escribed, and the causes of that imperfection. Maubeuge
commanded the great railway line leading from Belgium to Paris, which
is the main avenue of supply for an invasion or for a retreat, running
north-east to south-west on the Belgian frontier upon the capital.

The 5th French Army retired parallel to the British along the belt
marked in Sketch Map 60 by diagonal lines. At first, as its retirement
had begun earlier, it was behind, or to the south of, the British, who
were thus left almost unsupported. It lay, for instance, on Monday,
the 24th, much along the position 1, at which moment the British Army
was lying along the position 2. That was the day on which the Germans
attempted to drive the British into Maubeuge.

But during the succeeding two days the French 5th Army (to which the
five corps, including the Prussian Guard, under Buelow, were opposed)
held the enemy fairly well. They were losing, of course, heavily in
stragglers, in abandoned wounded, and in guns; but their retreat was
sufficiently strongly organized to keep this section of the line well
bent up northwards, and just before the British halted for their first
breathing space along the line La Fere and Noyon, the French 5th Army
attempted, and succeeded in, a sharp local attack against the superior
forces that were pursuing them. This local attack was undertaken from
about the position marked 3 on Sketch 60, and was directed against
Guise. It was undertaken by the 1st and 3rd French Corps, under
General Maunoury. He, acting under Lanrezac, gave such a blow to the
Prussian Guard that he here bent the Prussian line right in.

Meanwhile the 4th French Army, which had also been retiring rapidly
parallel to the 5th French Army, lay in line with it to the east along
that continuation of 3 which I have marked with a 4 upon the sketch.
Farther east the French armies, linking up the operative corner with
the Alsace-Lorraine frontier, had also been driven back from the Upper
Meuse, and upon Friday, the 28th of August, when the British halt had
come between La Fere and Noyon (a line largely protected by the
Oise), the whole disposition of the Allied forces between the
neighbourhood of Verdun and Noyon was much what is laid down in the
accompanying sketch. At A were the British; at B the successful
counter-offensive of the French 5th Army had checked and bent back the
Prussian centre under von Buelow; at C, the last section of what had
been the old operative cor