The battle of the Marne with
its subsequent combats and the course of both armies were events easily
explained. . . . If the French only had not been so fatigued after their
triumph of the Marne! . . .
"But human powers," continued Tchernoff, "have their limits, and the
French soldier, with all his enthusiasm, is a man like the rest. In the
first place, the most rapid of marches from the East to the North, in
order to resist the invasion of Belgium; then the combats; then the
swift retreat that they might not be surrounded; finally a seven days'
battle--and all this in a period of three weeks, no more. . . . In
their moment of triumph, the victors lacked the legs to follow up their
advantage, and they lacked the cavalry to pursue the fugitives. Their
beasts were even more exhausted than the men. When those who were
retreating found that they were being spurred on with lessening
tenacity, they had stretched themselves, half-dead with fatigue, on the
field, excavating the ground and forming a refuge for themselves. The
French also flung themselves down, scraping the soil together so as not
to lose what they had gained. . . . And in this way began the war of the
trenches."
Then each line, with the intention of wrapping itself around that of
the enemy, had gone on prolonging itself toward the Northeast, and from
these successive stretchings had resulted the double course toward the
sea--forming the greatest battle front ever known to history.
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