The French Coiiuter-Offensive Fails 1 1 9 movements was to strike the three German armies before they reached France, thus, if possible, bring- ing them to a halt and putting them on the defensive before they had time to develop their lines, make their contact between armies and attain their maxi- mum of efficiency. Each of these counter-offensives totally failed. The circumstances attending their failure, so far as they were then known, supplied the news and explained the grave anxiety discernible in London and Paris at the moment when the Germans took Brussels. The first failure was that of the Eastern French Army facing the German Army of the Rhine. This offensive had two different phases. One contem- plated a movement through southern Alsace by Bel- fort and the passes of the Vosges, the other an advance by Luneville between Metz and Strassburg and toward the lower Rhine at Mayence. The plain purpose was to roll back any German forces in the region and by defeating them compel the Germans to weaken their great army in Western Belgium. In both Alsace and German Lorraine the offensive was temporarily successful. Saarburg, on the rail- road between Metz and Strassburg, was occupied. French bulletins reported successes, including the cap- ture of Muelhausen in Alsace. Then, suddenly, with no explanation, the French advance was re- ported to have terminated and the retiring troops were placed beyond Luneville near Nancy. The only conceivable explanation for this was that the