.
4
It will be to the lasting credit of General Joffre and the French Staff
that after six weeks of disorder owing to the unreadiness of their army
and their grievous errors in the disposition of the available troops,
they recovered themselves in a supreme effort and by a brilliant
stroke of strategy took the enemy completely by surprise and dealt
him a staggering blow. The German Headquarters Staff--the brains of
the greatest military machine in Europe--sublimely arrogant in their
belief that they had an exclusive knowledge of the whole science of
war and that the allied armies were poor blunderers without
intelligence and without organization, utterly incapable of resisting the
military genius of the German race, found themselves foiled and out-
manoeuvred at the very moment when the prize of victory seemed to
be within their grasp.
For the first time since the beginning of their advance into French
territory they were confronted with something like equal numbers, and
they were brought to a halt at once. This arrest, shocking to their self-
confidence, was found to be more than a mere check easily
overpowered by bringing up more battalions. General von Kluck
realized that the French had gathered together a formidable mass of
men ready to be flung upon his right flank.
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