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Updated: June 9, 2025
Facing the German extreme right, was the Sixth French Army, one of the great reserves of General Joffre, which had been steadily building up since August 29, 1914, with its right on the Marne and its left at Betz, in the Ourcq Valley, encamped on the western side of that stream, facing the Second and Fourth Corps of the Germans.
Then, after luncheon, we sallied out into the darkening afternoon, through the Forest of Ermenonville, and up to the great plateau, stretching north towards Soissons, southwards towards Meaux, and eastwards towards the Ourcq, where Maunoury's Sixth Army, striking from Paris and the west, and the English Army, striking from the south aided by all the gallant French line from Château Thierry to the Grand Couronné dealt that staggering blow against the German right which flung back the German host, and, weary as the way has been since, weary as it may still be, in truth, decided the war.
As General von Kluck had divided his forces, in order to carry out the attempt to pierce the left of General d'Espérey's army, the German forces in the battle of the Ourcq were outnumbered almost three to one. In spite of these odds against them, the extreme German right held for four days the position it had been given to hold.
The least fissure in the latter would have inundated the channel. As the Ourcq Canal had no regular period of closing, it was necessary to construct the bridge without hinderance to navigation. The idea of altering the canal's course could not be thought of, for the proximity of the fortifications and of the bridge over the military road was opposed to it.
Every attempt to break through the French lines on the Ourcq has failed. No change noted on the center and on the allied right. At two this afternoon I saw a small, low, dusty motor-car come spinning along the Boulevard des Invalides, containing four soldiers, who had with them two German flags, captured this morning during the fighting near the Ourcq.
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.
But twenty miles away to the southeast, great things were preparing. The German occupation of Senlis began, as we have seen, on a Wednesday, September 2nd. On Saturday the 5th, as we all know, the first shots were fired in that Battle of the Ourcq which was the western section of the Battle of the Marne.
"Possibly weakened by the detachment of troops to the eastern theater of operations and realizing that the action of the French Sixth Army against the line of Ourcq and the advance of the British placed their own flanking movement in considerable danger of being taken in the rear and on its flank, the Germans on this day commenced to retire toward the northeast.
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.
The afternoon of that day, when the Zouaves were driving the Germans across the Ourcq with the bayonet and were themselves effectually stopped by the German wall of artillery fire, General Joffre and Sir John French met. At last the British commander received the welcome news from the generalissimo that retreat was over and advance was about to be begun.
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