This is due, partly, to the large armies handled, partly to the
terrific range of modern artillery, and also to what may be called
the territorial perceptiveness which aeronautical surveys make
possible to a general of to-day. While war has not changed, it is
true that a commander of an army in modern campaign is compelled
to review and to take into account a far larger group of factors. A
modern general must be capable of grasping increased complexities,
and must possess a synthetic mind to be able to reduce all these
complicating factors into a single whole. The first factor of the
battles of the Marne was the topographical factor, the consideration
of the land over which the action was to take place.
Let the River Marne be used as a base from which this topography can
be determined. The Marne rises near Langres, which is the northwest
angle of that pentagon of fortresses (Belfort, Epinal, Langres, Dijon,
and Besancon), which incloses an almost impregnable recuperative
ground for exhausted armies. From Langres the Marne flows almost north
by west for about fifty miles through a hilly and wooded country,
then, taking a more westerly course, it flows for approximately
seventy-five miles almost northwest, across the Plain of Champagne,
past Vitry-le-Francois and Chalons, thence almost due westward
through the Plateau of Sezanne, by Epernay, Chateau Thierry, La
Ferte-sous-Jouarre, and Meaux to join the Seine just south of Paris.
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