Note 58 — Chapter VI · BATTLE OF THE OURCQ
Reading edition
Sir John French, in his dispatch, says: “I should conceive it to have been about noon on the 6th September, after the British Forces had changed their front to the right, and occupied the line Jouy le Chatel–Faremoutiers–Villeneuve le Comte, ... that the enemy realised the powerful threat that was being made against the flank of his columns moving south-east, and began the great retreat which opened the battle.” This is a significant mistake. We now know that Bülow sent a first warning of an Allied concentration towards the west on the afternoon of September 5 to Kluck, who by then had his own information from the IV Reserve Corps. A few hours later Kluck was fully aware of his danger; and, as he has since stated to an interviewer, decided “in five minutes” how to meet it.
Field-Marshal French (1914, ch. 5), wrongly, I think, considers that Kluck “manifested considerable hesitation and want of energy.”