line taken by the German armies for their stand was not the river itself, but the northern ridge. At no place more than a mile and a half from the river, it was always within gunfire of any crossing. Every place of crossing was commanded by a spur. Every road on the north bank was in their hands, every road on the south bank curved upward so as to be a fair mark for their artillery. As the German drive advanced, a huge body of sappers and miners had been left behind to fortify this Aisne line, and the system developed was much the same along its entire distance.
There were two lines of barbed-wire entanglements, one in the bed of the stream which would prevent fording or swimming, and which, being under water, could not easily be destroyed by gunfire from the southern bank. Above this was a heavy chevaux-de-frise and barbed-wire entanglement, partly sunk and concealed from view; in many places pitted and covered with brushwood. Above this, following approximately a thirty-foot contour, came a line of trenches for infantry, and fifty yards behind a second line of trenches, commanding a further elevation of fifty feet. Two-thirds of the way up the hill came the trench-living quarters, the kitchens, the bakeries, the dormitories, and so forth, and the crest of the hill bristled along its entire length with field guns, effectually screened by trees. On the further side of the ridge, in chalk pits, were the great howitzers, tossing their huge shells over the ridge and its defenses into the river itself, and even on the south bank beyond. Truly, a position of power, and one that the boldest of troops might hesitate to attack.
It is quite possible that had the entire strength of the German position been known, no attempt to cross would have been made, but there was always a possibility that the counterchecks of the German army were no more than the rear-guard actions of the three or four days immediately preceding. Yet Sir John French seems to have expected the true state of affairs, for he remarks in his dispatches:
"The battles of the Marne, which lasted from the morning of the 6th to the evening of the 10th, had hardly ended in the precipitate flight of the enemy when we were brought face to face with a position of extraordinary strength, carefully intrenched and prepared for defense by an army and staff which are thorough adepts in such work."
Yet it was evident that if the armies of the Allies were to secure any lasting benefit from the battles of the Marne, they must dislodge the invading hosts from their new vantage ground. It was obvious that the task was one of great peril and one necessarily likely to be attended with heavy loss of life. Sir John French, knowing the tactical value of driving a fleeing army hard, determined on forcing the issue without delay.
Before proceeding to recount in detail the events of that six days' battle of the Aisne, which little by little solidified into an impasse, it might be well to trace the new positions that had been taken by the respective armies engaged in the struggle for the supremacy of western Europe. General von Kluck, still in charge of the First German Army, was in control of the western section from the Forest of the Eagle to the plateau of Craonne. He had forced his men to almost superhuman efforts, and by midnight of September 11 he had succeeded in getting most of his artillery across the Aisne, at Soissons, and had whipped his infantry into place on the heights north of the stream. That, with his exhausted troops, he succeeded remains still a tribute to his power as a commander. But the men were done. Further attack meant rout. His salvation lay in his heavy field guns and howitzers, an arm of the service in which the French army, under General Maunoury (and General Pau, who had taken a superior command during the turning of the German drive at the Marne), was notoriously weak. Still there was little comfort there, for the British army was well supplied with heavy artillery, and the Fifth French Army of General d'Espérey, also coming up to confront him, was not entirely lacking in this branch of the service.
General von Bülow's army was combined with that of General von Hausen, who fell ill and was retired from his command. Against this combined army was ranged the victorious and still fresh army of General Foch, lacking two corps, which had been detached for reserves elsewhere. One of these corps apparently went to the aid of General Sarrail, whose stand was still a weak point in the Allies' line. General Sarrail, however, was now better supported by the movement of General Langle with the Fourth French Army, who advanced toward Troyon and confronted the combined armies of the Imperial Crown Prince and the Duke of Württemberg. This released General Sarrail to his task of intrenching and enlarging the defenses about Verdun, the importance of which had become more poignant than ever before in the events of the past week. The far eastern end of the line remained unchanged.
The credit for the crossing of the Aisne lies with the British troops. The battles of the Marne had thrust Sir John French into a prominent position, wherein he was able to achieve a much-desired result without any great loss of life. But the battle of the Aisne was different. It was a magnificent effort boldly carried out, and, as was afterward learned, it could not have been successful had the onset been delayed even one day.
General Maunoury's army, encamped in the forest of the Compiègne, was again the first to give battle, as it had been in the battles of the Marne. Using some heavy guns that had been sent on from Paris, in addition to the batteries that had been lent him by the British, he secured some well-planned artillery positions on the south bank, and spent the morning in a long-range duel with the German gunners near Soissons. The Germans had not all taken up their positions on the north side of the Aisne on the morning of September 12, 1914, and the heavy battery of the Fourth British Division did good service early in the morning, dislodging some of these before it wheeled in line beside the big French guns, in an endeavor to shell the trenches and level the barbed-wire entanglements, that an opportunity might be made to cross. But the results were not encouraging of success, for the reply from the further shore was terrific. General von Kluck's army might be worn out, but the iron throats of his guns were untiring, and he knew that huge reenforcements were on the way.
CHAPTER XX
FIRST DAY'S BATTLES
That first day of the battle of the Aisne, September 12, 1914, which was indeed rather preparatory than actual, was also marked by some unusually brilliant cavalry work in General Allenby's division. The German line was on the farther side of the Aisne, but all the hill country between the Marne and the Aisne had to be cleared of the powerful rear guards of the retreating German army, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the advance guards of the new German line. Early in the morning the cavalry under General Allenby swept out from the town of Braisne on the Vesle and harried in every direction the strong detachments that had been sent forward, driving them back to the Aisne. Over the high wooded ridge between the Vesle and the Aisne the Germans were driven back, and the Third Division, under General Hamilton, supported the cavalry in force, so that, by the evening, General Hamilton's division was able to camp below the hill of Brenelle, and even, before night fell, to get their guns upon that height, from which they could reply to the German batteries snugly ensconced upon the frowning ridge on the northern bank of the Aisne.
The Fifth British Division, under Sir Charles Fergusson, found itself in a tight place at the confluence of the Vesle and Aisne Rivers, for at that point lay a stretch of flat bottomland exposed to the German fire. By a ruse, which returned upon their own heads, the Germans had preserved one bridge across the Aisne, the bridge at Condé. This was done as a lure to Sir Charles Fergusson's forces, but even more so it was intended as a sallying point as soon as the German army deemed itself in a position to attack again. The bridge was destined to figure in the events of the great conflict when the grapple should come.
One of the most graphic of all the accounts of the fighting of that day was from the pen of a major in the British field artillery, and it presented in sharp and vivid colors how the field artillery joined with the cavalry in clearing the German troops from the hills between the Marne and the Aisne. He wrote:
"We got the order to go off and join a battery under Colonel——'s orders. We came en route under heavy shrapnel fire on the road. I gave the order to walk, as the horses had hardly had any food for a couple of days, and also I wanted to steady the show. I can't say I enjoyed walking along at the head with old—— behind me, especially when six shrapnel burst right in front of us. We got there just in time, rushed into action,