Explore "The Battle of the Marne" by G.H. Perris on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
While the 6th Army, within sight of the Ourcq, was suffering its great agony, while the "effect of suction" was showing itself in the Anglo-French pursuit of Kluck, very different were the first results at the centre of the long crescent of the Allied front. Kluck was saved by his quick resolution, together with Marwitz's able work in covering the rear. Bülow was in no such imminent danger. His communications with the north were at first perfectly safe. The situation of his right wing, which must either fall back or lose contact with the I Army, was awkward; but, doubtless, Kluck's success would soon re-establish it. The circumstances indicated for the remainder of the II Army and the neighbouring Saxon Corps an instant attempt to break through the French centre, or at least to cripple it, and, with it, all Joffre's offensive plan.
The very strategic influence which helped the British and d'Espérey, therefore, at first threw a terrible burden upon Foch and the "detachment" which on September 5 was renamed the "9th Army"; yet it was by this same influence that, in the end, though by the narrowest of margins, he also won through.