Allies Withdraw for Ten Days, Disputing Every Inch of Ground With the Kaiser’s Troops—­Germans Push Their Way Through France in Three Main Columns—­ Reports of the Withdrawing Engagements—­ Paris Almost in Sight.

Flushed with their successes over the Allies at Mons and Charleroi, the Germans pushed their advance toward the French capital with great celerity and vigor.  During the last week of August and the first few days of September, it appeared inevitable that the experience of Paris in 1870-71 was to be repeated and that a siege of the city by the German forces would follow immediately.

It was conceded that the armies of the Allies had been forced back and that Paris was endangered.  The German advance was general, all along the line.  The flower of the Kaiser’s army had marched through Belgium and pushed back the lines of the Allies to the formidable rows of fortifications that surround Paris.  The Germans advanced in three main columns, constantly in touch with one another, from the right, passing through Mons, Cambrai and Amiens, to the extreme left in Lorraine.  The center threatened Verdun, and from that point the right advance swept through Northern France like an opening fan, with the fortress of Verdun as the pivot.

Three million men were engaged in the main struggle.  When the Germans first reached the Franco-Belgian frontier near Charleroi they were opposed by 700,000 French and 150,000 British troops.  After being driven back the Allies began assembling 1,000,000 men between the frontier and Paris, The Allies hoped to hold the whole German army in check while the Russians pursued their successes in eastern Germany.  French troops guarded the entire frontier, battling to check the other German invading columns.  The holding of the Germans, once they broke through the fortifications that formed the chief reliance of the French, would be impossible.  The next stand would be around Paris, which was well fortified.  The invaders were, of course, attempting to get through where there were no forts.

ALLIES MAKE STRENUOUS RESISTANCE

Strenuous resistance to the onward movement of the German enemy was made by the Allies from day to day, but for a period of ten days there was an almost continual retirement of the French and British upon Paris.  It was in fact a masterly retreat, but a retreat nevertheless.  From the line of La Fere and Mezieres, occupied by the Allies after the battles at Mons and Charleroi, they fell back 70 miles in seven days, disputing every step of the way, but withdrawing gradually to the line of defenses around the French capital.  From Cambrai the Germans pushed through Amiens to Beauvais; from Peronne to Roye, Montdidier, Creil, and on to the forest of Chantilly.  From the region of Le Cateau and St. Quentin the German advance was by Noyon to Compiegne (famous for its memories of Joan of Arc’s famous sortie), at which point the Allies made a desperate stand and the Germans had to fight for every inch of ground.  They then passed through Senlis, which was first bombarded, down to Meaux, almost within sight of Paris, the head of the German army resting on a line between Beaumont, Meaux and La Ferte, at which point the resistance of the Allies finally forced a change in German plans.