French postcard celebrating the Allied victory at the Battle of the Marne with the Kaiser tumbling in the river, Germans (in green) fleeing. The French in blue and red advance and tend to German wounded. The British, France's ally, advance in the distance.
Caption:Dans un élan magnifique, les armées allemandes on passé deux fois la Marne. Tout va bien. Les troupes sont fraîches. (Agence Wolff)With magnificent élan, the German armies have crossed the Marne twice. All is well. The troops are fresh. (Wolff Agency)Signs and text:On demande couturière pour recoudre les bochesVoulez vous que j’écrive a vos parents?Poudres sèches pour la guerre future 1873Sucre pastilles caramelleBaton provisoire de maréchalWe need a seamstress to mend the BocheYou want me to write to your parents?Dry powder for future war 1873Caramel sugar lozengesMarshal’s provisional batonReverse:"Artistic Caricatures" (1re Série de 6 cartes)
"All this time, from the 5th to the 9th September, no orders came from the [German] Supreme Command, which was established more than 130 miles away at Luxembourg, in no better communication with the Armies than was possible by wireless and by liaison officers in motor cars. Much of its attention seems to have been directed towards the Russian front. Tannenberg had been fought (26th-29th August) and Samsonov's Army annihilated, but the battle of the Masurian Lakes against Rennenkampf was beginning only on the 8th September."
In the Battle of the Marne, the French and British turned back the German advance on Paris. During its critical days, from the first French attack on September 5 through the counterattack along the French line the next day, and the advance of the French and British on the 7th, 8th, and 9th, German Commander Helmuth von Moltke seems to have thought that his attack on the western front was going well.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914, Vol. I, August to October by J. E. Edmonds, page 300, copyright © Second Edition 1925, publisher: MacMillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1925
waffle-iron, squeeze, Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm, 1914, September, 1914-09-09