It was a hazardous move, for it required
General von Kluck to execute a flank march diagonally across the
front of the Sixth French Army and the British Expeditionary Force.
At this time, according to the dispatches from Sir John French, the
British army lay south of the Marne between Lagny and Signy-Signets,
defending the passage of the river and blowing up the bridges before
General von Kluck.
On September 4, 1914, air reconnaissances showed that General von
Kluck had stopped his southward advance upon Paris, and that his
columns were moving in a southeasterly direction east of a line
drawn through Nanteuil and Lizy on the Ourcq. Meanwhile the French
and British generals more effectually concealed their armies in
the forests, doing so with such skill that their movements were
unmarked by the German air scouts. All that day General von Kluck
moved his forces, leaving his heavy artillery with about 100,000
men on the steep eastern bank of the Ourcq and taking 150,000 troops
south across the Marne toward La Ferte Gaucher. He crossed the
Petit Morin and the Grand Morin, all unconscious that scores of
field glasses were trained upon his troops.
Probably believing that the British army had been hurried to the
aid of General Sarrail, General von Kluck advanced confidently.
Having concealment in view, the commanders of the French army and
the British army between them had left a wide gap between the two
armies.
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