week of August and the first two weeks of September.
These combats partly coincided with the Battle of the Marne; they
resulted, at the end of that battle, in the German retreat. The
Second Army renewed the offensive August 25, 1914; it decisively
checked the march of the German army and commenced to force it
back.

The instructions issued to General de Castelnau directed him everywhere
to march forward and make direct attacks. The day of August 25,
1914, was a successful day for the French; everywhere the Germans
were repulsed. From August 26 till September 2, 1914, the Second
Army continued its attacks.

At this point the commander in chief having need of important forces
at his center and at his right relieved the Second Army of much of
its strength. This did not prevent it from engaging in the great
Battle of Nancy and winning it. It was September 4, 1914, that this
battle began and it continued till the 11th, the army sustaining
the incessant assaults of the Germans on its entire front advanced
from Grand Couronne. The German emperor was personally present at
this battle. There was at Dieuze a regiment of white cuirassiers
at whose head it was his intention to make a triumphal entry into
Nancy. Heavy German artillery of every caliber made an enormous
expenditure of ammunition; on the Grand Mont d'Amance alone, one
of the most important positions of the Grand Couronne of Nancy,
more than 30,000 howitzer shells were fired in two days. The fights
among the infantry were characterized on the entire front by an
alternation of failure and success, every point being taken, lost
and retaken at intervals.

The struggle attained to especial violence in the Champenoux Forest.
On September 5, 1914, the enemy won Maixe and Remereville, which
they lost again in the evening, but they were unable to dislodge
the French from the ridge east of the forest of Champenoux. The
Mont d'Amance was violently bombarded; a German brigade marched
on Pont-a-Mousson. The French retook Crevic and the Crevic Wood.

On the 7th the Germans directed on Ste. Genevieve, north of the Grand
Couronne, a very violent attack, which miscarried. Ste. Genevieve
was lost for a time, but it was retaken on the 8th; more than 2,000
Germans lay dead on the ground. The same day the enemy threw themselves
furiously on the east front, the Mont d'Amance, and La Neuvelotte.
South of the Champenoux Forest the French were compelled to retire;
they were thrown back o