On the roads choked with retreating columns and fleeing refugees, where military trucks and civilian cars were inextricably mingled, soldiers talked of their misgivings during the waits, often hours long, for jammed highways to be cleared so that traffic could resume its interminable southward crawl. Scores of times, caught in such blocks, I heard soldiers or officers say: “Why are we constantly ordered to retreat? We haven’t been in any real engagement since the Somme. We’re not afraid to fight, but the retreat orders keep us moving to the rear as fast as we can get over these encumbered roads. What is the cause of this continual flight? Aren’t they ever going to establish a line of resistance and order us to hold it?” They never did. One June 16, two days after Paris had been occupied by the Germans, I found myself on the right bank of the Loire, at the Nevers bridge. My car, heavily loaded with the members of my family and all our luggage, had developed motor trouble. Our most urgent need was to get across that river; for we supposed of course, that the retreating troops would stop on the other side of the natural line of defense constituted by the Loire, which it should have been possible to hold for weeks, and possibly forever. Across that bridge, we thought, lay safety. We tried to persuade passing cars to tow us across. All of them, civilian and military vehicles alike, passed us by. Their occupants intent on the pursuing Germans, had no thought for anything except to get across that bridge themselves. So we all got out except a young girl who took the steering wheel, and pushed the car over what seemed to be the longest bridge in the world. We felt better when we got to the other side, with the wide river between us and the enemy. I found a colonel supervising the retreat of his troops, and asked him if he could direct me to the officer in charge of the sector, thinking that he could probably let me have a mechanic to repair the car. “There is no officer in charge here,” the colonel said. “We are all passing through without stopping, so there is no organization at this point. I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you. You had better get out of here as quickly as you can. The Germans will probably be here in an hour.” From these words I realized with a shock that the defense of the left bank of the Loire was not even being considered, and that the army was retreating indefinitely. I looked up and down the long banks of the river. There were no fortified positions whatsoever. I saw only one lonely soldier standing by the side of a machine gun. He seemed to be wondering whether he had been forgotten there.