When this document was penned, the struggle had been proceeding on the Ourcq for two days and a half; Kluck had withdrawn nearly all his forces from the Marne; and the British and d’Espérey’s Armies were advancing rapidly northward. How, in these circumstances, could the German General Staff imagine that they could arrange “soon” a triumphant entry into Paris? There is one, and only one, fact in the military situation that they could build upon. At 5 a.m. on September 8, the right wing of Foch’s Army had broken down, and was in full retreat toward Fère Champènoise. If they really accepted this as such a promise of victory as to justify the warning to the Americans of Paris, the German Staff must have been in an infatuated state of mind.
It is possible, however, that the message was only a reckless piece of propaganda on their part, intended, at a critical moment, to awe the neutrals of America, Switzerland, and Italy, and to frighten some good Americans out of Paris. In no case can a warning conveyed on September 8 countenance the idea that the entry into Paris was originally intended to occur before a decisive victory had been won.
[46] In the Gaulois, “Une Cause de la Defaite Allemande sur la Marne.”
[47] M. Reinach states this, adding: “There was, it seems, an exchange of messages between the Staff and Kluck. Finally, theory prevailed” (La Guerre, p. 145; Commentaires de Polybe, vol. iv. p. 198).
According to an article in the Renaissance, September 2, 1916, Kluck had previously favoured the advance on Paris, quoting a reply of Blücher to Schwartzenberg in 1814: “It is better to go to Paris; when one has Paris, one has France.” At a council held at German Headquarters after the battle of Guise and St. Quentin, says the writer, Kluck went over to the advice of Moltke.
[48] M. Hanotaux (Histoire Illustrée, especially ch. xxxvii., and in the Rev. des Deux Mondes, March 1919) has his own picturesque theory of these events, supported by rather frail evidence. It is, briefly, that there was an antagonism between Kluck, who wished to complete his enveloping movement, and Bülow, who after Guise had persuaded the Grand Staff to renounce it in favour of a frontal action against the French centre in which he would be the chief actor. After Charleroi and after Guise, Bülow had had to call Kluck to his aid. They were natural antagonists, the junker and the popular soldier. Moltke and the Staff hesitated between them, and then decided for Bülow. Bülow was to lead the attack; Kluck was ordered to remain between the Oise and the Marne to watch the region of Paris. But he refused to be thus thwarted of his victory, and rode impetuously on toward Provins, overrunning Bülow’s slower approach. Maunoury’s attack caught him in flagrante delicto. All this is plausible enough except the statement that Kluck was ordered to remain north of the Marne. Had he done so, the same result would have been produced two or three days sooner.
M. Hanotaux also states that Marwitz’s three cavalry divisions had been ordered on September 1 to carry out a raid to the gates of Paris, destroying railways as they went, but that “Kluck had other views” (La Manœuvre de la Marne).
[49] The author of Die Schlachten an der Marne says: “Kluck knew there were troops to the left of the British, but did not know their exact strength.”
In his book Comment fut sauvé Paris, M. P. H. Courrière cites the following order issued by General von Schwerin at dawn on September 5, and afterwards found on the battlefield: “The IV Reserve Corps continues to-day the forward march, and charges itself, north of the Marne, with the covering of the north front of Paris; the IV Cavalry Division will be added to it. The II Corps advances by the Grand Morin valley below Coulommiers, and directs itself against the east front of Paris.”