FROM THE MARNE TO THE AISNE CHAPTER XXXI THE END OF THE GREAT RETREAT nr^HE fifth week of the Great War saw all the -■■ French Armies, supported by the British Ex- peditionary Army, now reenforced to full strength, fighting the larger part of the field army of Germany on a line stretching east of Paris and south of the Marne to Vitry-le-Francois, thence north to Verdun, thence south along the Heights of the Meuse and the Woevre Plateau to the Vosges, which it followed to Switzerland, on its eastern or right flank resting on the barrier forts of Toul, Epinal, Verdun and Belfort close to the frontier. In Berlin, Paris and London no attempt was made to disguise the fact that the battle now beginning, and already named the Battle of the Marne, would have tremendous consequences, might indeed prove decisive so far as the struggle in the west was con- cerned. Indeed, German official statements of this time, paying frank tribute to the skill and success of previous Allied operations in avoiding battle under unfavorable conditions, now boldly asserted that the enemy had been at last compelled to accept battle and 169