g General Maunoury, with the
6th Army, on Von Kluck's flank and rear, at the first hint of the German
general's swerve to the southeast; to General Maunoury himself, and his
splendid troops, the credit of the battle proper, across the broad
harvest fields of the Ourcq plateau. But the advance of the British
troops from the south of the Marne, on the heels of Von Kluck, was in
truth all-important to the success of Maunoury on the Ourcq. It was the
British Expeditionary Force which made the hinge of the battle-line, and
if that hinge had not been strong and supple--in all respects equal to
its work--the sudden attack of the 6th Army, on the extreme left of the
battle-line, and the victory of General Foch in the centre, might not
have availed. In other words, had Von Kluck found the weak spot he
believed in and struck for, all would have been different. But the weak
spot existed only in the German imagination. The British troops whom Von
Kluck supposed to be exhausted and demoralised, were in truth nothing of
the sort. Rested and in excellent condition, they turned rejoicing upon
the enemy, and, in concert with the French 6th Army, decided the German
withdrawal. Every one of the six Armies aligned across France, from
Paris to the Grand Couronne, had its own glorious task in the defeat of
the German plans. But we were then so small a proportion of the whole,
with our hundred and twenty thousand men, and we have become since so
accustomed to count in millions, that perhaps our part in the "miracle
of the Marne" is sometimes in danger of becoming a little blurred in the
popular English--and American--conception of the battle. Is not the
truth rather that we had a twofold share in it? It was Von Kluck's
miscalculation as to the English strength that tempted him to his
eastward march; it was the quality of the British force and leadership,
when Sir John French's opportunity came, that made the mistake a
fatal one.

How different the aspect of the Ourcq plateau at the opening of the
battle in 1914, from the snowy desolation under which we saw it! Perfect
summer weather--the harvest stacks in the fields--a blazing sun by day,
and a clear moon by night. For the first encounters of the five days'
fighting, till the rain came down, Nature could not have set a fairer
scene. And on the two anniversaries which have since passed, summer has
again decked the battle-field. Thousands have gone out to it from Paris,
from Meaux, and the whol