The French had not been slow to take advantage of this weakening of the
southern army of the Kaiser, and, immediately bringing great pressure to
bear, had cleared French territory of the invader in the south.

But the French commander did not stop with this. Alsace and Lorraine,
French soil until after the Franco-Prussian war, when it had been awarded
to Prussia as the spoils of war, must be recaptured. The French pressed
on and the Germans gave way before them.

Meantime, in the Soissons region the French also had been making
progress; but the Kaiser, evidently becoming alarmed by the great
pressure being exercised by the French in Alsace-Lorraine--in order to
relieve the pressure--immediately made a show of strength near Soissons,
seeking thereby to cause the French to withdraw troops from
Alsace-Lorraine to reënforce the army of the Soissons to stem the new
German advance there.

Taken somewhat unawares by the suddenness of the German assault upon
their lines near Soissons, the French were forced to give back. They
braced immediately, however, and the succeeding day regained the ground
lost in the first German assault.

Then the Germans made another show of strength at Verdun, southeast of
Soissons. General Joffre immediately hurled a new force to the support of
the French army at that point.

Meanwhile, as the result of the German assaults upon Soissons and
Verdun, in an effort to lessen the pressure being brought to bear by the
French in Alsace-Lorraine, there had been a lull in the fighting in the
latter regions.