ng themselves outflanked by the
German centre swinging down from the north in a western curve, with
its point directed also upon Paris. The whole aspect of the war would
have been changed, and there would have been great strategical
movements perilous to both sides, instead of the siege war of the
trenches in which both sides played for safety and established for
many months a position bordering upon stalemate.

The psychological effect upon the German army if Paris had been
taken would have been great in moral value to them as in moral loss
to the French. Their spirits would have been exalted as much as the
French spirits would have drooped, and even in modern war victory is
secured as much by temperamental qualities as by shell-fire and big
guns.

The Headquarters Staff of the German army decided otherwise.
Scared by the possibility of having their left wing smashed back to the
west between Paris and the sea, with their communications cut, they
swung round steadily to the south-east and drove their famous
wedge-like formation southwards, with the purpose of dividing the
allied forces of the West from the French centre. The exact position
then was this: Their own right struck down to the south-east of Paris,
through Chateau Thierry to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre and beyond; and
another strong column forced the French to evacuate Rheims and fall
back in a south-westerly direction. It was not without skill, this sudden
change of plan, and it is clear that the German Staff believed it
possible to defeat the French centre and left centre and then to come
back with a smashing blow against the army of Paris and the
"contemptible" British. But two great factors in the case were
overlooked. One was the value of time, and the other was the sudden
revival in the spirit of the French army now that Paris might still be
saved. They gave time--no more than that precious twenty-four
hours--to General Joffre and his advisers to repair by one supreme
and splendid effort all the grievous errors of the war's first chapter.
While they were hesitating and changing their line of front, a new and
tremendous activity was taking place on the French side, and Joffre,
by a real stroke of genius which proves him to be a great general in
spite of the first mistakes, for which he was perhaps not responsible,
prepared a blow which was to strike his enemy shrewdly.

2

I had the great fortune of seeing something of that rush to the rescue
which g