detachments of the Grenadier, Coldstream, and 1st Irish Guards. They
were simultaneously repulsed at Maroilles with some French assistance;
but daybreak saw a third and more powerful attack delivered on Le
Cateau. Sir John French had told Smith-Dorrien the night before that
he was risking a second Sedan by a stand. But Smith-Dorrien thought he
had no option. For eight hours on the 26th his men, reinforced by
Snow's Division, but outnumbered in guns by nearly four to one, held
their own, until another envelopment was threatened by Von Kluck.
Fortunately the struggle had apparently exhausted the Germans;
Sordet's cavalry had ridden across Smith-Dorrien's front and protected
his left from envelopment; and the remnants of the three divisions
were able to withdraw. The retreat was harrowing enough, and the 1st
Gordons, missing their way in the dark, fell into the hands of the
Germans and were all killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. But Le
Cateau had taken the sting out of the German pursuit, and touch was at
last regained with French forces to the east, with a newly-formed
corps under D'Amade to the west, and with a Sixth French army which
Maunoury was collecting on the Somme. On the evening of Friday the
28th Smith-Dorrien reached the Oise between Chauny and Noyon and Haig
at La Fère. The First Army Corps had marched by Guise; the loss of a
detachment of Munsters by misadventure early on the 27th was redeemed
by the defeat on the 28th of two German columns by two brigades of
Allenby's cavalry led by Gough and Chetwode. That night the
Expeditionary Force had its first real sleep since Sunday, and next
day there were no marching orders.

The British Army had saved itself and a good deal else by its courage,
skill, and, above all, its endurance. But there was much that was lost
in men, material, and ground. The fortification of the French frontier
south and west of Mons was obsolete, and the country had been denuded