only we were in the
shade, and if we had moved another inch our shadows would have been
seen. We heard them talking and shouting to each other, but they gave
no chase, thinking we had got away in another direction. We had no
food for hours, except such fruit as we could pick up on the way."
Does it not read as if the pursuers and the pursued were playing some
monstrous game of hide-and-seek?

By September 3rd the Marne was crossed, and the long retreat of the
British was brought to an end without any grave disaster. French had
out-generalled and out-marched Von Kluck. But the Germans were also
over the river by the 5th and practically at the gates of Paris. The
British Army then fell back upon the Seine. So black did the prospect
appear that the French Government and Legislature thought it prudent
to remove from Paris to Bordeaux.

CHAPTER II

BATTLE OF THE RIVERS

RALLY OF THE IRISH GUARDS TO THE GREEN FLAG

The British Expeditionary Force was driven through Northern France
before a mighty and irresistible wind of steel and lead, but the
tempest did not overtake and disperse them, as it might have
done--such was its roaring fury--any less disciplined and stubborn
troops. At the end of it all the British were weary from want of sleep
and plenty of hard fighting, but not badly shaken, and certainly with
spirits undaunted. So marvellously quick did they recover that on
September 7th, within a few days of the end of the retreat, they had
the great joy of joining with the French in turning upon the Germans
and rolling them from the gates of Paris back over the rivers Marne
and Aisne.

The Battle of the Rivers consisted of a series of almost continuous
engagements, lasting till the end of September, principally with
strong rearguards of the enemy who were holding the fords and bridges
of the Marne and Aisne, and their tributaries, the Grand Morin and the
Petit Morin, and the villages, farmlands and orchards of the
intervening countryside. Between the different British regiments there
was an emulation to outshine each other. It was a splendid vanity, for
everything done to realise it tended to the confusion of the common
enemy. This phase of the war was therefore crowded with incidents
showing the bravery of the soldiers of all the nationalities within
the United Kingdom. From the Irish point of view the most remarkably
dramatic was the rallying of the Irish Guards round the green flag.

"It is only a s