removed from the Alsace-Lorraine frontier was marched up. It was placed under the command of General Foch, and thus became a new French Army, the Seventh. The right of the French Fourth Army, next to the left of the French Third (Sarrail's) Army, swung northward toward Verdun, and the right of the French. Third Army was supported by Verdun itself. (See Map, page 479.)

But Joffre had formed more than one new army. And the second new French army was the army destined to turn the whole tide of battle. The formation of Foch's army was evidently known to the German General Staff, but the formation of the other new French army seems to have caught the Germans unawares. Indeed, it seems probable that the German General Staff, intoxicated by its victories in the first three weeks of the war, had rashly concluded that the French armies had been thrown into as complete disorder as had the British, and that the rout was complete, with only spasmodic and hopeless last-ditch sorties open to the Allies.

The new army formed by Joffre, the French Sixth Army, was