t marked a decisive period in the history of
the Great War. All the French armies, from the east to the west, as well
as the British army, were in retreat over their frontiers. To what
resolution had the French commander in chief come? That was the question
on every lip. What at that moment was the real situation of the French
army? Certainly the first engagements had not turned out as well as the
French could have hoped. The Germans were reaping the reward of their
magnificent preparation for the war. Their heavy artillery, with which
the French army was almost entirely unprovided, was giving proof of its
efficacy and its worth. The moral effect of those great projectiles
launched from great distances by the immense German guns was
considerable. At such great distances the French cannons of 75,
admirable as they were, could make no effective reply to the German
batteries. The French soldiers were perfectly well aware that they were
the targets of the great German shells while their own cannon could make
no parallel impression on the enemy.

The German army revealed itself as an extraordinary instrument of war.
Its mobility and accouterments were perfect. It had over a hundred
thousand professional noncommissioned officers or subofficers, admirably
suited to their work, with their men marching under the control of their
eye and finger. In the German army the active corps, as well as the
reserve corps, showed themselves, thanks to these noncommissioned
officers, marvelously equipped.

In the French army the number of noncommissioned officers by profession
totaled hardly half the German figures. The German army, moreover, was
much more abundantly supplied with machine guns than the French. The
Germans had almost twice as many, and they understood how to use them in
defense and attack better than the French. They had moreover, to a
degree far superior to that of the French, studied the use of
fortifications in the field, trenches, wire entanglements, and so on.
The Germans were also at first better trained than the French
reservists; they had spent longer periods in the German army, and their
reserve corps were almost equal to the active corps.

In the French army, on the other hand, an apprenticeship and training of
several weeks were required to give to the divisions of reserve their
full worth. At the end of two weeks, nevertheless, thanks to the
marvelous elasticity of the French soldier and the warlike qualities of