t of the
intrenched camp tomorrow.

At ten in the morning a consultation was held by Generals Gallieni,
Clergerie, and Manoury, and the details of the plan of operations were
immediately decided. General Joffre gave permission to attack and
announced that he would himself take the offensive on the 6th. On the
5th, at noon, the army from Paris fired the first shot; the battle of
the Ourcq, a preface to the Marne, had begun.

General Clergerie then told what a precious purveyor of information he
had found in General von der Marwitz, cavalry commander of the German
first army, who made intemperate use of the wireless telegraph and did
not even take the trouble to put into cipher his dispatches, of which
the Eiffel Tower made a careful collection. "In the evening of September
9th," he said, "an officer of the intelligence corps brought me a
dispatch from this same Marwitz couched in something like these terms:
'Tell me exactly where you are and what you are doing. Hurry up, because
XXX.' The officer was greatly embarrassed to interpret those three X's.
Adopting the language of the poilu, I said to him, 'Translate it, "I am
going to bolt."' True enough, next day we found on the site of the
German batteries, which had been precipitately evacuated, stacks of
munitions; while by the roadside we came upon motors abandoned for the
slightest breakdown, and near Betz almost the entire outfit of a field
bakery, with a great store of flour and dough half-kneaded. Paris and
France were saved.

"Von Kluck could not get over his astonishment. He has tried to explain
it by saying he was unlucky, for out of a hundred governors not one
would have acted as Gallieni did, throwing his whole available force
nearly forty miles from his stronghold. It was downright imprudence."

CHAPTER VIII

JAPAN IN THE WAR

On August 15, 1914, the Empire of Japan issued an ultimatum to Germany.
She demanded the evacuation of Tsing-tau, the disarming of the warships
there and the handing over of the territory to Japan for ultimate
reversion to China. The time limit for her reply was set at 12 o'clock,
August 24th. To this ultimatum Germany made no reply, and at 2.30 P. M.,
August 23d, the German Ambassador was handed his passports and war was
declared.

The reason for the action of Japan was simple. She was bound by treaty
to Great Britain to come to her aid in any war in which Great Britain
might be involved. On August 4th a note was received f