10

The retreat of the British army—­it is amazing to think that there were only 45,000 men who had tried to stem the German avalanche—­was developing into a run.  Only some wild fluke of chance (the pious patriot sees God’s hand at work, while the cynic sees only the inefficiency of the German Staff) saved it from becoming a bloody rout.  It is too soon even now to write the details of it.  Only when scores of officers have written their reminiscences shall we have the full story of those last days of August, when a little army which was exhausted after many battles staggered hard away from the menace of enormous odds seeking to envelop it.  It was called a “retirement in good order.”  It was hardly that when the Commander-in-Chief had to make a hurried flight with a mounted escort, when the Adjutant-General’s department, busy in the chateau of a French village, suddenly awakened to the knowledge that it had been forgotten and left behind (I heard a personal story of the escape that followed the awakening), and when companies, battalions, and regiments lost touch with each other, were bewildered in dark woods and unknown roads, and were shelled unexpectedly by an enemy of whose whereabouts they had now no definite knowledge.  The German net of iron was drawing tighter.  In a few hours it might close round and make escape impossible.  General Allenby’s division of cavalry had a gallop for life, when the outposts came in with reports of a great encircling movement of German horse, so that there was not a moment to lose if a great disaster were to be averted.  It was Allenby himself who led his retreat at the head of his division by the side of a French guide carrying a lantern.

For twenty miles our cavalry urged on their tired horses through the night, and along the sides of the roads came a struggling mass of automobiles, motor-cycles, and motor-wagons, carrying engineers, telegraphists and men of the Army Service Corps.  Ambulances crammed with wounded who had been picked up hurriedly from the churches and barns which had been used as hospitals, joined the stampede, and for many poor lads whose heads had been broken by the German shells and whose flesh was on fire with frightful wounds, this night-ride was a highway of torture which ended in eternal rest.

All the way the cavalry and the convoys were followed by the enemy, and there were moments when it seemed inevitable that the strength of the horses would give out and that the retreating force would be surrounded.  But as we know now, the enemy was exhausted also.  Their pursuit was a chase by blown horses and puffed men.  They called a halt and breathed heavily, at the very time when a last gallop and a hard fight would have given them their prize—­the flower of the British army.