Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
This involved more than the average difficulties, for as the battle swayed back towards Paris new landing-grounds had to be sought, and temporary aerodromes improvised every few days. The small collection of serviceable aeroplanes again justified themselves at the decisive stand in the Marne and Ourcq basin, where immediate reports of enemy concentrations were essential to victory.
The pressure of French regiments marching steadily and swiftly from the south-east and south-west after weeks of retirement, was forcing in his outposts, chasing back his cavalry and revealing a strong and resolute offensive. On September 4 and 5 there was heavy fighting on the German left and centre, to the south of the Marne and the west of the Ourcq.
In our own day, after having excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the principal water-conduit of Ourcq, a piece of work which was executed in a trench ten metres deep; after having, in the midst of land-slides, and with the aid of excavations often putrid, and of shoring up, vaulted the Bievre from the Boulevard de l'Hopital, as far as the Seine; after having, in order to deliver Paris from the floods of Montmartre and in order to provide an outlet for that river-like pool nine hectares in extent, which crouched near the Barriere des Martyrs, after having, let us state, constructed the line of sewers from the Barriere Blanche to the road of Aubervilliers, in four months, working day and night, at a depth of eleven metres; after having a thing heretofore unseen made a subterranean sewer in the Rue Barre-du-Bec, without a trench, six metres below the surface, the superintendent, Monnot, died.
Immediate steps were necessary to save his line of communications and retreat. To this end reinforcements were hurried north to the Meaux district and the Ourcq and tremendous efforts were made to break up the French resistance in this section. "The second attempt on the Oureq shared the fate of the first.
"The Germans held the line of the Marne, which was crossed by our forces on September 9, as a purely rearguard operation. Our passage of the Ourcq was not contested. The Vesle was only lightly held, while resistance along the Aisne, both against the French and the British, has been and still is of a determined character.
All this was very well, and the day began for M. Colas under most favorable auspices; but in the evening the medal of the morning was obliged to show the opposite side. The Emperor went that morning to visit the works on the canal of the Ourcq.
I know that two German detachments of 1,000 men each, which were surrounded and cornered but which refused to surrender, were wiped out almost to the last man. The keynote of these operations was the tremendous attack of the Allies along the Ourcq Tuesday, which showed the German commander that his lines were threatened. Then came the crowning stroke.
Maunoury's army debouched from Meaux and began fighting its way to the Ourcq, a little river which runs southwards into the Marne at Lizy, while the British emerged from the Crecy forest and drove the Germans back to the Grand Morin.
Von Kluck now received considerable reinforcements which Von Buelow needed more, and the latter's rapid retreat made even reinforcements useless for holding the Ourcq. It was equally fatal to success against Langle and Sarrail, and on the 10th the German retreat became general.
Through the courtesy of a friend who was going to Meaux in charge of a Red Cross automobile to distribute hospital stores to a field hospital near Plessis-Pacy, I had an opportunity to visit the scene of the recent battles along the Ourcq Canal, where General von Kluck's army met its first signal defeat.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking