Despite this retreat General Foch, commanding the army of the center, ordered a general offensive for the same day. With the Morocco division, whose behavior was heroic, he met a furious assault of the Germans on his left toward the marshes of Saint Gond. Then, with the divisions which had just victoriously overcome the attacks of the enemy to the north of Sezanne, and with the whole of his left army corps, he made a flanking attack in the evening of the 9th upon the German forces, and notably the guard, which had thrown back his right army corps. The enemy, taken by surprise by this bold maneuver, did not resist, and beat a hasty retreat. This marked Foch as the most daring and brilliant strategist of the war. On the 11th the French crossed the Marne between Tours-sur-Marne and Sarry, driving the Germans in front of them in disorder. On the 12th they were in contact with the enemy to the north of the Camp de Chalons. The reserve army of the center, acting on the right of the one just referred to, had been intrusted with the mission during the 7th, 8th, and 9th of disengaging its neighbor, and it was only on the 10th that being reinforced by an army corps from the east, it was able to make its action effectively felt. On the 11th the Germans retired. But, perceiving their danger, they fought desperately, with enormous expenditure of projectiles, behind strong intrenchments. On the 12th the result had none the less been attained, and the two French center armies were solidly established on the ground gained. To the right of these two armies were three others. They had orders to cover themselves to the north and to debouch toward the west on the flank of the enemy, which was operating to the west of the Argonne. But a wide interval in which the Germans were in force separated them from the French center. The attack took place, nevertheless, with very brilliant success for the French artillery, which destroyed eleven batteries of the Sixteenth German army corps. On the 10th inst., the Eighth and Fifteenth German army corps counter-attacked, but were repulsed. On the 11th French progress continued with new successes, and on the 12th the French were able to face round toward the north in expectation of the near and inevitable retreat of the enemy, which, in fact, took place from the 13th. The withdrawal of the mass of the German force involved also that of the left. From the 12th onward the forces of the enemy operating between Nancy and the Vosges retreated in a hurry before the two French armies of the East, which immediately occupied the positions that the enemy had evacuated. The offensive of the French right had thus prepared and consolidated in the most useful way the result secured by the left and center.