And strike she did, driving a reckless path over the Marne River in the neighbourhood of Château Thierry and to the east of that pleasant provincial town, while her forces swept to the west, pushing the Allied line backward. It was a critical time for British and French and American troops, and the Entente generally; for the rush carried the Germans to within some thirty miles of Paris, and further success would have thrown a road to that city wide open, with, no doubt, disastrous results to the defenders of human liberty. But the Allies, though taken in some measure by surprise, were by no means found wanting. Unity of command on the part of Germany and Austria and their Allies had, during almost four long years of warfare, given enormous advantage to the troops controlled nominally by the Kaiser: one brain and one man, in fact, commanded the situation, striking blows here, following them up swiftly, supporting a threatened spot, and massing effects where the Allied line appeared weakest. But the Allies themselves had not failed to see the vital importance of this unity of command. It had taken time; it had required many conferences; there had been much discussion before a decision was reached; but Mr. Lloyd George, the Premier of England, Monsieur Clemenceau, France's able leader, and Mr. Wilson, the President of the United States, and all the prominent leaders had come forward and insisted upon this one condition.
Thus, just prior to this final German rush, the whole of the Allied armies in France and Italy had been placed under the command of General Foch, the hero of the Marne fighting in 1914. This unity of command placed in his hands a power not hitherto wielded by any single one of the Allied forces. It allowed him to mass his reserves, to control the movements of all the troops, and permitted of his disposing of his forces so that within a few days the enemy rush was successfully held up, and almost at once a counter-attack, similar almost to that of the Sixth French Army in 1914, which was cast upon the right flank of Von Kluck's army, but a little north of the part where that army operated, was hurled against the flank of this dangerous German irruption.