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CHAPTER XVII THE FRENCH COUNTER-OFFENSIVE A S a consequence, primarily, of the gallant and -^^^ unexpected resistance of the Belgians and be- cause further the interest of the world was naturally concentrated upon the development of the great Ger- man offensive thrust toward France, the earlier fight- ing on the Alsace-Lorraine frontier attracted only passing attention. Yet the despatches of the second week of the war demonstrated that in this quarter a great French counter-offensive directed by the com- manding French general was sweeping toward the Rhine from the Swiss frontier to Metz. Plainly this counter-offensive had now been reckoned with as one of the salient details of the pending campaign. The simplest fashion In which to describe the French counter-offensive is to point out the exact anal- ogy between it and the great German operations through Belgium. The Germans, on a front of about a hundred miles, were sweeping down upon the left flank of the AUied Armies in position from the Chan- nel to Switzerland in a desperate effort to penetrate Northern France. The French, on a front a Httle wider, were advancing toward Southern Germany. Namur, in Belgium, was almost in the centre of the 86