Railroads, routes of communications, both telegraph and telephone, not only of the City of Reims, but also throughout the immediately outlying districts, must be protected against all possibility of destruction; it is absolutely necessary to protect by a minute surveillance the public buildings along the lines of communication. The City will be held responsible for disobedience to this order: the guilty ones will be pursued and shot; the City will be levied for considerable contributions. I add also that it will be to the interest of the population to conform to the foregoing commands, at the same time going about their ordinary occupations; thus the inhabitants will avoid having new and serious losses. THE GERMAN GENERAL Commander in Chief. * * * This notice on a white card, 45 by 56 centimeters, was posted on the walls of the City of Reims by German authority during the occupation of September 4th to 12th, 1914. As they were forced back toward Paris, not so much by actual fighting as by the necessity to keep their lines clear and avoid the turning movement of the swift German division under Von Kluck, the Allied armies swung, like a gate with its hinges at Verdun and the outer edge at Mons, back until they stretched between Verdun and Paris. This movement uncovered the beautiful city of Reims, with its countless art treasures, its magnificent cathedral and its thriving population of more than a hundred thousand people, all of which, as the swinging movement continued, were left to the mercy of the German army. The French evacuated Reims with nothing more than some rear-guard fighting and fell back southward to take their places in the great battle line which Joffre had planned somewhere north of Paris--on the Marne, as it was later evident. As the Allied forces swung backward to this then unknown position, they were hard pressed by the advancing German hosts. Their retreat will stand as one of the most masterly in history, for during ten days these vast armies retired more than two hundred miles on their left flank without disorder and without excessive loss of men or material. The English army occupied the side toward the sea in these grand maneuvers for position. Sir John French moved swiftly backward, fighting as he went and constantly swinging outward to prevent Von Kluck from encircling his flank. On the morning of September 3rd, he reached a point between Paris and the sea, actually a little north of that city. Suddenly in response to orders from Joffre, he marched his tired troops through Paris to Lagny, twenty miles east of the capital, where he took up a position on the Marne front.