This retirement foreshadowed the end of the battle.  Worn out by repeated repulses, the Germans had suffered too heavily to continue their attacks or to engage in an energetic pursuit.  According to General French’s estimate, the British losses during the trying period from August 23 to August 26, 1914, inclusive, were between 5,000 and 6,000 men, and the losses suffered by the Germans in their pursuit and attacks across the open country, owing largely to their dense formation, were much greater.  The Battle of Le Cateau gave the Germans pause.  Further retreat of the British could now be resumed in orderly array; for by now General Sordet with his cavalry was relieving the pressure on the British rear, and General D’Amade with his two reserve divisions from the neighborhood of Arras was attacking General von Kluck’s right, driving it back on Cambrai.  Disaster to the British forces was averted, though the peril of German interposition between the Allied army and Paris would soon compel still further withdrawals.

Covered by their gunners, but still under heavy fire of the German artillery, the British began again to retire southward.  Their retreat was continued far into the night of August 26, 1914, and through the 27th and 28th; on the last date—­after vigorous cavalry fighting—­the exhausted troops halted on a line extending from the French cathedral town of Noyon through Chauny to La Fere.  There they were joined by reenforcements amounting to double their loss.  Guns to replace those captured or shattered by the enemy were brought up to the new line.  There was a breathing space for a day, while the British made ready to take part in the next great encounter.

This fourth week in August marked a decisive period in the history of the Great War.  All the French armies, from the east to the west, as well as the British army, were in retreat over their frontiers.  To what resolution had the French commander in chief come?  That was the question on every lip.  What at that moment was the real situation of the French army?  Certainly the first engagements had not turned out as well as the French could have hoped.  The Germans were reaping the reward of their magnificent preparation for the war.  Their heavy artillery, with which the French army was almost entirely unprovided, was giving proof of its efficacy and its worth.  The moral effect of those great projectiles launched from great distances by the immense German guns was considerable.  At such great distances the French cannons of 75, admirable as they were, could make no effective reply to the German batteries.  The French soldiers were perfectly well aware that they were the targets of the great German shells while their own cannon could make no parallel impression on the enemy.

The German army revealed itself as an extraordinary instrument of war.  Its mobility and accouterments were perfect.  It had aver a hundred thousand professional non-commissioned officers or subofficers, admirably suited to their work, with their men marching under the control of their eye and finger.  In the German army the active corps, as well as the reserve carps, showed themselves, thanks to these noncommissioned officers, marvelously equipped.