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CHAPTER XXV, THE GREAT RETREAT "IXTTTH the arrival of the AlHed Armies on the ' ^ line of the Somme and on August 29, a corner of the veil that had covered all military operations since the engagements on the Sambre and Meuse was lifted and the first official report of Sir John French permitted the world to discover if not all of what had happened, yet exactly what was meant by the tremendous operations still continuing in Northwest- ern France. For the first time they learned some- thing of the character of the great retreat, the critical operation of the first month of war. At the moment when the German commanders saw the French irrevocably committed to their counter-offensive, they suddenly set in motion their vast army on Namur and Brussels. When they wheeled left in Brussels and started toward Paris the Germans were actually nearer to the French capital than either of the great French armies on the east. If they could crush the Allied force before them, or outflank it and roll it east away from Paris, they could envelop the whole mil- itary force of France. With three of their six weeks still remaining, the Germans were in a posi- 135

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