The great smash on the German right at the Marne, which gave the first check to the German advance, was only possible because the French General, Gallieni, moved 70,000 soldiers out of Paris in taxicabs and other motor vehicles, and in six hours had them in action before even the German aerial reconnaissance knew about it.
The motor brought speed into the fighting in running the cheering soldiers to the front, and with auto hospitals brought the sorry wounded as speedily back again.
It was a triumph for the machine, and yet the machine, in the end, gave place to the hand to hand death grip of primitive man.
As Kipling wrote:—
"What I ha' seen since ocean steam began
Leaves me no doot for the machine; what, what about the man?"
The Great War answered that question.
There was a doubt about the man—he dropped off the veneer of the human and became the animal once again.
When foe came face to face with foe the world dropped back ten thousand years.
