Pursuit unexampled and relentlessly maintained

Where will the foe give battle?

Narrowed line of retreat

General Joffre has confirmed to the French minister of war that our victory is more and more complete and everywhere the enemy is in retreat.

The battle is drawing to a close as an incontestable victory but not without reluctance is the question asked, is it as complete as we would have desired? The allies have done magnificently but we were hoping to hear of the capture of the entire army corps and hoped to learn as the feat accomplished as this.

We have taken thousands of prisoners but the German right so far has defied complete investment. Von Kluck had to withdraw in disorder but he has been swift enough and clever enough to avoid the enveloping movement.

He lives to fight another day and although his and other German armies are clearly beaten and battered they have not been demobilised. What news may come to hand during today we do not attempt to forecast but an entirely different complexion may be put on matters if the Belgians and those forces operating with them are advancing at the speed of which some hopes are entertained.

There is at present however, no direct evidence that this large new army, the phrase is used advisedly, has covered anything like enough ground to to be in time to get to the rear of the German right.

After the battle

Parisians’ Sunday sight seeing

Thousand of Parisians spent their Sunday at leisure in visiting the battlefields of the Marne. All the railway bridges beyond Sagny are broken. The battlefields round are easily reached by bicycle and tonight the Gare de l’Est was crowded with returning trippers most of whom brought back relics of the battle in the shape of German helmets, fragments of shells, cartridges and weapons. All were enthusiastic over the evidence they had seen of their countrymen’s victories. The battlefields are a gruesome sight, bodies of Frenchmen and Germans shattered by shell wounds are lying thick along the roads with a few English among them, the British being quicker about the needful task of burying their dead.

Strayed German soldiers in a starving condition are being brought to Meaux in troops. One British, soldiered in five Germans today. The prisoners were in a woeful state of rags and dirt, their feet protruding out of their boots.

Rage of the defeated

The retreating invaders in their rage broke into and raided the better class houses wherever they passed.

Cellars everywhere were emptied and many places where the soldiers camped were littered with empty champagne and absinthe bottles which testified to the suddenness of the invaders’ retreat.

Artillery compared

French soldiers are particularly delighted with the superiority of their artillery over that of the Germans. They say the Germans shrapnel bursts high in the air with a terrifying din, but the French have learnt with experience that very little damage follows, for the reason that the shells burst too high.

The fine work of the French 75mm gun on the other hand sweeps the ground destroying everything on it in a short space of time.

The soldiers boast that these guns can fire 25 shots a minute and has done so in recent battles.