The silence at sea was accompanied by a suspense on land. Except for the overrunning and trampling down of Liége, and a French raid into Alsace, only the covering troops of the great armies were in contact. There was a long, stifling pause before the breaking of the storm. All over Europe millions of men, pouring along the roads and railroads, flowing across the Rhine bridges, draining from the farthest provinces of the wide Russian Empire, streaming northwards from Southern France and Northern Africa, were forming in the immense masses of manœuvre or the lines of battle. There was plenty to fill the newspapers; but to those who understood what was coming, the fortnight with which this chapter is concerned seemed oppressed by a deathly hush. CHAPTER XII THE BATTLE IN FRANCE August 20–September 6, 1914 ‘For while the dagger gleam’d on high Reel’d soul and sense, reel’d brain and eye.’ SCOTT, ‘The Lady of the Lake,’ Canto V-XVI. Germany’s Choice: Prudence or Audacity—Her Dangerous Compromise—The French Offensive School—One View of French Strategy—Plan XVII—Its Complete Failure—The Despatch of the Sixth Division—The Morrow of Mons—Fears for the Channel Ports—The Lloyd George of Agadir—The British Base Shifted to St. Nazaire—Some expedients—The Retreat—A Press Communiqué—The Eve of the Marne—The Russian Pressure—Lord Kitchener’s Journey to Paris—Correspondence with Sir John French—A Day on the Aisne—The Sea Flank Project—Lord Kitchener’s Wise Restraint.