Lest We Forget: World War Stories

by John G. Thompson; Inez Bigwood

Some one has well said:

"It is the law of good to protect and to build up. It is the law of evil to destroy. It is in the very nature of good to lead men aright. It is in the very nature of evil to lead men astray. Goodness makes for wisdom. Badness is continually exercising poor judgment.

"Germany and Austria have made colossal mistakes in this war because of their colossal violation of truth and justice. In brutally wronging Serbia, they lost the friendship and support of Italy. In perpetrating the monstrous crime against Belgium, they brought against them the whole might of the British Empire. In breaking international law with their reckless submarine warfare, they caused the United States to enter the war on the side of the Allies."

It is said that the army of the German Crown Prince retreated before the impetuous attack of the French and, because of this retreat, all the other German armies were obliged to do likewise. It is more probable, however, that the general retreat was due to General Joffre's strategy. The Germans under General von Kluck were within about twenty miles of Paris, near Meaux on the Marne, when suddenly they were struck in the flank and rear by about twenty thousand fresh troops brought out unexpectedly from Paris in motor trucks, taxis, limousines, and all kinds of pleasure cars. Now the Germans, who had caused the retreat of the French and British armies upon Paris by continually outflanking the British, were in their turn outflanked and compelled to retreat, and Paris was saved.

An English writer has said that although the Germans were outflanked only in the west, yet the blow passed from one end of the German line to the other, from Meaux to Verdun, just as the blow from the buffer of the engine, when it is coupled to the train, passes from one truck to another to the very end of the train.

The Germans in the next few days retreated from the Marne to the Aisne, where they entrenched. Paris and France and Europe and the only world worth living in were saved. The French government moved back to Paris.

Hall Caine in "Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days" says: "The soul of France did not fail her. It heard the second approach of that monstrous Prussian horde, which, like a broad, irresistible tide, sweeping across one half of Europe, came down, down, down from Mons until the thunder of its guns could again be heard on the boulevards. And then came the great miracle! Just as the sea itself can rise no higher when it has reached the top of the flood, so the mighty army of Germany had to stop its advance thirty kilometres north of Paris; and when it stirred again, it had to go back. And back and back it went before the armies of France, Britain, and Belgium, until it reached a point at which it could dig itself into the earth and hide in a long, serpentine trench stretching from the Alps to the sea.

"Only then did the spirit of France draw breath for a moment, and the next flash as of lightning showed her offering thanks and making supplications before the white statue of Jeanne d'Arc in the apse of the great cathedral of Notre Dame, sacred to innumerable memories. On the Feast of St. Michael, ten thousand of the women of Paris were kneeling under the dark vault, and on the broad space in the front of the majestic façade, praying for victory. It was a great and grandiose scene, recalling the days when faith was strong and purer. Old and young, rich and poor, every woman with some soul that was dear to her in that inferno at the front—the Motherhood of France was there to ask God for the triumph of the right.

"And in the spirit of that prayer the soul of France still lives."

Nearly four years later the Germans, with greatly increased forces in France, due to the collapse of Russia, were again upon the Marne and only about forty miles from Paris. French and English and Americans were opposing them upon a line shaped like a great letter U, extending south with Rheims at the top on the east, and Soissons at the top on the west. The Marne River was at the curve at the bottom, and there most of the Americans were stationed.