nsiderable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on
Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located
in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La Ferte-Gaucher,
and Dagny.

"These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, September 6,
at sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle opened on
a front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in front of the left
flank of the Sixth French Army, through Lizy on the Marne, Maupertuis,
which was about the British center, Courtacon, which was the left of the
Fifth French Army, to Esternay and Charleville, the left of the Ninth
Army under General Foch, and so along the front of the Ninth, Fourth,
and Third French Armies to a point north of the fortress of Verdun."

Sunrise on Sunday morning, on a summer day in sunny France, was the
setting for the grim and red carnage which should show in the next five
consecutive days that the German advance was checked, that the
southernmost point had been reached, and that for a long time to come it
would tax the resources of the invaders to hold the land that already
had been won. General Joffre had so arranged his forces that the most
spectacular--and the easiest--part fell to the British, and it was
accomplished with perfection of detail. But the honors of the battles of
the Marne lay with General Sarrail's army and with the "Iron Division of
Toul."

On the same morning, this special army order, issued by Sir John French,
was read to the British troops:

"After a most trying series of operations, mostly in retirement, which
have been rendered necessary by the general strategic plan of the allied
armies, the British forces stand to-day formed in line with their French
comrades, ready to attack the enemy. Foiled in their attempt to invest
Paris, the Germans have been driven to move in an easterly and
southeasterly direction with the apparent intention of falling in
strength upon the Fifth French Army. In this operation they are exposing
their right flank and their line of communications to an attack from the
combined Sixth French Army and the British forces.

"I call upon the British army in France to now show the enemy its power
and to push on vigorously to the attack beside the Sixth French Army.

"I am sure I shall not call upon them in vain, but that, on the
contrary, by another manifestation of the magnificent spirit which they
have shown in the past f