But dawn on September 9 broke upon a situation aggravated to the extreme, in which the projected manœuvre might well seem a blunder of recklessness. Bülow and Hausen had summoned their exhausted men to undertake a last essay. On the French left, Mondemont fell at 3 a.m. Two hours later, the Guard and the two Saxon Corps burst upon the centre and right with all their remaining force. Neither the 9th nor the 11th Corps was in a condition to meet this trial; but, in general, they faced it bravely. At 9 a.m., the 21st Division (11th Corps) could resist no more, and fell back from Oeuvy to Hill 129, south of Corroy, whence its commander, Radiguet, wrote to Foch: “My troops could not hold out any longer under a bombardment such as we have suffered for the last two hours. They are in retreat all along the line. It is the same with the 22nd Division. I am going to try, with my artillery and what I can gather of infantry, to rally on the plateau south of Corroy. My regiments have fought admirably, but they have an average of only four or five officers left.”
Foch replied from Plancy, at 10.15 a.m.: “The 42nd Division will arrive on the front Linthes–Pleurs. Whatever be the position, more or less in retreat, of the 11th Corps, we count on resuming the offensive with the 42nd Division toward Connantre and Corroy, an offensive in which the 9th Corps will have to take part against the (German) right from Morains to Fère Champènoise. The 42nd Division has been on the way since 8.30, and will be ready to go into action about midday. The 10th Corps has liberated it. The 10th is at our disposition, and has orders to support the Moroccan Division to prevent the enemy penetrating to the west of the Marshes of St. Gond.” On receiving similar instructions, Dubois sent two squadrons of hussars to make a provisional link between the 9th and 11th Corps, and intimated to his divisional commanders not only that they must stand firm, but that, in the classic phrase of Joffre, “no failing will now be tolerated.”
Blind words, only to be justified on the lines of Nogi’s apophthegm: “Victory is to him who can resist for another quarter of an hour.” They were hardly uttered when Mont Août, the north-eastern bastion of Dubois’ line, stubbornly defended for five days, was lost. Much of the artillery of the Prussian Guard had been concentrated on this outlying watch-tower of the Sezanne hills; and, in those early days of the war, nerves were not so steeled that a position heavily bombarded and definitely turned could be long held. Of the two brigades of the 52nd Reserve Division, the 104th had been detached to Moussy’s 17th Division; the 103rd remained under the command of General Battesti. Of the former, the 5th battalion, 320th Regiment, under Commandant Meau (known as an author under the pseudonym “Jean Saint-Yves”) was posted on the north slopes of Mont Août; two companies of the 51st Chasseurs were on the east; and Lt.-Col. (afterwards General) Clandor, with the 6th battalion, was in the wood at the foot of the hill. Meau, with wounded head bound in bloody bandages, “like a Crimean veteran,” as a combatant says, was keeping his men firm under a rain of light and heavy shells commencing at about 9.30 a.m., and Clandor was also determined to hold, when it suddenly became known that the 103rd Brigade, on their right, had received an order to retreat, apparently given by Battesi in alarm at the extent of the enemy’s advance.[67] First in twos and threes, then in masses, the reservists left the woods that cover the eastern slopes of the hill, and hurried westward, groups of horsemen galloping past them, and gun-teams plunging through the meadows. The whole line was thus shaken; and, shortly afterward, the two batteries which had hitherto sustained the men on the crest were silenced by German guns that had got round behind Ste. Sophie Farm. At 11.45 a.m., Moussy gave Meau and Clandor orders to fall back; but their obstinacy had its reward——Mont Août was never occupied by the enemy. The debris of Battesti’s brigades were rallied during the early afternoon on the hills of Allemant and Chalmont. A part of Moussy’s Division was driven south, and, after a gallant recoil at Ste. Sophie Farm, drew off to the west.