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Updated: June 5, 2025
We attack the defiles of the Argonne to-morrow." He entered the tent, wrote a few lines, and returned to me. "M. Lafayette must consider himself as a prisoner; but as my wish is to treat him with honour, I must beg of you, M. Marston, to take charge of him for the time.
At the very same moment Sir Douglas Haig was driving through the Hindenburg line, and up to the west bank of the Selle, taking 48,000 prisoners and 600 guns; while the Americans were pushing through the difficult forest country of the Argonne, and along both sides of the Meuse. The German strength was indeed weakening fast.
His ability to think clearly and quickly, under conditions that tried both heart and brain, was shown in the fight in the Argonne.
After a deadly bombardment that literally flattened the countryside, and in which shells of all calibers as well as asphyxiating gas bombs were hurled against the French positions between the Binarville-Vienne-le-Chateau road and the Houyette ravine in the Argonne, the German infantry dashed from their trenches in great numbers and close formation and charged across the intervening ground.
On the 14th Clerfayt, with the Austrians, forced one of the passes, and turned the French left. At nightfall, Dumouriez evacuated his Thermopylæ more expeditiously than became a rival Leonidas, and established himself across the great road to Châlons, opposite the southern defile of the Argonne, which extends between Clermont and St. Ménehould, where Drouet rode in pursuit of the king.
At Nancy on August 25, 1914, there was another engagement between the garrison of Toul and the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria; after fierce onslaughts the garrison was compelled to yield and retire. Finally, on August 27, 1914, at Longwy, a fortified town near Verdun, the army of the German crown prince succeeded in bursting into France after a long siege, and marched toward the Argonne.
He then placed his armies in the field in the relation in which he deemed they would be most effective: the First army, under General Dubail, was in the Vosges, and the Second army, under General Castelnau, was round about Nancy; the Third army, under General Sarrail, east and south of the Argonne in a kind of "elbow," joining the Fourth army, under General de Langle de Cary; then the Ninth army, under General Foch; then the Fifth army, under General Franchet d'Espérey; then the little British army of three corps, under General Sir John French; and then the new Sixth army, under General Manoury.
Just as the River Marne was taken as a basis for the consideration of the topography of the battles that centered round the crossing of the Ourcq, Grand Morin, Petit Morin, and the Marne, so the Aisne is naturally the most important determinant in the problems of its crossing. The River Aisne rises in the Argonne, southwest of Verdun.
Nevertheless, one begins to perceive, by certain negative signs, that one is already in another world. On the cold February day when we turned out of Meaux and took the road to the Argonne, the change was chiefly shown by the curious absence of life in the villages through which we passed.
Yet France is not beaten. In fact, you have not met the French up to this hour." "What!" I exclaimed in surprise; "of what nation are the troops which we have fought in the Argonne, and are now following through the high-road to Paris? The Duke of Brunswick will be amused by hearing that he has been wasting his cannon-shot on spectres."
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