ished himself by his
brilliant conduct in Lorraine, General Foch.

The establishment of the army of Manoury on the left of the French
armies so as to fall on the right flank of the Germans when they marched
on Paris; the establishment of a strong army under one of the best
French generals at the center for the purpose of encountering the main
weight of the German army; such were the two decisions of the French
commander in chief, taken on August 25 and 27, 1914, which contained in
germ the victory of the Marne, waged and won two weeks later.

CHAPTER XI

FIGHTING AT BAY

The forces of France also had been fighting to protect their retreat
southward in these August days of 1914. After the passages of the Sambre
were forced, during the great Mons-Charleroi battle, the Fifth French
Army was placed in very perilous straits by the failure of the Fourth
Army, under General Langle, to hold the Belgian river town of Givet.
Hard pressed in the rear by General von Buelow's army, and on their
right by General von Hausen commanding the Saxon Army and the Prussian
Guard, the Fifth Army of France had to retire with all possible speed,
for their path of retreat was threatened by a large body of Teutons
advancing on Rocroi.

On August 23, 1914, holding their indomitable pursuers in check by
desperate rear-guard action, with their two cavalry divisions under
General Sordet galloping furiously along the lines of the western flank
to protect the retiring infantry and guns, the Fifth Army unexpectedly
turned at Guise. At that point considerable reenforcements in troops and
material arrived, making the Fifth Army the strongest in France. It now
defeated and drove over the Oise the German Guard and Tenth Corps, and
then continued its retirement. But the left wing of the French army was
unsuccessful, and Amiens and the passages of the Somme had to be
abandoned to the invaders.

On Sunday, August 23, 1914, the Fourth Army, operating from the Meuse,
was heavily outnumbered by the Saxon army around the river town of
Dinant. They fell back, after furious fighting for the possession of the
bridges, which the French engineers blew up as the army withdrew
southward to the frontier. Soon after, at Givet, the Germans succeeded
in wedging their way across the Meuse. Some advanced on Rocroi and
Rethel, and other corps marched along the left bank of the Meuse,
through wooded country, against a steadily increasing resistance which
culminat