Soupplets--Marcilly--
Barcy--Etrepilly--Acy-en-Multien; villages from which one by one, by
keen, hard fighting, the French attack, coming eastwards from Dammartin
to Paris, dislodged the troops of Von Kluck; while to our right lay
Trocy, and Vareddes, a village on the Ourcq, between which points ran
the strongest artillery positions of the enemy. At Barcy, we stopped a
few minutes, to go and look at the ruined church, with its fallen bell,
and its graveyard packed with wreaths and crosses, bound with the
tricolour. At Etrepilly, with the snow beating in our faces, and the
wind howling round us, we read the inscription on the national monument
raised to those fallen in the battle, and looking eastwards to the spot
where Trocy lay under thick curtains of storm, we tried to imagine the
magnificent charge of the Zouaves, of the 62nd Reserve Division, under
Commandant Henri D'Urbal, who, with many a comrade, lies buried in the
cemetery of Barcy.
Five days the battle swayed backwards and forwards across this scene,
especially following the lines of the little streams flowing eastwards
to the Ourcq, the Therouanne, the Gergogne, the Grivette.
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