This notice on a white card, 45 by 56 centimeters, was posted on the walls of the City of Reims by German authority during the occupation of September 4th to 12th, 1914.
As they were forced back toward Paris, not so much by actual fighting as by the necessity to keep their lines clear and avoid the turning movement of the swift German division under Von Kluck, the Allied armies swung, like a gate with its hinges at Verdun and the outer edge at Mons, back until they stretched between Verdun and Paris. This movement uncovered the beautiful city of Reims, with its countless art treasures, its magnificent cathedral and its thriving population of more than a hundred thousand people, all of which, as the swinging movement continued, were left to the mercy of the German army. The French evacuated Reims with nothing more than some rear-guard fighting and fell back southward to take their places in the great battle line which Joffre had planned somewhere north of Paris—on the Marne, as it was later evident.
As the Allied forces swung backward to this then unknown position, they were hard pressed by the advancing German hosts. Their retreat will stand as one of the most masterly in history, for during ten days these vast armies retired more than two hundred miles on their left flank without disorder and without excessive loss of men or material.
The English army occupied the side toward the sea in these grand maneuvers for position. Sir John French moved swiftly backward, fighting as he went and constantly swinging outward to prevent Von Kluck from encircling his flank. On the morning of September 3rd, he reached a point between Paris and the sea, actually a little north of that city. Suddenly in response to orders from Joffre, he marched his tired troops through Paris to Lagny, twenty miles east of the capital, where he took up a position on the Marne front.
Von Kluck was almost in sight of Paris in hot pursuit of the English when he found how he had been tricked. He could not attack the defenses, and it was urgently necessary for him to join the main army on the Marne front. To do this he had to circle to the north, around the outer fortifications of Paris a much longer march than that of the English.
The French government had packed its belongings and left for Bordeaux on the morning of the day the English passed through Paris, and the people thought the Germans were about to besiege the city. All buildings in the line of fire had been destroyed, the civilian population sent south, and every preparation made for defense. Joffre only knew the real plan.
The Parisians were amazed when the Germans scarcely stopped in front of their city. They could not understand why Von Kluck should suddenly withdraw to the east, because they did not know how badly he was needed on the Marne front. But Von Kluck must have suspected, for it is said that he told an aide that, "We have met with a great misfortune."
Von Kluck was right, for the masterly strategy of Joffre had won the battle of the Marne before a shot had been fired in that historic struggle.
These facts were gleaned from military men whom we met in France. They show how little the civilian population of a military zone, or even the soldiers themselves, know of the movements in which they are engaged. Evidently Joffre had not confided his plans even to the government authorities at Paris, preferring to have the seat of government move and the population flee rather than take chances of these plans being learned by the enemy. So also at Reims.