After such a disaster, it was found necessary to abandon a great amount of terrain to maintain a junction between the two British armies. Péronne and Bapaume were soon captured by the Germans, and on March 27 the Germans reported the occupation of Albert. On the same day Roye and Noyon were taken. On the next day the Germans had pushed as far west as Pierrepont and taken possession of Montdidier. As was to be expected in such a retreat, there soon was a large toll of British guns and prisoners. On March 29 the Germans claimed 1,100 guns and 70,000 prisoners. They had also captured great quantities of material and 100 tanks. These were heavy losses, but such losses were not the really serious element in the situation. A study of the map will show that, as the 5th Army retreated toward the west, there was left an increasingly long sector south of Noyon and curving north, west of Montdidier to the Avre River--and it was necessary that this dangerous opening should be protected by the French reserves. With extraordinary rapidity and efficiency French troops were rushed to this region, and the almost impossible task was accomplished of repairing the defense. But the drain on the French reserves had been heavy, and the necessity to use them for this purpose had neutralized a force that had been prepared for a different object against such a German drive. That these reserves were being held as a mobile army was so generally known that, it will be remembered, there was daily expectation of a counterattack by this force. There is no need to point out how great might have been the results of an assault upon an enemy exhausted by days of fighting; but any such plan was rendered impossible at the time by the need to use these troops to defend the new line, which was nearly as long as the original battle line at the time of the attacks on March 21. FOCH MADE GENERALISSIMO Yet, on the other hand, from this battle's costly object lesson in the weakness of divided commands, came at last the appointment of the French General, Foch, (March 28,) to absolute command over all the armies of the Allies on the western front. For a long time a single command has been the one great need to insure military efficiency, and obtaining this is an offset against the losses in the battle which brought such a command into being. Throughout the war the great outstanding element of failure for the Allies has been lack of co-ordination. The varying aims of the different nations in the war have accounted for this to a great degree, but on the battlefields of France there should have been no delay in giving the command to the chosen General of the nation which had everything at stake. All the influence of the United States had been exerted for a long time in favor of a single command, and at once the unrestricted use of the American force in France was offered to General Foch.