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Updated: June 9, 2025
This was General Joffre's counteroffensive, and it developed in detail almost exactly along the lines that he had laid down. The scene of the fighting across the west bank of the Ourcq was that of a wide-open country, gently undulating, dotted with comfortable farmhouses, and made up of a mosaic of green meadow lands and the stubble of grain fields.
German dead lay upon the field until exposed flesh became the same ghastly hue of their uniforms. No Man's Land around Verdun was a waste and a stench. General Joffre's plan was very simple. It was to hold out.
That desperate attack made during the darkness broke down as others had done, and the Germans those who were left of them fled to the cover of the evergreen pine-trees, leaving the poilus of General Joffre's armies to stagger back to their battered trenches, there to prepare not to rest, not to sleep, for that was out of the question but to resist still further. Falling Back
This complete readiness was beyond his power to effect. But in his province the army he achieved marvels that were almost miracles. Together, these two men, brilliantly supported by some of Joffre's colleagues in the Superior Council notably Pau and Castelnau achieved results that have been pronounced "unparalleled in the history of the Third Republic."
The latter listened gravely to their story, and then said: "I know that I need not caution you to obey General Joffre's injunction concerning the fate of General Tromp. Let the matter be forgotten." The lads saluted and left the tent to hunt up temporary quarters of their own, for the great army had again come to a halt.
"I learned through some of my scouts that a wild engine had dealt a heavy blow to the Germans, but I had never thought that you two were aboard it." Then it was that Hal told his commander of his encounter with young Dersi, and of what the latter had told him concerning General Tromp, of General Joffre's staff. "What!" cried General French, springing to his feet. "Tromp a traitor!
As early as 31 August Von Kluck had turned south-east at a right angle to his south-western march from Brussels to Amiens; but he had not thereby replaced his enveloping design by a stroke at Joffre's centre. For he thought he had disposed of the British at Le Cateau and of Maunoury on the Somme, and that D'Esperey's Fifth had thus become the flank of Joffre's forces.
The next day our post-office opened, and then I got newspapers. I can tell you I devoured them. I read Joffre's order of the day. What puzzled me was that it was dated on the morning of September 6, yet we, with our own eyes, saw the battle begin at noon on the 5th, a battle which only stopped at nine that night, to begin again at four the next morning.
Yet, as after events showed, while these various conditions could not rightly be considered as ruses upon General Joffre's part to lure on the Germans, there is no doubt that he understood and took full advantage of the readiness of the attacking hosts to esteem all these points as prophetic of future victory.
According to Pierre Lasserre's happy expression, 'Our bodies had beaten a retreat, but not our hearts, . . . But when, worn out with fatigue, faces black with powder, blinded by the chalk of Champagne, almost dying, they learned Joffre's order announcing the offensive, then the faces of our troops from Paris to Verdun beamed with joy.
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