New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-09-07
The Marne-After a Year.

the Marine, which began on September 6,
1914, and continued through the next four
lays, was that of a German recently in
his city. Speaking of the changes that
were likely to come in his own country
after the war, he said:
81 think we shall have real parliamen-
tary government. Yes, believe that was
decided at the Marine"
Asked 70 explain what seemed rather
confusing assertion, he replied:
"My idea is that if we Germans had won
at the Marne, if we had accomplished what
was expected, perhaps in the
greatness Of the victory all else would
have been forgotten; but the system was
not able 20 win"
This comment was made by thoroughly
patriotic German, who had not the small
est expectation that Germany would be
conquered. He had lately come from Ger
many and had just received the news Of
the death Of a near relative in the Russian
campaign. What he had in mind was not
the familiar suggestion of British news
papers, that "militarism," "Prussian mill
tarism," was TO be extirpated by Allied
might. He would have laughed at such a
notion. but young. and liberal in his politi-
cal views, he was attempting 10 describe
his own conception of what internal
changes there would be in German political
life when the war was over.
In a military sense the Battle Of the
Marine was decisive only as Gettysburg was
decisive. 1t was no Waterloo, it was not
even an Austerlitz; the armies which re-
treated were presently in line again, still
on foreign soil. To-day, year after the
sixth French army was finally saved by
the picturesque dash of Joffre's last tacti-
cal reserve through Paris in taxicabs, and
Foch made his memorable thrust which
threw the Prussian Guard into the
marshes Of St. Gond. the German lines in
France are practically where they stood
when the retiring forces turned on their
pursuers at the Aisne and the Disc.
But in the sense that Gettysburg was
decisive the Battle of the Marine was de
cisive. The best, the most promising, the
one great chance Of the Confederacy 70
conquer, to win its independence, was
ended when Pickett's heroic division
flowed back from that group Of trees
which is remembered in contemporary his
tories as the high water mark Of the Re
bellion. All that came afterward to APP
pomattox was but the confirmation of the
verdict had between Cemetery Ridge and
the slopes Of Little Round Top.
For century before the present con-
flict the world had sPeculated on what
would have happened had Napoleon won
Waterloo. Is il less probable that future
generations will give equal thought to the
consequences of German triumph on the
Marine? Had the French line broken be
tween the eastern forts and the Grand
Couronne at Nancy. there in a very real
sense would have been an end to France.
The survivors in the several armies, swept
back upon the Nosges and Paris, might
have made the same gallant and hopeless
fight that their fathers made IN 1870, but
the resistless food that had swept from
Iiege to Lagny, from the Meuse 10 the
Marne, would have soon beaten out this
lingering shoulder.
In September. 1914, there was no Eng
lish army in being. save the devoted hand
full that returned TO the charge at the
Marne after the terrible retreat from
Mons. After a year the new British
prmies are only now approaching readi-
kaI 70
day, despite the early German reverse,
could have made no more successful fight
against the victorious troops that would
have been brought east from France than
she has made against the newer and far
less effective levies that have defeated her.
Italy was neutral and would have stayed
neutral.
In the first week Of September, 1914,
there was only France, still outnumbered,
fighting In the last ditch and fighting with
armies which for two weeks had under
rome daily defeat, disaster. While Berlin
was waiting for the news Of the fan Of
Paris, for the tidings Of a Sedan far more
colossal than that which had made the
German Empire, there is small reason to
believe that the German commanders at
the front were much less hopeful. The
hour had come which they had all fore
seen and prepared for. Their preparations
Rad proven adequate. Victory had fol-
lowed victory. Metz, Neufchateau, Char
leroi. Mons; these were but the repetitions
Of Worth, Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte.
And if France had fallen, Belgium
Holland, Poland, the Balkans, all Central
Europe from the Somme to the Dneper,
from the Elbe to the Dardanelles and be-
,ond TO the Euphrates, would have been
the prize of those who were directing Ger
man arms. France for generations, if not
for AL fiIrAs ,xorld haNa falle, 10 tho