me darkness the 1st Division, under Sir Douglas Haig, was
heavily engaged south-east of Maroilles. They obtained ultimately the
aid of two French reserve divisions which lay upon the right of the
British line, and extricated themselves from the peril they were in
before dawn. By daylight this 1st Corps was still continuing its
retirement in the direction of Wassigny, with Guise as its objective.

[Illustration: Sketch 56.]

Meanwhile the 2nd Corps, which had not been so heavily attacked, and
which lay to the west--that is, still upon the extreme of the
line--had come, before the sunset of that Tuesday, the 25th, into a
line stretching from Le Cateau to near Caudry, and thence prolonged by
the 4th Division towards Seranvillers.

[Illustration: Sketch 57.]

It will be seen that this line was bent--its left refused. This
disposition was, of course, designed to meet the ceaseless German
attempt to outflank on the west; and with the dawn of Wednesday, the
26th, it was already apparent how serious would be the task before
this 2nd Corps, which covered all the rest of the army, and, in a
sense, the whole of the Anglo-French retirement. General Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien, who was here in command, was threatened with a disaster
that might carry in its train disaster to the whole British
contingent, and ultimately, perhaps, to the whole Franco-British line.

Although the German bodies which were attempting the outflanking had
not yet all come up, the field artillery of no less than four German
corps was already at work against this one body, and a general action
was developing upon which might very well depend the fate of the
campaign. Indeed, the reader will do well to fix his attention upon
this day, Wednesday, the 26th August, as the key to all that followed.
There are always to be found, in the history of war, places and times
which are of this character--nuclei, as it were, round which the
business of all that comes before and after seems to congregate. Of
such, for instance, was the Friday before Waterloo, when Erlon's
counter-orders ultimately decided the fate of Napoleon; and of such
was Carnot's night march on October 15, 1793, which largely decided
the fate of the revolutionary army.

The obvious action to take in such a position as that in which the 2nd
Corps found themselves was to break contact with the enemy, to call
for support from the 1st Corps, and to maintain the retreat as
indefatigably as it had already