Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sitting at his window the eyes of the late hosier could take in the whole of the Place de l'Eglise, the two squares of the bridge, and the road to Sezanne. He could see the coaches arriving and the travellers descending at the post-inn; and on court days he could watch the proceedings around the offices of the mayor and the justice of peace.
And the front assigned to Foch ran from Sézanne to the Camp de Mailly, twenty-five miles east by a little south. The Marne was twenty-five miles to north of him. Gond, but far from marshy in that parching heat; and north of that the forest of Epernay. His vanguards were north of the marshes.
Joffre, accordingly, decided to continue the retreat and brought all his forces that were west of the Meuse, in good order and no longer heavily pressed back behind the Marne and on a line from Paris, through Meaux, Sézanne, La Fère Champenoise, Vitry-le-François, Bar-le-Duc, and thence north to Verdun.
The front door opens on the Place; the windows of the ground-floor look out on the street-side towards the post-house and inn, and command beyond the Place a rather picturesque view of the Aube, the navigation of which begins at the bridge. Beyond the bridge is another little Place or square, on which lives Monsieur Grevin, and from which the high-road to Sezanne starts.
Writing from Sezanne a few days after the battle of the Marne a visitor to the battlefield described the conditions at that time as follows: "The territory over which the battle of the Marne was fought is now a picture of devastation, abomination and death almost too awful to describe.
The Emperor, who could pursue them no farther without exposing his army to the danger of being swallowed up in the marshes, arrested the impetuosity of his soldiers, believing that the heights of Baudemont were covered with artillery ready to overwhelm the enemy; but hearing not a single shot in this direction, he hurried to Sezanne to hasten the advance of the troops, only to learn that those he expected to find there had been sent toward Fere Champenoise.
At the rate the column moved it would have covered thirty miles each day. It was these forced marches that later brought Von Kluck's army to the right wing of the Allies before the army of the crown prince was prepared to attack, and which at Sezanne led to his repulse and to the failure of his advance upon Paris.
Gond, ten miles long from east to west and a couple of miles across, lie toward the eastern borders of the Plateau of Sézanne, and form the source of the Petit Morin, which has been deepened in the reclamation of the marsh country.
The idea was this young matrons convened in the afternoon at one of their homes for cocktails and confidences; very likely Sezanne del Monte would drop in to read her last chapter or Gay Vondeplosshe would arrive brandishing his cane and telling everyone how beautiful the Italian villa was to be; and by and by they would gather round the piano to sing the latest songs; then when the clock struck six there would be a wild flutter and a suggestion: "Let's phone cook to bring over our dinner.
I saw that he was growing sad, so I filled his glass and we drank, and his melancholy vanished. Catherine came back and said, "the grandmother was very happy, and that she thanked Mr. Goulden, and said it had been a beautiful day for her." And this roused everybody. As the dinner continued, Aunt Grédel heard the bells for vespers, and she went out to church, but Catherine remained, and the animation which good wine inspires had come, and we began to speak of the last campaign; of the retreat from the Rhine to Paris, of the fighting of the battalion at Bibelskirchen and at Saarbruck, where Lieutenant Baubin swam the Saar when it was freezing as hard as stone, to destroy some boats which were still in the hands of the enemy; of the passage at Narbefontaine, at Courcelles, at Metz, at Enzelvin, and at Champion and Verdun, and, still retreating, the battle of Brienne. The men were nearly all destroyed, but on the 4th of February the battalion was re-formed from the remnant of the 5th light infantry, and from that moment they were every day under fire; on the 5th, 6th, and 7th at Méry-sur-Seine; on the 8th at Sézanne, where the soldiers died in the mud, not having strength enough to get out; the 9th and 10th at Mürs, where Zébédé was buried at night in the dung-heap of a farmhouse in order to get warm, and the terrible battle of Marché on the 11th, in which the Commandant Philippe was wounded by a bayonet-thrust; the encounter on the 12th and 13th at Montmirail, the battle of Beauchamp on the 14th, the retreat on Montmirail on the 15th and 16th, when the Prussians returned: the combats at the Ferté-Gauché, at Jouarre, at Gué-
Word Of The Day