Yet there was a great deal more than that involved. It would be gravely unjust to German strategy to suppose that they had not considered the possible results of a failure in their plan of attack. The German General Staff was fully prepared with its defensive line in case Paris did not fall. The sapping and mining corps, the engineer corps, did not join in the advance on the Marne. For a week they had been working with indomitable energy on the Aisne to prepare what proved to be an invulnerable natural fortress, strong as the Rock of Gibraltar.
Months before the war began, Germany had not only laid out a basis of battle on a favorable terrain, but she had also laid out in detail the manner in which a defensive position was to be taken up, should this prove necessary. She knew that if she failed at Paris, the loss of life would have been fearful. The German system of fighting in massed formations ensured that. It would, therefore, be all the more necessary that the defense should be made with machinery. If the heights were to be taken, let flesh and blood do it. The Germans had been slaughtered in attacking Liége. Let the Allies be slaughtered in attacking the Aisne. Every foot of land had been mapped and studied, the heaviest artillery in the world was available, and the ammunition supply system was in full operation. Let them come!
Germany had prepared a marvelous attack which was within an ace of success and was prevented from the accomplishment of its final and full aim only by three things, each, in its way, a glory to one of the Allied Nations: the valor of the defense of the Belgians at Liége; the dogged courage of the British in the fighting retreat from Mons; and the superb dash of the French when they shattered the German line at the Marne. All three were needed to save France.
The battle of the Aisne consisted simply of the efforts of the English and French to gain those forbidding and strongly protected heights. Von Kluck, given all the men and artillery he needed, drove back Manoury in the space of a few hours. The British crossed by a superb frontal attack, which ranks as one of the bravest deeds in modern warfare, and were wiped out. D'Esperey crossed the Aisne east of Bourg, only to find that the Craonne plateau was unassailable. By Friday, September 18, Joffre was compelled to realize that the bluffs above the Aisne had been turned into an impregnable open-air fortress, not to be stormed by flesh and blood.
For Germany one thing was lacking, a strong Line of Communication. The main railroad to Coblentz, with a branch to Metz, passed through Rheims. If Germany were to have the vast supplies she needed, she must take Rheims or content herself with the weeks of delay which the Belgian route required. Rheims was imperative.
But Foch held Rheims!
The keenest strategist of them all, with no natural defenses save two small hills at Pouillion and Verzenay, the great French general had made his line of defense so strong that it had become practically unassailable. Especially it bristled with battery upon battery of "Soixante-Quinze" guns. For four successive nights, waves of men, such as those which were hurled at Liége, drove against Foch, striving by weight of numbers to break through.
It was in vain. The disposition of Foch's troops was deadly. The positions had been chosen by the best strategist in Europe, who had anticipated this very attack, knowing the importance of Rheims to the Germans. There was not a foot of ground that was not covered as with a web by the shrapnel and melinite shells. Only twice did those terrific attacks break through the "Soixante-Quinze" zone into machine-gun fire range and there they fell in heaps.
By the night of September 19, Field Marshal von Heeringen was compelled to realize that Foch's position could not be taken save by the use of heavy artillery. This could not be brought into position without exposing itself to destructive fire before he would have a chance to fire a shot. Battle was impossible. Savage revenge remained.