Factory owners became rich, while many workers lived in increasing poverty, laboring for long hours under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. Socialism emerged as a response to the expanding capitalist system.
<em>Following the German retreat from the Marne River in July, Gen. Ferdinand Foch and the Allied high command designed a series of convergent and practically simultaneous offensives against the shaken German armies. One was a joint operation in the Meuse valley toward the Mézière and Sedan rail centre.</em>