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 corner, the army under Langle was thrust back to the position here shown, and pressed there by the Wurtembergers and the Saxons opposed to it.  Meanwhile further French forces, D and E, had also been driven back from the Upper Meuse, and were retiring with Verdun as a pivot, leaving isolated the little frontier town of Longwy.  This was not seriously fortified, had held out with only infantry work and small pieces, and had not been thought worthy of attack by a siege train.  It surrendered to the Crown Prince upon Friday, 28th August.

[Illustration:  Sketch 61.]

[Illustration:  Sketch 62.]

On that date, then, the two opposing lines might be compared, the one to a great encircling arm AA, the elbow of which was bent at Guise, the other to a power BB which had struck into the hollow of the elbow, and might expect, with further success, to bend the arm so much more at that point as to embarrass its general sweep.