f them,
was made possible by the very fact that the retirement was prosecuted
with the utmost rapidity and without a halt. Had the retreat been
interrupted in the hope of making a stand, or in the hope of repose,
the whole army would have gone.

Throughout the night, then, with heavy losses from stragglers, and in
one case with the surrounding and annihilation by wounds and capture
of nearly a whole battalion (the Gordons), the retreat of the 2nd
Corps proceeded, and, in line with it, the retreat of the 1st Corps to
the east.

But this 1st Corps, though set an easier task than the 2nd (which, at
the extreme of the line, was under the perpetual menace of
development), did not retire without losses of a serious character. It
was marching on Guise, just as the 2nd Corps to the west of it was
marching across the watershed to St. Quentin. The Munster Fusiliers,
who were on its extreme right, had halted for the night on that same
evening of the 26th; for the 1st Corps, being less hard pressed, had
more leisure for such repose. During the night a messenger was sent to
this body with orders for the resumption of the march next morning. He
was taken prisoner, and never reached his goal. The Munsters were
attacked at dawn by the German pursuit in greatly superior numbers,
surrounded and destroyed, as the Gordons of the 2nd Corps had been;
the unwounded remnant was compelled to surrender.

[Illustration: Sketch 58.]

The whole of Thursday, the 27th, and Friday, the 28th of August, the
British retreat continued, the 1st Corps following on at the valley of
the Oise towards La Fere, while the 2nd Corps to the west passed St.
Quentin, and made for Noyon, in the neighbourhood of the same river
farther down; and on the night of that Friday the Expeditionary Force
was at last in line, and in some kind of order, organized for the
first breathing space possible after so terrible an ordeal.

[Illustration: Sketch 59.]

It is clear from the accompanying sketch map that the position the
British had now reached gave to the whole Allied force a bent contour.
The French armies to the east lay along line AB, which, had it been
directly prolonged, would have stretched towards C; but the British
contingent, which, on account of its extreme position, had suffered
most heavily, was turned right back on the scheme AD, and even so,
was still in some peril of being outflanked by the German forces along
the arrow (1) to the west of it. At this mo