A second accident was the drying up of the Oise Marshes at a time when in a normal year they might have been reckoned on to stop the enemy's advance.

A third piece of ill-luck was the fact that in the newest section of the British line, where the enemy attack broke at its hottest, there had been no time, since it had been given over to us by the French--who had held it lightly, as a quiet sector, during the winter--to strengthen its defences, and to do the endless digging, the railway construction, and the repair of roads, which might have made a very great difference.

And, finally, there was the most dangerous accident of all--the break through of the Portuguese line at Richebourg St.Vaast, just as the tired division holding it was about to be relieved.

Of that accident, as we all remember, the enemy, hungry for the Channel ports, made his very worst and most; till the French and British fought him to a final stand before Hazebrouck and Ypres.
[Illustration: _British Official Photograph_ The St.Quentin Canal which was crossed by the 46th in life-belts.] Meanwhile, the strategic insight of Marshal Foch, who assumed complete control of the Allied Armies in France and Belgium on March 26th, combined with the experienced and cool-headed leadership of the British Commander-in-Chief, refused to dissipate the French reserves, so important to the future course of the war, in any small or piecemeal reinforcement of the British lines.

The risks of the great moment had to be taken, and both the French and British Commanders had complete faith in the capacity of the British Army to meet them.