It was, doubtless, a risky disposition, made more than risky by Kluck’s headstrong determination to have his full share in the decisive shock. British critics, with his failings in the north in mind, have dealt very severely with this commander; French writers, better acquainted with the fighting on the Ourcq, are more respectful. Kluck’s movement, like the advance of Prince Ruprecht and Heeringen across the face of Castelnau’s Army toward the Gap of Charmes, may have contained a large element of recklessness, born of foolish contempt for the retiring forces. But he was not responsible for the dilemma in which he was involved. The error was that of the German Grand Staff rather than of any particular commander. We shall see that, if Kluck was gambling, he had not lost his head. Had the Allied retreat been less prolonged, had he been able to come up with the French 5th and British Armies sooner, he might have won, or at least have stopped on the Marne, instead of the Aisne. He had no longer a free choice of his movements. To have stayed between Aisne and Marne would not have solved the problem; it would have eased the British advance. Every man was needed on the extreme front, if the whole aim of the invasion was not to be missed. Bülow had had to leave one corps behind at Maubeuge, and was just losing the support, on his left, of one of Hausen’s Saxon corps (the XI), ordered off to the Russian front. Foch’s new army of the centre had, doubtless, been discovered before this time, though its numbers would not yet be known. Kluck had to throw forward every regiment not demonstrably needed elsewhere. All the German commands were now engaged in a reckless gamble; but, where his masters lost their nerve, Kluck did not. To this complexion had the great enveloping movement come under pressure of the Joffrean dilemma. With all his anxieties, the French Generalissimo may well have smiled blandly as he saw the enemy enter between the horns of Paris and Verdun.