Sikhs marching through Marseilles.
Photo, London News Agency.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE RACE TO THE SEA.
There was now a deadlock on the Aisne. The rival armies faced each other in trenches that had become almost as strong as fortresses, and both sides were powerless to advance. Every day there were attacks and counter-attacks, but they were very costly in life, and the ground gained was measured in yards. General Joffre had foreseen this as far back as the 18th of September, when he had informed Sir John French of his plan to bolt the Germans from their burrows.
Now he proposed to send two new armies, numbering in all some 300,000 men, to extend the line of the 6th Army, and fall fiercely on von Kluck's right flank.
From the 11th of September onwards there was continual fighting on the right bank of the Oise. While this was going on, Joffre was slipping new forces to the north by rail. At first he took every man that could be spared from the fighting line along the Aisne. These troops, however, were not numerous enough to cope with the Germans, so two new armies were formed and pushed northward. One of them was commanded by General Castelnau,[150] who, you will remember, had so grievously disappointed the Kaiser by beating the Bavarians on the heights near Nancy.[151] His army was to lie to the north of the 6th French Army, with its centre crossing the river Somme. At the same time another new army was being formed at Amiens. It was under the command of General Maud'huy,[152] who was a brigadier in the army of Lorraine when war broke out. Joffre had seen in him a soldier of the highest promise, and in three weeks had promoted him through all the grades to be the commander of an army. Not even in Napoleon's time had any soldier been advanced so rapidly. Maud'huy's army was to march eastwards on St. Quentin and strike at the rear of the enemy.
