Gun detachments held their posts till every man was killed or wounded; infantry who had neither rest nor sleep for days together, fought "back to back in the trenches, shooting both to front and rear." Occasional confusion, even local panic, occasional loss of communication and misunderstanding of orders, occasional incompetence and stupidity there must be in such a vast backward sweep of battle, but skill, purpose, superb bravery were never lacking in any portion of the field; and the German _communiques_ exultantly announcing the "total defeat of the British Armies" may be compared, _mutatis mutandis_, with the reports from German Headquarters just before the first battle of the Marne.
"The defeat of the English is complete," said the German High Command in the latter days of August, 1914.

"The English Army is retreating in the most complete disorder....

The British have been completely defeated to the north of St.Quentin"-- and so on.

And yet a week later, as General Maurice, with much fresh evidence, has lately shown, the Army thus disposed of on paper had rejoicingly turned upon von Kluck, and was playing a vital part in the great victory of the Marne.
So last spring, the losses and withdrawals of a vaster defensive action, coupled with the stubborn and tenacious hold of the British Army, last March and April, were the inevitable and heroic prelude to the victorious recoil of August, and the final battles of the war.
Inevitable, because no forethought or exertion on the British side could have averted the German onslaught, determined as it was by the breakdown of the whole Eastern front of the war, and the letting loose upon the Western front of immense forces previously held by the Russian armies.

These forces, after the Russian _debacle_, were released against us, week by week, till in March the balance of numbers, which was almost even in January, had risen on the German side to a superiority of 150,000 bayonets! The dispatch of divisions to Italy; the recall of men to the shipyards and the mines to meet the submarine danger; the heavy fighting in the Salient and at Cambrai in the latter half of 1917; the lack of time for training new levies, owing to our depleted line and reserves:--all these causes contributed to sharpen the peril in which England stood.[5] But it is in such straits as these that our race shows its quality.
[5] See the Chart at end of Book.
And in this fighting, for the first time in British history, and in the history of Europe, Americans stood side by side in battle with British and French.