It was obvious
that the task was one of great peril and one necessarily likely
to be attended with heavy loss of life. Sir John French, knowing
the tactical value of driving a fleeing army hard, determined on
forcing the issue without delay.
Before proceeding to recount in detail the events of that six days'
battle of the Aisne, which little by little solidified into an
impasse, it might be well to trace the new positions that had been
taken by the respective armies engaged in the struggle for the
supremacy of western Europe. General von Kluck, still in charge
of the First German Army, was in control of the western section
from the Forest of the Eagle to the plateau of Craonne. He had
forced his men to almost superhuman efforts, and by midnight of
September 11 he had succeeded in getting most of his artillery
across the Aisne, at Soissons, and had whipped his infantry into
place on the heights north of the stream. That, with his exhausted
troops, he succeeded remains still a tribute to his power as a
commander. But the men were done. Further attack meant rout. His
salvation lay in his heavy field guns and howitzers, an arm of
the service in which the French army, under General Maunoury (and
General Pau, who had taken a superior command during the turning of
the German drive at the Marne), was notoriously weak. Still there
was little comfort there, for the British army was well supplied
with heavy artillery, and the Fifth French Army of General d'Esperey,
also coming up to confront him, was not entirely lacking in this
branch of the service.
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