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As he crossed, Kluck exposed his flank to the astonished eyes of the French generals. General Joseph ("Papa") Joffre, the French commander, had been regrouping his armies for a stand on the Seine. Now he had to decide whether or not to risk everything with an attack on Kluck. Throughout a long afternoon, Joffre sat in the shade of an ash tree, a ponderous figure in black tunic, baggy red pants, and army-issue boots, and faced the problem. "Gentlemen," he said finally, "we will fight on the Marne."
"No Turning Back." Author Tuchman ends her long account with only the briefest mention of France's "miracle of the Marne," where the French at long last halted the German armies, weakened by the loss of the departed two corps and sorely needing the reinforcements Moltke held back. Her book does not capture the roar of battle that rumbles through Gallipoli, by Alan Moorehead, or In Flanders Fields, by Leon Wolff.
What Barbara Tuchman does accomplish is to knit all the personalities and plans of the opening battles of World War I into a colorful, fact-filled narrative. "The Battle of the Marne was one of the decisive battles of the world," she writes, "not because it determined that Germany would ultimately lose or the Allies ultimately win the war, but because it determined that the war would go on. Afterward there was no turning back. The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive."