The plans
of General Joffre were complete, but the actual point at which
the furious contest should begin was not yet determined. In the
northern Ourcq section, however, the realization by the French
that they were actually on the offensive at last, that the long
period of retreat was over, could not be restrained. The troops
were eager to get to work with the bayonet, and greatly aided by
their field artillery, in which mobility had been sacrificed to
power, they quickly cleared the hills to the westward of the Ourcq.
By nightfall of September 5, 1914, the country west of the Ourcq
was in French hands. But to cross that river seemed impossible.
General von Kluck's heavy artillery had been left behind to hold
that position, and every possible crossing was covered with its
own blast of death.
Here General von Kluck's generalship was successful. It might have
been regarded as risky to leave 100,000 men to guard a river confronted
by 250,000 picked and reenforced French troops. But General von Kluck's
faith in German guns and German gunnery was not ill-founded. This
was the first of the open-air siege conflicts, and the French army
had no guns which could be used against the German heavy artillery.
Hence it followed that the brilliant work of the Sixth French Army
on this first day of the battles of the Marne achieved no important
result, for the long-range hidden howitzers, manned by expert German
gunners and well supplied with ammunition, defied all attempts at
crossing the little stream of the Ourcq.
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