It had been swept up with the others, escaping from capture or destruction only by a hair, and was now driven back with the French on the capital.
John had witnessed two battles, and in neither had the Germans stopped long.

Disregarding their own losses they drove forward, immense, overwhelming, triumphant.

He felt yet their very physical weight, pressing upon him, crushing him, giving him no time to breathe.

The German war machine was magnificent, invincible, and for the fourth time in a century the Germans, the exulting Kaiser at their head, might enter Paris.
The Emperor himself might be nothing, mere sound and glitter, but back of him was the greatest army that ever trod the planet, taught for half a century to believe in the divine right of kings, and assured now that might and right were the same.
Every instinct in him revolted at the thought that Paris should be trodden under foot once more by the conqueror.

The great capital had truly deserved its claim to be the city of light and leading, and if Paris and France were lost the whole world would lose.