The first prisoners we took in August showed themselves wholly
indifferent to the reverses of the German Army. They were sincerely and
profoundly convinced that, if the German Army retired, it was in virtue
of a preconceived plan, and that our successes would lead to nothing.
The events at the end of August were calculated to strengthen this
contention in the minds of the German soldiers.
The strategic retreat of the French Army, the facility with which the
German armies were able to advance from Aug. 25 to Sept. 5, gave our
adversaries a feeling of absolute and final superiority, which
manifested itself at that time by all the statements gleaned and all the
documents seized.
At the moment of the battle of the Marne the first impression was one of
failure of comprehension and of stupor. A great number of German
soldiers, notably those who fell into our hands during the first days of
that battle, believed fully, as at the end of August, that the retreat
they were ordered to make was only a means of luring us into a trap.
German military opinion was suddenly converted when the soldiers saw
that this retreat continued, and that it was being carried out in
disorder, under conditions which left no doubt as to its cause and its
extent.
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