o
retire.

Contradicting Belloc and the usual explanations, M. le Goffic says that
Foch was unaware of any gap in the German line. What he did was to
thrust in a bleak venture the borrowed division against the flank of the
advancing Prussians, who were in superior force. The Prussians retired.
But had they not been preparing to retire? Yet for what reason? When all
seemed lost, Foch won on the centre.

On the extreme French left, where Manoury was himself being outflanked by
von Kluck, the fatigued and outnumbered French soldiers were resigned to
the worst. They had done all that was possible, and it seemed of no
avail. They did not know that at that time the locomotives in the rear of
the German armies were reversed; were heading to the north. What happened
in the minds of the directing German generals--for that is where the
defeat began--is not clear; but the sudden and prolonged resistance of
the French at the Marne may have disrupted with a violent doubt minds
that had been taut with over-confidence. The fear to which the doubt
increased when Manoury attacked and persisted, the baffling audacity in
the centre of the defeated Foch, who did everything no well-bred
militarist would expect from another gentleman, and the common fervour of
the French soldiers who fought for a week like men possessed, at last
caused something to give way in the brain of the enemy. He could not
understand it. This was not according to his plan. He could not find it
in his books. He did not know what more he could do, except to retire
into safety and think it over afresh. The unexpected fury of the human
spirit, outraged into desperation after it was assumed to be subdued, and
bursting suddenly, and regardless of consequences, against the calm and
haughty front of material science assured of its power, checked and
deflected the processes of the German intelligence. I have seen an
indignant rooster produce the same effect on a bull.

X. Carlyle

AUGUST 17, 1918. Having something on the mind may lead one to salvation,
but it seems just as likely to lead one to the asylum. The Germans, who
are necessarily in the power of an argument which shows them we are
devils, are yet compelled to admit that Shakespeare is worth reasoned
consideration, and so they avoid the implied difficulty by explaining
that as Shakespeare was a genius therefore he was a German. What we
should do if it could be proved a grandfather of the poet was a Prussian