II. Battle of the Marshes of St. Gond
While the 6th Army, within sight of the Ourcq, was suffering its great agony, while the “effect of suction” was showing itself in the Anglo-French pursuit of Kluck, very different were the first results at the centre of the long crescent of the Allied front. Kluck was saved by his quick resolution, together with Marwitz’s able work in covering the rear. Bülow was in no such imminent danger. His communications with the north were at first perfectly safe. The situation of his right wing, which must either fall back or lose contact with the I Army, was awkward; but, doubtless, Kluck’s success would soon re-establish it. The circumstances indicated for the remainder of the II Army and the neighbouring Saxon Corps an instant attempt to break through the French centre, or at least to cripple it, and, with it, all Joffre’s offensive plan. The very strategic influence which helped the British and d’Espérey, therefore, at first threw a terrible burden upon Foch and the “detachment” which on September 5 was renamed the “9th Army”; yet it was by this same influence that, in the end, though by the narrowest of margins, he also won through.
The MARNE RE-CROSSED.
Morning of Sept. 9.
The theatre of this struggle is the south-western corner of the flat, niggardly expanse of La Champagne Pouilleuse, lying between the depression called the Marshes of St. Gond and the Sezanne–Sommesous railway and highroad. It is very clearly bounded on the west by the sharp edge of the Brie plateau; on the east it is bordered by the Troyes–Châlons road and railway. Sezanne on the west, and Fère Champènoise at the centre, are considerable country towns; the right is marked by the permanent camp of Mailly. To the north of Sezanne, the hill of Mondemont, immediately overlooking the marshes and the plain, and the ravine of St. Prix, on the Epernay road, where the Petit Morin issues from the marshes and breaks into the plateau, are key positions. The Marshes of St. Gond (so called after a seventh-century priory, of which some ruins remain) witnessed several of the most poignant episodes of Napoleon’s 1814 campaign “from the Rhine to Fontainebleau.” They were then much more extensive. Between the villages of Fromentières and Champaubert, there survives the name, though little else, of the “Bois du Desert,” where 3000 Russian grenadiers are said to have been slain or captured by Marmont’s cuirassiers, while hundreds of others were drowned. A month later, Blücher was back from Laon attacking on the same ground; and Marmont and Mortier were in full retreat along the road to Fère Champènoise. Pachod’s national guards, the “Marie Louises,” turned north to the marches of St. Gond as to a refuge. The Russians and Prussians surrounded them; and only a few of the French lads escaped by the St. Prix road. To-day the marshes are largely reclaimed and canalised; but this clay bed, extending a dozen miles east and west, and averaging more than a mile in breadth, fills easily under such a rainstorm as fell upon the region on the evening of September 9, 1914, and at all times it limits traffic to the three or four good roads crossing it. The chief of these, from Epernay to Sezanne and Fère Champènoise respectively, pass the ends of the marshes at St. Prix and Morains; the former is commanded by Mondemont; the latter by Mont Août, near Broussy.
Was this “last barrier providentially set across the route of the invasion”[65] forgotten? Joffre’s earlier plan did, indeed, involve the abandonment of all the plain extending to the Aube; the decision to stand on the line of the marshes was a consequence of Gallieni’s initiative. Foch’s Army had been carried beyond them in its retreat, but, fortunately, not far beyond. On the morning of September 5, advance columns of Bülow’s left had entered Baye; patrols had reached the Petit Morin bridge at St. Prix, and the north-centre of the marshes at Vert-la-Gravelle. A little more dash, and the Germans would have possessed themselves of all the commanding points. It was about 10 a.m. that Foch received the Generalissimo’s order closing the retreat: “The 9th Army will cover the right of the 5th Army, holding the southern passages of the Marshes of St. Gond, and placing a part of its forces on the plateau north of Sezanne.” Foch at once directed the appropriate movements; and, by the evening of September 5, the following positions were reached:
French Left.—Driven, back from St. Prix by forces belonging to Bülow’s X Active and Reserve Corps, the 42nd Division (General Grossetti) held the neighbouring hills from Villeneuve-lès-Charleville and Soisy to Mondemont.
Centre.—During the afternoon, Dubois advanced the 9th Corps (Moroccan Division and 17th Division) from Fère Champènoise to Broussy and Bannes, and thence pushed two battalions over the marshes to Toulon-la-Montagne, Vert-la-Gravelle, and Aulnizeux in face of the Prussian Guard Corps, the main body of which was at Vertus. The Blondlat Brigade of the Moroccan Division attacked Congy, but failed, and fell back on Mondemont. The 52nd Reserve Division was in support about Connantre.
French Right.—The 11th Corps (General Eydoux) rested on the east end of the marshes at Morains-le-Petit, and from here stretched backward along the course of the Champagne Somme to Sommesous, with the 60th Reserve Division behind it. They had before them the Saxon XII Active Corps and one of its reserve divisions. At Sommesous, General de l’Espée’s Cavalry Division covered a gap of about 12 miles between Foch’s right and de Langle de Cary’s left at Humbauville.
Thus, on the eve of the battle, the 9th Army, inferior to the enemy in strength, especially in artillery, presented to it an irregular convex front. Bülow was at Esternay on the west; Hausen was approaching the gap on its right flank; the centre was protruded uneasily to and beyond the St. Gond Marshes. The expectation of General Headquarters had, apparently, been that the German onset would fall principally on the right of the 5th Army. Foch was, therefore, instructed to give aid in that direction by pushing his left to the north-north-west, while the rest of his line stood firm until the pressure was relieved. In the event, these rôles were reversed: it was d’Espérey who had to help Foch. The original dispositions, however, had a certain effect upon the course of the battle. They gave the 9th Army a pivot on the Sezanne plateau; and the obstinacy with which this advantage was retained seems to have diverted the German commanders, till it was too late, from concentrating their force on the other wing, the line of attack from which the French had most to fear.
FOCH’S FRONT
Sept. 6, morning.
Sept. 7, night.
Foch was the offensive incarnate; but, on the morning of September 6th, he could do no more than meet, and that with indifferent success, Bülow’s attack upon his left-centre. He was weakest where the enemy was most strong: a large part of the French guns could not reach the field for the beginning of the combat; the 9th Corps, in particular, felt the lack of three groups of artillery it had left in Lorraine. Failing this support, the two battalions holding Toulon-la-Montagne were quickly shelled out of their positions. In vain Dubois, commanding the 9th Corps, ordered the Moroccan Tirailleurs to march on Baye, and the 17th Division to retake the two lost points. A crack regiment, the 77th, crossed the marshes and entered Coizard village, Major de Beaufort, cane in hand, on a big bay horse, at its head, crying to his men, shaken by rifle fire from the houses: “Forward, boys! Courage! It is for France. Jeanne d’Arc is with us.” The 2nd and 3rd battalions went on, and tried to climb Mount Toulon. The fighting continued all day, ending in a painful retreat to Mont Août through two miles of swampy ground, in which the men plunged up to the waist rather than risk the shell-ploughed causeway. The Guard followed as far as Bannes, and the X Corps occupied Le Mesnil Broussy and Broussy-le-Petit, where the French batteries arrested them. Small French detachments clung to Morains and Aulnay through the day and night; otherwise, the north of the marshes was lost. Against the left, Bülow was less successful. The 42nd Division and the Moroccan Division withstood repeated assaults of the X Corps at Soisy-aux-Bois and on the edge of the St. Gond Wood. The struggle, however, was most severe: Villeneuve, occupied on the evening of September 5, was lost at 8 a.m. on the 6th, recaptured an hour later, lost again at noon, and recovered at night. On the right, the 11th Corps had to evacuate Ecury and Normée under heavy fire; Lenharrée and Sommesous were partially in flames, but still resisted.
Unawed, in his quarters at Pleurs, Foch wrote the following order for the morrow:—“The General Commanding counts on all the troops of the 9th Army exerting the greatest activity and the utmost energy to extend and maintain beyond dispute the results obtained over a hard-pressed and venturesome enemy.” Many of the generals, lieutenants, and men may have thought these last words too highly coloured. Foch himself knew more of the real situation. He knew, as did Bülow, how gravely the latter was prejudiced by Kluck’s predicament. Already, the prospect had arisen of the I German Army being gripped by the closing vice of Maunoury and the British. Already, d’Espérey’s great force was moving north along Bülow’s flank toward Montmirail. Joffre’s masterstroke was revealed. Was the victory that Berlin and the armies counted as certain to slip away at the eleventh hour? For the first time in a triumphant generation, a German Army was in danger of defeat; nay, all the armies were in danger. Astounding change of fortune! The greycoat soldiery, dulling their weariness in the loot of cottages and farms, the subaltern officers, making free with the wine cellars of old manor houses, did not know it; but such was the fact. Their commanders were not the men easily to take alarm; yet, at this moment, alarm must have struck them.