reat was far from contemplated by
Generals Joffre and French. German official dispatches bear testimony
to the intrepid character of the defenders sullenly falling back
and contesting every inch of the way, as much as they do to the
daring and the vivid bravery of the German attackers who hurled
themselves steadily, day after day, upon positions hastily taken
up in the retreat where the retirement could be partly repaid by
the heaviest toll of death.

The great strategical plan of the Germans, which had displayed
itself throughout the entire operations on the western theatre
of war from the very first gun of the campaign, came to its apex
on this September 3, 1914. If the allied armies could develop a
strong enough defense to halt the German offensive at this point,
and especially if they could develop a sufficiently powerful
counteroffensive to strike doubt into the confident expectations
of the armies of the Central Powers, then the strategical plan
had reached a check, which might or might not be a checkmate, as
the fortunes of war might determine. If, on the other hand, the
stand made by the Allies at this point should prove ineffective,
and if the counteroffensive should reveal that the German hosts
had been able to establish impregnable defenses as they marched,
then the original strategic plan of the attackers must be considered
as intact and the peril of France would become greatly intensified.

It is idle, in a war of such astounding magnitude, to speak about
any one single incident as being a "decisive" one. Such a term can
only rightly be applied to conditions where the opposing powers
each have but one organized army in the field, and these armies
meet in a pitched battle. None the less, the several actions which
are known as the Battles of the Marne may be considered as decisive,
to the extent that they decided the limit of the German offensive
at that point. The German General Staff, taking the ordinary and
obvious precautions in the case of a possible repulse, chose and
fortified in the German rear positions to which its forces might
fall back in the event of retreat. These prepared positions had
a secondary contingent value for the Germans in view of the grave
Russian menace that might call at any moment for a transfer of
German troops from the western to the eastern front.

The Battle of the Marne stopped the advance of the main German army
on that line, forcing it back.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF