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"Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La Ferté-Gaucher, and Dagny.
It was then that the German forces began to retreat, while the British army, pursuing the enemy, took seven cannon and many prisoners and reached the Aisne between Soissons and Longueval. The British army continued till before Coulommiers, and after a brilliant struggle forced the passage of the Little Morin. The Fifth French Army under General Franchet d'Espérey made the same advance.
Three guns were smashed to pieces, and the gun carriages were burned. We halted for a few seconds to take breath. And all the time that whistling and banging of the shells continued. It is a wonder one is not driven mad." Admiration cannot be withheld from General von Kluck for his splendid fight at the battle of Coulommiers.
Yet Coulommiers was Von Kluck's headquarters and actually, when the Germans were driven back and the British troops entered the town, Prince Eitel, the second son of the kaiser; General von Kluck and his staff were compelled to run down to their motor cars and escape at top speed along the road to Rebais, leaving their half-eaten breakfast on the table, and their glasses of wine half emptied.
I stood petrified. "Take him away, I'm closing up! Take him away " screamed the hostess, who had recovered from her swoon. I looked at the old man who had brought the boy. "Where are you going with your cart?" "To Coulommiers to save my sister-in-law and her children." "Good God, man! Can't you see that if this boy was wounded at Amillis your road to Coulommiers is cut off!" "It may not be."
At the town of Coulommiers on September 6 a German soldier came to the door of a small house where a woman and her husband were sitting with two children, trying to hide their fear of this invasion of German troops. It was half-past nine in the evening and almost dark, except for a glow in the sky.
The husband was a coward, it seems. But supposing he had flung himself upon the soldier and strangled him, or cut his throat? We know what would have happened in the Village of Coulommiers. On September 7 ten German horsemen rode into the farm of Lamermont, in the commune of Lisle-en-Barrois. They were in good humour, and having drunk plenty of fresh milk, left the farmhouse in a friendly way.
I rushed back with Grimers on my carrier to fetch another bicycle. On my return my engine suddenly produced an unearthly metallic noise. It was only an aeroplane coming down just over my head. In the late afternoon we marched into Coulommiers. The people crowded into the streets and cheered us. The girls, with tears in their eyes, handed us flowers. Three of us went to the Mairie.
At this point we were hailed by a party of bedraggled refugees who warned us that it would be useless to try to enter Coulommiers. "We're from Neuilly St. Front, on our way home, but there doesn't seem much chance of our getting any further. The place is in the hands of the military authorities with orders to let no one pass."
On the 8th they heard that the Crown Prince of Prussia's army was advancing from Montmirail to Coulommiers whereupon the city became very restless; whilst on the 9th there came word that the black and white pennons of the ubiquitous Uhlans had been seen at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre.
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