Retreat to the Aisne 189 rison of Paris, done with garrison work for a time, was on his flank reaching for his lines of communi- cation, snapping up his ammunition trains in the first hours of the advance. Now he was racing for his life to get ahead of the flank thrust and precisely as the Anglo-French left in retreat dragged the whole force with it, von Kluck was dragging the whole German force in France. But if German hopes had been shattered at the Marne, it was soon apparent that French and British newspapers and military authorities had also far overestimated the extent of their triumph. The Marne had not been a German rout. It had been a Gettysburg, a Gettysburg followed by a prompt, sweeping, energetic pursuit. The thing Meade failed to do, and suftercd always for his failure, Pau and Sir John French undertook without hesitation. But from the Marne to the Aisne the Germans, General von Kluck, showed themselves quite as great in retreat as their enemies had been. Von Kluck's withdrawal from the Marne be- gan on September 7, five days later he was near Soissons and behind the Aisne a little south of the position which was for weeks to be the scene of the most desperate conflict the world had ever known. During these five days the problem of the Allied commanders was plain. For them it was essential to prevent the Germans from taking root in France and preparing a position behind which they could reorganize, refit, supply their shaken forces, make