The French counter-attack, then, was made up the valley to the west between the two turnpikes.
Immediately the Germans had begun their offensive the French made ready for their attack by a terrible artillery bombardment. Field guns and heavy artillery concentrated their fire on this section of the German trenches, and there was such a rain of shell and shrapnel on the defenders that they were unable to make an effective defense against the French infantry attack which followed.
The French, with great dash, carried part of the German positions; but this success dampened the vigor of their artillery bombardment, which could not be continued without endangering their own men. The big German guns opened a heavy fire on the rearward communications of the French, preventing the bringing up of reënforcements.
Meanwhile, General Von Kluck, the German commander, was gathering his forces for a counter-stroke, which came, not through the valley, but across the high plateau to the eastward, a large part of which was held by the French. The surface of the plateau, which is fairly level, was crossed by row after row of deep French trenches, each trench with a clear field for the fire of its guns.
It seemed impossible, in the cold light of the day after the passing excitement of battle, to conceive of troops successfully storming such intrenched positions But this is just what the Germans did, or thought they did, for their officers did not realize that the giving way of the French at this point was part of General Joffre's counter-stroke.
There were five successive lines of permanent French trenches, each with its entanglement of barbed wire, supported on iron posts. German pioneers cut their way through the first entanglement before the general attack, but it was necessary for the others to make the advance across the exposed positions under fire.
These attackers, however, were General Von Kluck's veterans, who, after the famous dash on Paris, the battle of the Marne and the retirement to the Aisne, had remained in comparative inactivity since the middle of September.
They succeeded in sweeping across the plateau, first in the center and then on the eastern flank, carrying trench after trench by storm in an interrupted and irresistible attack.
The French retired from the plateau. Then they gave up the valley below and retreated across the river. The Germans advanced through the valley.
The narrow turnpikes had become great cemeteries. Four thousand German troops, engaged in the work of burying the dead as fast as they fell, had been unable to clear the field of even their own dead after eight days, while the field was strewn with the bodies of French infantrymen, in their far-to-be-seen red-and-blue uniforms, swarthy-faced Turcos, colonials, Alpine riflemen and bearded territorials.