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Show ! CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY WEAKENED London, Sept. 2S, 2:22 a. m. A Sezanne Sez-anne dispatch to the Daily Telegraph, dated September 21, says: The first German army to be thoroughly thor-oughly whipped on French soil was that of the crown prince. Its rout saved Paris. At the time of their victory the French did not know the extent of the damage they had inflicted on the enemy Actually, they had smashed the flower of the German military pow er General von Kluck's misforinnes were due directly to the rout of the crown prince's left wing on the night of September C. It actually retreated twenty four miles during that nicht In the plan of the German operations opera-tions the path that promised the greatest glorv was reserved for the crown prince, but the French army opposed him with splendid strategy In retreat, they fought stubbornly over every Inch of the ground, and when the time came for the offensive they assumed it in the most effective manner. Describing the battle on September G, the correspondent sas: "The battle began at da break and continued until dusk. The artillery fire exceeded anything In history. The shells were timed as falling thirty In thirty seconds. The losses, especially especial-ly to the Germans, were enormous. One estimate by a trained observer places as high as 100,000 German casualties, cas-ualties, of which 20.000 were killed. I"t must be remembered that the battle front extended for nearly forty miles It was largely of marsh lands, and here the enemy suffered most. 'The French also suftered heavily. One corps was entirely wiped out. When night came neither side could claim much advantage in position gained and a tremendous quantity of ammunition had been expended. "Then on the night of the sixth and seventh came the mysterious German retreat Various theories were advanced ad-vanced to explain, first there may have been a sortie from Verdun; such an operation while the main force wan heavily engaged would bring havoc to any army. Second, the army transport trans-port service may have broken down This, after the enormous expenditure of ammunition, might have compelled the crown prince's army to fall back or be captured. "Of course, the fighting on this wing continued for several days, but what was left of the badly crippled the Germans were only trying to savn army from complete destruction. "With the crown prince retreating, j there was nothing left for General von Kluck's and General von Buelow'r. armies but to execute the same man euver This brought about the battle of the Oise, and all subsequent fighting, fight-ing, and the rumor persists that the crown prince was wounded Whether that is so or not, his army almost disappeared dis-appeared from the theater of operations." opera-tions." Rotterdam, Sent. 27 In the thirty-third thirty-third list of losses published in the Berliner Tageblatt, the names of the killed and wounded in each regiment occupy nearly four columns One regiment regi-ment lost 400 men in a single engage- ment. The Cologne Gazette makes a. somewhat mild protest against Holland's Hol-land's decision to allow the men rescued res-cued from the sunken British cruisers to return to England. |