der astonished him; but like a disciplined leader, he started to
execute it with all the energy of which this legendary soldier was
capable."

The Forty-second came! While they were marching to the rescue the
Prussian Guard in a colossal effort smashed through Foch's right. They
were wild with joy. The French line was pierced. They at once began
celebrating, at La Fere-Champenoise.

When this was announced to Foch he telegraphed to general headquarters:

"My center gives way, my right recedes; the situation is excellent. I
shall attack."

For this, we must remember, is the man who says: "A battle won is a
battle in which one is not able to believe one's self vanquished."

He gave the order to attack. Everything that he cared about in this
world was at stake. This desperate maneuver would save it all--or it
would not. He gave the order to attack--and then he went for a walk on
the outskirts of the little village of Plancy. His companion was one
of his staff officers, Lieutenant Ferasson of the artillery; and as
they walked they discussed metallurgy and economics.

There could be nothing more typically French or more diametrically
opposed to the conceptions of French character which prevailed in other
countries before this war. And I hope that if Lieutenant Ferasson
survives, he will accurately designate (if he can) exactly where Foch
walked on that Wednesday afternoon, September 9, when, his center
having given way, his right wing receded, he pronounced the "situation
excellent," gave the order for attack, and went out to discuss
metallurgy.

Toward six o'clock on that evening the Germans, celebrating their
certain victory, saw themselves confronted by a "new" French army
pouring into the gap they had thought their road to Paris.

The Forty-second Division (more than half dead of fatigue, but their
eyes blazing with such immensity and intensity of purpose it has been
said the Germans fled, as before spirits, when they saw these men) had
not only blocked the roundabout road to Paris; they had broken the
morale of Von Buelow's crack troops. Without this brilliant maneuver
and superb execution the successes of all the other armies must have
gone for naught.

"To be victorious," said Napoleon, "it is necessary only to be stronger
than your enemy at a given point and at a given moment."

Foch's preferred way to take advantage of that given point and moment
is with reserves, which he called the reservoir