This retirement imposes a regrettably necessary decision on the President of the Republic and the Government. To protect national safety the government officials have to leave Paris at once.
Under the command of an eminent leader, a French army, full of bravery and resource, will defend the capital and its people against the invader. But at the same time war will be carried on over the rest of the territory.
The small notice was from General Gallieni, the new Governor of Paris. It had, in its brevity, the beauty of an ancient inscription:
"I have been ordered to defend Paris. I shall obey this command until the end."
That same Sunday, the thirtieth of August, was the first day the Taubes came over Paris. By chance I was guarding one of the city's gates. I saw the airplane coming from a distance. I had not the least doubt about it for it had the silhouette of a bird of prey that rendered the German planes so easily recognizable at that time. For that matter, no one was deceived by it, and from all the batteries, forts and other positions a violent fusillade greeted it. There was firing from the streets, windows, courts and roofs. I followed it through my field glass, and for a moment I thought it had been hit, for it paused in its flight. But this was an optical illusion. … The plane simply flew higher, having without doubt heard the sound of the fusillade and the bullets having perhaps whistled too close to the pilot's ears. When he was almost over my post, a light white cloud appeared under its wings and, in the ten ensuing seconds, there followed a terrible series of sounds, for a bomb had just fallen and exploded very near at hand. But so entrancing was it to observe the flight of this pirate who, in spite of everything, continued in his audacious course, that I gazed at the heavens, trying to determine whether or not I saw once more the little white cloud, the precursor of the machine of death.
And everyone who was near me—workmen, passers-by, women, children—stayed there too, their feet firmly on the ground, their glances lost in the limitless sky. No one ran away; no one hid; no one sought refuge behind a door or in a cellar. It's a characteristic of airplane bombs that they frighten no one, even when they kill. The machine you see does not frighten you; only the machine you can't see upsets your nerves.
However that may be, the curiosity of Paris was insatiable. Even in the tragic hours we were living through at that time, this curiosity remained as eager, ardent and amused as ever. Every afternoon, at the stroke of four, crowds collected in the squares and avenues. The motive was to see the Taubes! Since one Taube had flown over the city, no one doubted that a second one would come the next day. A girl's boarding school obtained a free afternoon to enjoy the spectacle. The midinettes were allowed to leave their work. At Montmartre, where the steps of the Butte gave a better chance of scanning the horizon, places were in great demand.
There was a crowd along the fortifications to see the works for the defense on which, by General Gallieni's order, men were working. Thousands of spectators of both sexes, but especially of women, were examining the bases that were being put in for the guns, the openings they were making to serve as loopholes, the joists they were putting across the gates, and the paving stones with which the entrances were being barricaded. This crowd did not want to believe in the proximity of the enemy. Or, if it believed it, it didn't want to admit that there was danger. Or, if it admitted that there was danger, it wanted to share in it. Above everything it wanted to see; it wanted to see!
The last night in August I had a hard time freeing the approaches of the gate I was guarding. There were only women, but there were thousands of them and neither prayer nor argument could persuade them to make up their minds to go home.
"Nothing will happen," I told them. "Look here now, be reasonable and go home to bed."
"But we want to see. … "
"What do you want to see?"
"Want to see what kind of a reception the Prussians will get if they come."
Aside from this the mob was remarkably easy to get on with. A strict order had forbidden that anyone be permitted to enter or leave Paris until sunrise. As a result the capital found itself cut off from the suburbs, and lots of little working girls, who came in for the day from Clichy or Levallois-Perret, couldn't get back to their homes in the evening. They had to camp out under the stars.
"It's very amusing," they said, "here we are just like soldiers."
I even heard one of them say:
"What a pity there isn't always war."
That same night, about eleven o'clock, a heavy sound was heard coming from the direction of the city. Some urchins shouted:
"It's the soldiers. It's the soldiers."
An entire Algerian division was, as a matter of fact, detraining and hurrying to fight before Paris. Behind it followed a long line of taxi-cabs, the famous line of taxi-cabs requisitioned by General Gallieni to carry munitions to the battle field of the Ourcq. They made an incomparable spectacle, that magnificent summer night, in the bright moonlight, the long column of Algerian cavalry, with their shining burnouses, on fiery little horses. Applause burst forth from the mob and reached the soldiers. The women threw kisses at them, but they overwhelmed my men and me with reproaches:
"See," they shrieked at us, "if we had minded you and gone home, we wouldn't have seen them."
Paris, which didn't know about the Battle of Charleroi, knew about the Battle of the Marne. Paris knew about the Battle of the Marne not only on account of the troops who marched through its streets, but because it heard the big guns roar for three days, without stopping, towards the north.
What has not already been written and said about the Battle of the Marne, a conflict which will remain legendary in history? What will not be said and written on that subject in the future? … Some writers will see in it a miracle, others a strategic action engineered by a genius, others a chance stroke of destiny. The truth of the matter is more simple and appealing than any of these explanations and, although the whole truth is not yet known about the fight at the Marne, enough is known to make clear the two or three chief reasons why victory came to France and defeat to Germany, safety to civilization and a repulse to barbarism.
To be sure there was a great deal of strategy in it; and the stroke that was conceived in the master brain of Joffre and carried out by Generals Gallieni and Maunoury—a stroke which consisted in forming a new army on the extreme right of the German hordes to come and hurl itself sharply against these hordes—was a brave and bold maneuver which prepared the way for victory.
But this maneuver would not in itself have sufficed to win the victory if Maunoury had not attacked with an irresistible élan on the extreme left, upsetting the German plan of battle; if Franchet d'Esperey had not supported Maunoury's attack vigorously and succeeded in breaking the German left; if, especially, Foch, at the center, had not performed unheard of miracles in breaking down the enemy's resistance and not allowing his own lines to be broken; if, farther on, de Langle de Cary and Sarrail had not held off the Princes of Bavaria and Prussia before Vitry; if, on the right, de Castelnau had not held until the end the Grand Couronné at Nancy. The first truth is that they were all—Joffre, Gallieni, Maunoury, Franchet d'Esperey, Foch, de Langle de Cary, Sarrail, Castelnau, Dubail, to mention them in the order of the battle line from left to right—absolutely incomparable. As an eye-witness said, "each man was on his own," each man gave the very best there was in his brain, his skill, his mind, his soul, his heart. The battle would have been lost if a single one of them had failed once during the entire seven days it raged. Opposed to the Huns was a chain forged of the finest steel, every link in which met the test for equal and unparalleled resistance. Therein lay the miracle of the Marne!
And the second great truth is that behind these generals, who all showed themselves without equal, were armies which, without exception, had kept intact their fighting spirit, that is, their faith in themselves, in their leaders, in the destiny of their country, in the beauty of the cause for which they fought. … Enough can never be said of the elemental importance that lies in the morale of the fighting men on the battle field. It is lamentable to hear far distant