Only this could save Paris--the rapid strengthening of the allied front by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped battering ram of the enemy's main army. Undoubtedly the French Headquarters Staff was working heroically and with fine intelligence to save the situation at the very gates of Paris. The country was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts of France, where they had been waiting as reserves. It was astounding to me to see, after those three days of rushing troop trains and of crowded stations not large enough to contain the regiments, how on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last an air of profound solitude and peace had taken possession of all these routes. In my long journey through and about France and circling round Paris I found myself wondering sometimes whether all this war had not been a dreadful illusion without reality, and a transformation had taken place, startling in its change, from military turmoil to rural peace. Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to Chalons was deserted by all but fugitives. The great armed camp at Chalons itself had been cleared out except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had gone northward to the French centre. All our English reserves had been rushed up to the front from Havre and Rouen. There was only one deduction to be drawn from this great, swift movement--the French and English lines had been supported by every available battalion to save Paris from its menace of destruction, to meet the weight of the enemy's metal by a force strong enough to resist its mighty mass. It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off from their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending peril which scared the enemy's Headquarters Staff and upset all its calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the necessity of changing front. To do them justice, they realized instantly the new order of things, and with quick and marvelous decision did not hesitate to alter the direction of their main force. Instead of proceeding to the west of Paris they swung round steadily to the southeast in order to keep their armies away from the enveloping movement of the French and English and drive their famous wedge-like formation southward for the purpose of dividing the allied forces of the west from the French Army of the East. The miraculous had happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, is unmolested. That brings me back to the fighting at Creil and Compiegne, which preceded from last Tuesday until two days later.