Note 72 — Chapter IX · VICTORY

Major-General Maurice says: “I am convinced that history will decide that it was the crossing of the Marne in the early hours of the 9th by the British Army which turned the scale against Kluck and saved Maunoury at a time of crisis.... That an army which on August 23 had been all but surrounded by an enemy who outnumbered it by two to one should have fought its way out, retreated 170 miles, and then immediately turned about and taken a decisive part in the battle which changed the course of the campaign of 1914, is as wonderful an achievement as is to be found in the history of war” (Forty Days, pp. 183–4).