A small city called Montmirail, twenty kilometers southwest of Épernay, had already been placed under military control. A French Infantry Division had moved in, and the entire city was under martial law.
The residents who lived there watched the soldiers standing guard and patrolling the streets in astonishment. Some bold women even took the initiative to cast flirtatious glances at the tall soldiers.
Germany's invasion, along with the French Army's سلسلة of defeats in the early stages of the war, had forced France to steadily expand its mobilization. Most adult men had either joined the military or gone to work in armaments factories, leaving very few adult men in French society. This undoubtedly left the romantic French women lonely and empty. They seemed to have forgotten that their husbands were fighting the Germans for their lives at the front, while they, safely in the rear, freely put green hats on their husbands.
Several cars drove into the heavily guarded City Hall. An elderly military man, accompanied by a group of generals whose stars glittered brightly, entered the building. This old soldier was none other than the renowned Marshal Joseph Joffre, the current commander-in-chief of the French Army. However, a string of disastrous defeats on the battlefield had already shaken his position as commander-in-chief. Had the German military not voluntarily halted its offensive last year, another one or two French defeats might have seen him replaced already.
The group went straight to the conference room in City Hall. At that moment, even more generals were gathered there. Most of the Anglo-French Allied Forces' commanders on the Marne River front had assembled in this room.
"The commander-in-chief has arrived!" As soon as Marshal Joffre entered the conference room, a staff officer announced loudly.
At once, the murmurs of the generals in the