MYSTERY OF THE MARNE.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1921, Page 12

MYSTERY OF THE MARNE.

THRILLING STORY OF A CAPTURED SATCHEL.

MIDNIGHT MEETING THAT CHANGED HISTORY.

HOW FREEDOM WAS SAVED FOR THE WORLD.

The Germans lost the Great War when they were flung back from the River Marne just a<s they were expecting to pounce on Paris. They admit that his was when this plan for crushing France broke down.

But the world has been wondering ever since how the sudden change was brought about. How came Von Kluck’s victorious fifth army to be crumpled up suddenly, and the invading host hurried in full retreat northward to the River Afene? The Mystery of the Marne has ever since been the greatest problem of the historians. Various explanations have, been given, but none of them have been fully satisfying. SECRET PLANS CAPTURED.

Now the world knows the secret. The mystery is out. It has been revealed by the man who was the means of sending the secret plans of the invaders to the French Commander-in-Chief, and so enabled him to surprise and defeat the proud and confident enemy. Lieutenant-Colonel Fagalde, a brilliant French staff officer now in London, has been lecturing there on this turning point of the world’s greatest war, and what he has said will be remembered as long as the war has any interest for mankind, for it shows very wonderfully how great things may depend on email occurrences.

THE DASH IN THE DARK. On the night between September 1 and September 2, 1914, a German staff officer was rushing in a motor car from east to west across French country roads, The German cavalry were ordered to protect, the right flank of Von Kluck’s army as it swung across eastward from the line of its victorious advance and marched on Paris, and this officer carried in a satchel in his car the full plan of Von Kluck’s march, which, unknown to the French, had been altered at the last moment.

The route each column would take was shown, the places where halts would be made were marked, and the time of the arrival at each stage of the journey. The whole scheme was there on a care-fully-prepared map at the bottom of the satchel, under the officer’s sport clothes, and the food he had provided for his journej’ through the night. Once this map was safely in the hands of the German cavalry division commander, he would know exactly how to fit in his movements with those of Von Kluck’s army. But that most excellent map never reached the hand§ of the cavalry general. A patrol of French infantry happened to be out on the watch along that country road. The scorching motor ear rushed into a volley of bullets, and the German staff officer fell, staining the tell-tale contents of his satchel with his life blood.

It was to Lieutenant-Colonel Fagalde, then a captain, who tells the story, that the satchel was brought by the infantry patrol. At once he telephoned the great and timely discovery to the French headquarters, and despatched a swift motorear with the precious satchel. Every detail of the changed German advance —place and time —was now known to the French Commander-in-Chief, who already had assembled a strong French force on that flank, unknown to the German general. The knowledge was now all on the French side. And so the fatal counter blow was struck by the French and British, and the Germans reeled back from a defeat which shattered their hopes of an early and crushing victory. It may safely be said that the world’s history was changed through that midnight volley in a French lane, and the fiiidin" of a dead man’s satchel saved the freedom of mankind. No more thrilling or romantic, story of the. Great War has ever been told, and it explains fully how it was that the Allied victory over the German invader was so complete.