Beside many bodies were forty or fifty empty cartridge shells, while
fragments of clothing, caps and knapsacks were scattered about. This
destruction was wrought by batteries a little more than three miles
distant. Straggling clumps of wood intervened between the batteries
and their mark, but the range had been determined by an officer on an
elevation a mile from the gunners. He telephoned directions for the
firing and through glasses watched the bursting shells.
THE BATTLE AT CRECY
A graphic picture of the fight in Crecy wood was given by a
correspondent who said: The French and English in overwhelming numbers
had poured in from Lagny toward the River Marne to reinforce the
flanking skirmishers. One of the smaller woods southeast of Crecy
furnished cover for the enemy for a time, but led to their undoing. The
Allies' patrols discovered them in the night as the Germans were moving
about with lanterns.
Suddenly the invaders found their twinkling glow-worms the mark for a
foe of whom they had been unaware. Without warning a midnight hail storm
from Maxims screamed through the trees. The next morning scores of
lanterns were picked up in the wood, with the glasses shattered. A
dashing cavalry charge by the British finally cleared the tragic wood of
the Germans.
BRITISH BLOW UP A BRIDGE
At Lagny one of the sights of the town was a shattered bridge, which was
blown up by General French as soon as he got his army across it. At that
time British infantry and artillery had poured through the town and over
the bridge for several days. General French's idea was to keep raiding
detachments of German cavalry from incursions into the beautiful villas
and gardens of the western suburbs.
Fifteen minutes after the bridge had been reduced to a twisted mass
of steel and broken masonry a belated order came to save it, but the
British engineers who had received the order to destroy it had done
their work well.
The inhabitants were cleared out of all the neighboring houses, which
were shaken by the terrific explosion when the charge was set off. Every
window in the nearby houses was shattered.
The people of Lagny took the destruction of their beautiful bridge in
good part. They were too grateful for their deliverance from the Germans
to grumble about the wrecked bridge.
GERMAN LOSSES AT THE MARNE
There is no doubt that the German losses in the engagements at the Marne
far exceeded those of the Allies and were most severe, in both men and
material. The Germans made incredible efforts to cross the Marne. The
French having destroyed all the bridges, the Germans tried to construct
three bridges of boats. Sixteen times the bridges were on the point of
completion, but each time they were reduced to matchwood by the French
artillery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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