CHAPTER 1X

THE RETREAT ON St QUENTIN
SEE MAP 1

The divisional lines of retirement were broadly as follows
Fifth Division - along the roman road via Estrees (where there was a halt of some hours)
to St Quentin.
Third Division - via Elincourt, Beaurevoir, Hargicourt, keeping to the northward of the
Roman Road.
Fourth Division - through Selvigny, Malincourt, Villers Outreaux, in other words along
to the northward of those used by the Third Division.

There is no doubt that some writers have exaggerated the scene, during the first stage of the retreat,
into a mere panic rout. Nothing could be further from the truth. The strain was bound to be felt
most along Roman road. All those bodies of troops which retired along the other roads to northward,
although they were considerably mixed up yet they marched in formation and were definitely under control.
Along the Roman road this was not the case, down that via Dolorsa swirled a rudderless horde of men,
guns, wagons, limber without guns, carts, riderless horses. As units came into this stream they were
engulfed in it, formations being broken up and cohesion lost. With nightfall it became harder to move
and numerous long checks took place.
Rain began to fall, the misery of hunger, thirst and extreme fatigue could hardly be borne.
Yet these men were soldiers still.
Wounded and exhausted men were assisted along by their comrades, other were carried on wagons, guns,
limbers and carts.
All kept their rifles and ammunition for none had abandoned themselves to despair. In fact it was not
a rout or panic, merely extreme confusion. Naturally no one who took part in it could ever forget that
Wednesday night.

Physical and mental weariness were alone enough to have put the finishing touch to any other army in
the world has ever seen. Yet these worn out, footsore officers and men, who had fought and marched
and fought again since Sunday morning trudged on along a dreary road that must have seemed to all
like one of those interminable ways in hell that Dante has described, sustained only by the knowledge
that it was their duty to keep moving until they could be organised once more in their old historic units.
Gradually with the dawn the staff began to straighten out this throng of men, by the time St Quentin
was finally passed units had been collected, columns had been reformed, the men had had some food and
they had began to realise the price the Germans had paid for attempting to attack them, their spirits
were rising. The tide had turned at last and although the time to advance was not yet the way was
being prepared for it. For the price of ultimate victory had been paid on Wednesday at Le Cateau by
these gallant officers and men of the Second Corps….

CHAPTER X

COMMENTS ON THE ACTION
For the Gunner and the student, the handling of the Artillery of the Second Corps in the action
of Le Cateau will always posses an interest entirely of its own.
The action was fought by the Regiment as we all knew it, by Brigades and Batteries with the old
familiar numbers and letters, by units trained in peace by those officers who then commanded them
in the field.
The training of the officers themselves was based on the doctrines emphasized in our training manuals.
Teaching that was now to be put into practice against the most powerful, the best armed and the best found army in the world.
This army for nearly half a century had been crowned with a legend of invincibility, a fiction
implicitly believed in by itself and one to which nearly all the rest of the world subscribed.
It was a myth for ever dissipated in smoke at Le Cateau, after it had been blown to shreds from
the lean mouth of our guns, thus on the allied side, Le Cateau possesses a first rate importance,
for it is the first milestone on the long road to victory.

The following marching details may be interesting -----
Fourth Division - between August 24/25 when it detrained in the neighbourhood of Le Cateau until
it reached Brie Comte Robert, south east of Paris on September 5th at the end of the retirement,
had marched 151 and half miles in 11 days.