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"But," replied his Minister of the Interior, "one cannot improvise population; ... as it is, Paris would scarcely support one million"; and he instanced the want of good drinking water. "What are your plans for giving water to Paris?" Chaptal gave two alternatives artesian wells or the bringing of water from the River Ourcq to Paris.
From this review of the forced retirement of General von Kluck, it will be seen that the German right was compelled to sustain an attack at three points, from the Sixth French Army on the banks of the Ourcq, from the British army in the region of Coulommiers and from the Fifth French Army near Courtaçon. Each of these attacks was of a widely different character.
"For some days this rat-hunting among the villages on the left bank of the Ourcq went on all the time, and we were not very happy. The truth was that we had no water for ourselves, and were four days thirsty. It was really terrible, for the heat was terrific during the day, and some of us were almost mad with thirst.
Perhaps the tragedy of what is to be seen and heard at Senlis, on the battle-grounds of the Ourcq, and in the villages of Lorraine, was heightened for me by the beauty of the long drive south from the neighbourhood of G.H.Q. some hundred and forty miles. It was a cold but clear March day. We had but parted from snow a little while, and we were soon to find it again.
"Within the area which faced the British before the advance commenced, right up to Laon, the chief feature of tactical importance is the fact that there are six rivers running across the direction of the advance, at all of which it was possible that the Germans might make resistance. These rivers are, in order from the south, the Marne, Ourcq, Vesle, Aisne, Ailette and Oise.
The German right, on September 3, 1914, and September 4, 1914, at which time it was nearest to its desired goal of Paris, held the banks of the Marne from Epernay to the banks of the little tributary the Ourcq, which runs into the Marne from the north.
When the night of that Sunday fell, however, on the line of the Ourcq, the balm of darkness seemed to be almost as much a forgotten thing as the blessedness of silence. There was no darkness that night. As the Germans evacuated each village they set fire to it. The invaders actually held their machine guns at work in the burning village until the position was no longer tenable.
In this quarter of the field our forces, which had now been reinforced, pushed on in a northeasterly direction in co-operation with the advance of the French Fifth Army to the north and of the French Sixth Army to the eastward against the German rearguard along the River Ourcq.
Then after failing to drive Marmont and Mortier from Meaux and the line of the Ourcq, the Prussian leader marched towards Soissons, near which town he expected to meet the northern army of the allies. For some hours he was in grave danger: Marmont hung on his rear, and Napoleon with 35,000 hardy troops was preparing to turn his right flank.
To General Joffre the glory of the main strategic conception of the great retreat; to General Gallieni the undying honour of the rapid perception, the quick decision, which flung General Maunoury, with the 6th Army, on Von Kluck's flank and rear, at the first hint of the German general's swerve to the southeast; to General Maunoury himself, and his splendid troops, the credit of the battle proper, across the broad harvest fields of the Ourcq plateau.
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