The Battle of the Marne 177 In all France could their shooting be expected to be half so good. For the Germans there had been several pos- sibilities. To besiege Paris was impossible because this would take time; moreover, the Allied armies were still unbroken, the Russians were coming up in the East and carrying all before them, and it was necessary to destroy the French and English armies promptly and turn east. To storm Paris was con- ceivably possible, but promised to be too costly in lives to warrant the risk while the Allied armies still stood. There remained the possibility of breaking the Allied centre between Paris and the barrier forts, cutting the Allied line in half and rolling up both fractions, one on Paris, the other against the armies of the Crown Prince and General von Heeringen in Lorraine. The last was the plan chosen by the German Gen- eral Staff. The German left, under General von Hausen and Grand Duke Albrecht, was sent against the French right standing between Vitry-le-Franqois and Revigny near Bar-lc-Duc and behind the Ornain River. The centre struck at the French centre be- tween Montmirail and Sezanne. General von Bue- low commanded here. On the German right Gen- eral von Kluck, abandoning his flanking operation, turned southeast and marched his whole army across the front of and to the south of Paris. The Crown Prince, coming south, east of the Argonne, undertook to isolate Verdun by cutting the railroad going west