Taken somewhat unawares by the suddenness of the German assault upon
their lines near Soissons, the French were forced to give back. They
braced immediately, however, and the succeeding day regained the ground
lost in the first German assault.
Then the Germans made another show of strength at Verdun, southeast of
Soissons. General Joffre immediately hurled a new force to the support of
the French army at that point.
Meanwhile, as the result of the German assaults upon Soissons and
Verdun, in an effort to lessen the pressure being brought to bear by the
French in Alsace-Lorraine, there had been a lull in the fighting in the
latter regions.
Word from the eastern theater of war brought the news that Russia had a
new big army advancing upon the Germans in Poland from the east,
threatening to outflank the army that had penetrated to within fifty
miles of Warsaw, the capital and chief city of Poland. This, it was
taken, would mean that Germany would either have to retreat within her
own borders into East Prussia, or else that troops would have to be
dispatched from the west to reenforce those in the east.
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