I had nearest me the German aeroplane, which fell in the
English lines. The officer in charge with it had with him a child of six
years old, who was also a German. They were only wounded.
After St. Quentin were with the English troops under the orders of the
English Headquarters Staff.
The rumours which tell of German defeats must be false, because
the English troops retire, and we evacuate Longuart, where we
destroy the station and the railway lines.
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.
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