CHAPTER XXXII THE BATTLE OF TPIE MARXE T>Y September 3, at the ver)' latest, the Germans "*^ realized that their great enveloping movement had failed. Steadily retreating the Allied left had come almost squarely back under the guns of Paris, indeed, the battered English army on the left flank, had already passed through Paris and was taking up its post along the Marne, leaving to the great Army of Paris, raised to defend the city, the task of holding back the German right south of Compiegne and between Senlls and Meaux. From Paris to the bar- rier fortresses of the East, that is with both flanks wholly protected, like a dam resting on the ledges that bounded a river valley, the Allied armies stood in battle line. To use a homely figure, the Allied left from Mons to the gates of Paris had been in the position of a closing door; it hung on the barrier fortresses to the east, swinging closed on Paris. General von Kluck had endeavored to put a foot between the door and the casing before it closed. By September 3 the crack was far too narrow, in fact the door had swung closed and the great enveloping movement, by the «75