It was the
British Expeditionary Force which made the hinge of the battle-line, and
if that hinge had not been strong and supple--in all respects equal to
its work--the sudden attack of the 6th Army, on the extreme left of the
battle-line, and the victory of General Foch in the centre, might not
have availed. In other words, had Von Kluck found the weak spot he
believed in and struck for, all would have been different. But the weak
spot existed only in the German imagination. The British troops whom Von
Kluck supposed to be exhausted and demoralised, were in truth nothing of
the sort. Rested and in excellent condition, they turned rejoicing upon
the enemy, and, in concert with the French 6th Army, decided the German
withdrawal. Every one of the six Armies aligned across France, from
Paris to the Grand Couronne, had its own glorious task in the defeat of
the German plans. But we were then so small a proportion of the whole,
with our hundred and twenty thousand men, and we have become since so
accustomed to count in millions, that perhaps our part in the "miracle
of the Marne" is sometimes in danger of becoming a little blurred in the
popular English--and American--conception of the battle.
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