On the Allied Right 209 cross, accompanied by promises to respect Belgian integrity. Had Belgium permitted the crossing, the patent plan of the German General Start was to sweep through Northern France — as they did — toward Paris. While this advance was going on and after the Allied armies, falling back, had retired south of the Marne, it was the mission of the army of the Crown Prince, moving his troops west from Metz on one side of the barrier forts and south from Stenay on the other, to surround Verdun, besiege it and take it. Meantime the army of General von Heeringen, coming west from Strassburg, was to force its way by Nancy through the gap between the Toul-Ver- dun and Epinal-Belfort barriers and joining hands with the Crown Prince's army to complete the in- vestment of the whole Verdun-Toul barrier. Thus surrounded and subjected to bombardment by the guns which had reduced Liege and Maubeuge, the fall of these forts might be expected speedily. With their fall the Germans would instantly ob- tain possession of the main railways leading from Northeast France to Paris, one coming from Metz through Verdun to Rheims, the other through Toul to Chalons. From German territory to Rheims and Chalons by these routes is not more than a quarter of the distance from Aix-la-Chapelle to St. Quentin and Rheims through Belgium. Now, had Belgians permitted German troops to