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memoir · by a contemporary
On the Edge of the War Zone
Mildred Aldrich (1853–1928)
Named on the page for First Battle of the Marne.
draft Matched to the battle automatically; not yet reviewed.
Passages that name the battle; the whole book is at Project Gutenberg.
5–12 September 1914
First Battle of the Marne
From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes
I am sure that I wrote some weeks ago how puzzled I was when I read Joffre's famous ordre du jour, at the beginning of the Marne offensive, to find that it was dated September 6, whereas we had seen the battle begin on the 5th. Here I found what I presume to be the explanation, which proves that the offensive along the rest of the line on the 6th had been a continuation simply of what we saw that Saturday afternoon.
Well, I have really had a very exciting time since I last wrote you. I have even had a caller. Also my neighbor at Voulangis, on the top of the hill, on the other side of the Morin, has returned from the States, to which she fled just before the Battle of the Marne. I even went to Paris to meet her. To tell you the actual truth, for a few days, I behaved exactly as if there were no war. I had to pinch myself now and then to remind myself that whatever else might be real or unreal, the war was very actual.
I had hardly settled down to the feeling that the offensive was over and that there was another long winter of inaction--a winter of the same physical and material discomforts as the first--lack of fuel, suspense,--when the news came which makes my feeling very personal. The British offensive in the north has cost me a dear friend. You remember the young English officer who had marched around me in September of last year, during the days preceding the battle of the Marne? He was killed in Belgium on the morning of September 26--the second day of the offensive. He was in command of an antiaeroplane battery advanced in the night to what was considered a well-concealed position. The German guns, however, got the range. Shrapnel nearly wiped out the command, and the Captain was wounded in the head. He died at the hospital at Etaples half an hour after he arrived, and lies buried in the English cemetery on the dunes, with his face towards the country for which he gave his young life.
Public domain. Text from Project Gutenberg.