The Battle of the Rivers. Edmund Dane
was for the time being gone. It meant further that, so long as that state of things continued, the primary condition on which the whole German scheme depended—a superiority of military strength—could not be realised. Not only were the German armies no longer, in a military sense, homogeneous, but a considerable part of the force, being on the wrong side of the fortified frontier, could not be brought to bear, and another considerable part of the force, the army of the Crown Prince of Germany, had fallen into an entanglement. Were the armies of von Kluck, von Bülow, von Hausen, and Duke Albert, the latter already badly mauled, sufficient to carry out the scheme laid down? Quite obviously not.
Obviously not, because on the one hand there was the completion of the French mobilisation, and the presence of a British army; and on the other hand there were the losses met with, and the reductions in the applicable force.
Something must be done to pull affairs round. The something was to begin with the extraction of the Crown Prince of Germany from his predicament. If that could be effected and the fortified frontier turned, then the armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of General von Heeringen could make their entry into the main arena; and the primary condition of superiority in strength restored.
Thus it is evident that the events preceding September 3, dictated the movement which, on September 3, changed for good the aspect of the campaign.
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