With the Allies by Richard Harding Davis

The struggle for the possession of Soissons lasted two days. The second day's battle, which I witnessed, ended with the city in the possession of the French. It was part of the seven days' of continuous fighting that began on September 6th at Meaux. Then the German left wing, consisting of the army of General von Kluck, was at Claye, within fifteen miles of Paris. But the French and English, instead of meeting the advance with a defence, themselves attacked. Steadily, at the rate of ten miles a day, they drove the Germans back across the Aisne and the Marne, and so saved the city.

When this retrograde movement of the Germans began, those who could not see the nature of the fighting believed that the German line of communication, the one from Aix-la-Chapelle through Belgium, had proved too long, and that the left wing was voluntarily withdrawing to meet the new line of communication through Luxembourg. But the fields of battle beyond Meaux, through which it was necessary to pass to reach the fight at Sois-sons, showed no evidence of leisurely withdrawal. On both sides there were evidences of the most desperate fighting and of artillery fire that was wide-spread and desolating. That of the Germans, intended to destroy the road from Meaux and to cover their retreat, showed marksmanship so accurate and execution so terrible as, while it lasted, to render pursuit impossible.