KLUCK'S FAILURE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 72, 25 March 1919, Page 5

KLUCK'S FAILURE.

EXPLAINS WHY HE LOST. THE WONDERFUL FRENCH. LONDON. March 14. 'How did you lose the battle of the Marne? - ' This point-blank question was recently juit to General yon Kluck in a Berlin drawing-room by a Swede named Christiansen. The somnolent old general, says the "Matin, - ' smilingly consented to give bis version of this old story, as he called it. "I lost, perhaps.'' he said, "because I was not abie to follow my own ideas. Contrary to what has been said. I was not the author of the pinn of campaign called the inarch on Paris. 1 never thought the fall of that town would force France to capitulate. But T was overruled, and, besides, a German Hag containiug 400 square yards of bunting bad been prepared, which it was intended to hoist on the Eiffel Tower. "At one moment all seemed going well, and the aKiser was in raptures. As for mc. I was quite surprised. After Charleroi I expected a stubborn resistance, but I learnt hourly that the French armies were falling back in disorder. The entry into Paris was fixed for September 2.

"But on August 31 we found that this army, which had been all topsy-turvy, had suddenly changed in appearance in a few hours-infantry, gunners, and sappers all having got back into their right tactical places. To push on in face of this surprise was folly, and in spite of pressing advice, not to say orders, I had to give up the idea."

The reason above all others of bis defeat was "the special aptitude of the French soldier for rapidly pulling himself together. That men who had retreated for ten days and were lying on the ground half dead with fatigue should at a bugle-call seize their rifles and attack was a thing on which we had never counted. We made a mistake, and I was not the only one. Perhaps we were too knowing."