Von Kluck's and Von Buelow's armies are still in full retreat; separated from the army of the Prince of Wurtemberg, with which they made a fragile connection by means of the Guard. The Guard themselves are perilously thrown back into the marshes of St. Gond. This is the real thing. The men are fighting more feebly; the machine has become human; the cavalry horses--no longer the fine spirited Irish stock I had myself to dodge in Belgium a few weeks back--are worn out. It is pitiable to see the tired beasts loose and useless in the fields, or dead skeletons by the roads. But the retreat has been fiercely contested. I followed to-day the line of the battles north from Meaux, passing by those of which I have previously written; guided by the forward movement of troops and the traces of the retreating armies. The retreat here roughly follows the line of the Ourcq. The battle has been fought with the French in desperate rearguard actions, at Vareddes, May, Beauval, Neufchelles. But nowhere can it be said an engagement began or ended. All along the road and through the adjoining fields it is the same terrible story--the trees scarred with shell, and the road littered with broken boughs: the fields scraped with hurried trenches: the stacks torn down for cover and holes scooped in their backs: the stark dead horses of artillery and cavalry lie in scores over the field and by the roads; and here and there still figures, or a cluster of figures in the German grey, still reproach the desolating injustice of war. The cyclists took a leading part in the pursuit, and scores of broken, charred frames marked where the German artillery found the range and caught their advance. At every rise in the road, especially beyond May, more serious defences had been prepared. Fortifications of earth and squared stones between trees and bank; and here and there a deep burrow into the bank, bespeaking the human weakness that sought extra cover. And behind these earthworks, in the holes they left, lie the still figures. Fresh, shallow mounds, where the peasants have buried the fallen where they fell, run along the rim of the hard road itself. The retreat, as it moved north, became almost a flight. Munition carts lie overturned, a machine-gun or two wrecked. Beside where the batteries swept the road, great piles of undischarged shells are still heaped, abandoned in the rush. More tragic evidences were the scattered heaps of sleeping blankets, flung aside as the men were wakened by the rapid surprise pursuit. Broadcast, bottles and barrels; the Prussians, for want of food, seem to have looted the villages for drink. It was the same in Belgium. A pitiable piano, with the works shot away, stood in a field, with a dead man and dog beside it. The instantaneous stillness of a past battlefield is its deepest impression. Every grim vestige is suggestive of violent movement and sound, but it is all snatched into silence.