CHAPTER XXXIV VON kluck's retreat to the aisne A T the Battle of the Marne the great German • ^ movement was at last brought to a standstill, Its right flank was turned, its change from the of- fensive to the defensive determined. The effort to envelop the Allied armies, to envelop them and cut them off from Paris had failed, the decisive check as it now appears had been at Cambrai on August 26. At the Marne and beginning with the opera- tions of September 7, the effort to pierce the centre, isolate Paris, surround the eastern barrier forts failed also. There was to be no Sedan, no Water- loo for the Allies In the opening weeks of the war. Allied defeat was to be accomplished If at all, not by a sudden thrust but by a long campaign. When the Germans started back and the whole Allied line, like the soldiers who obeyed the famous command, " Up, Guards, and at them," at Water- loo, flung themselves into the pursuit, the situation of the two armies was strangely reversed. From Cambrai to Paris, von Kluck had been upon the Allied flank struggling to get behind It and crumple It up and after It the centre and left. Now the gar-