e fire our men had to sit all day long close under the
traverses--as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like
partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from
lateral fire. Even where there was cover, such as that afforded by
depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing
line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce
bursts of machine gun and shell fire.

The men in the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a time,
and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for none
could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not be
removed until dark.

The preliminary retirement of the units was therefore carried out
gradually, under cover of darkness. That the Germans only once opened
fire on them while so engaged was due to the care with which the
operation was conducted, and also, probably, to the fact that the enemy
were so accustomed to the recurrence of the sounds made by the reliefs
of the men in the firing line and by the movement of the supply trains
below that they were misled as to what was actually taking place.

What the operation amounted to on our part was the evacuation of the
trenches, under carefully made arrangements with the French who had to
take our place in the trenches; the retirement to the river below--in
many cases down a steep slope; the crossing of the river over the noisy
plank roadways of floating or repaired bridges, which were mostly
commanded by the enemy's guns--and the climb up to the top of the
plateau on the south side.

The rest of the move was a complicated feat of transportation which cut
across some of the lines of communication of our allies; but it requires
no description here. In spite of the various difficulties, the whole
strategic operation of transferring the large number of troops from the
Aisne was carried out without loss and practically without a hitch.

As regards the change in the nature of the fighting in which we have
recently been engaged, it has already been pointed out that the
operations had up till then been of a preparatory nature and that the
Germans were obviously seeking to delay us by advanced troops while
heavier forces were being got ready and brought up to the scene of
action. It was known that they were raising a new army, consisting of
corps formed of Ersatz, (supernumerary reserves), volunteers, and other
material which had not y