4th—Whoever cuts or attempts to cut telegraph or telephone wires, destroys railroad tracks, bridges, roadways, or who plans any action whatsoever to the detriment of the German troops will be shot on the spot.
5th—The inhabitants of the city or of the villages who take part in the battle against our troops, who fire on our baggage trains or on our commissary, or who attempt to hinder any enterprises of the German soldiers, will be shot immediately.
The civil authorities alone are in a position to spare the inhabitants the terrors and scourge of war. They are the ones who will be responsible for the inevitable consequences resulting from this proclamation.
Chief of Staff, Major General of the German Army
VON MOLTKE
White card, 45 x 56, posted on the walls of the city of Reims by German authority during the occupation of September 4th to 12th, 1914.
On September 4th the Germans entered Reims, having met with no resistance. They occupied the city without interruption until after the battle of the Marne, which historic struggle began at sunrise on September 6th and continued along a front of about 140 miles until September 12th.
In this battle, which was lost to the Germans because they had been out-maneuvered and compelled to shorten their front so that they were rolled up on both right and left wings, two million, five hundred thousand men were engaged—the greatest number taking part in one battle in the history of the world. Of these nine hundred thousand were Germans and the remainder Allies, principally French, the English having only a little more than one hundred thousand men in France at that time. On account of their superiority of numbers, the Allies were able to extend their front and thus threaten the Germans with envelopment at both ends of the long battle line, which reached from Meaux, twenty miles east of Paris, to the fortress of Verdun.
The losses in this tremendous battle are said to have been exceeded only by those of the battle of Flanders, which began October 13, and in which more than three hundred thousand men were slain. The losses at the Marne have never been officially stated.