Away back there on
the Aisne were impregnable positions tempting to hard-pressed men.
Leaving nothing to chance, the Germans had prepared them already
in case of retreat, though it had not been dreamed of then as more
than a fantastic possibility. The fortune of war itself as well as
cautious judgment pointed back to the Aisne for safety. The allied
armies were closing up, increasing in strength of men and guns as
the hours passed. In a day or two it might be too late to reach the
strongholds of the hills.
5
So the retreat of the German right wing which had cut like a knife
through northern France until its edge was blunted by a wall of steel,
began on September 5 and increased in momentum as the allied
troops followed hard upon the enemy's heels. The great mass of the
German left swung backwards in a steady and orderly way, not losing
many men and not demoralized by this amazing turn in Fortune's
wheel. "It is frightfully disappointing," wrote a German officer whose
letter was found afterwards on his dead body. "We believed that we
should enter Paris in triumph and to turn away from it is a bitter thing
for the men. But I trust our chiefs and I know that it is only a
strategical retirement.
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