In the first three days of the drive the Germans with the greatest auxiliary force of tanks, machine guns, and poison gas projectors they had ever mobilized employed twenty-five divisions, or 325,000 men. When they doubled their base line and had reached the Marne and were trying to deploy they were using forty divisions containing over 400,000 of their best troops. When the offensive quieted down in the first days of June it was estimated that they had lost fully 30 per cent. of the total in casualties. On the other hand, they claimed to have captured over 45,000 prisoners and taken 400 guns. They had come thirty miles and had occupied 650 square miles of territory. But they were held. What is the explanation of this seeming paradox? Foch could by calling on a certain number of reserves easily have held the Chemin des Dames until--he had been flanked and enfiladed out, between Neufchatel and Rheims on the east and from the Oise where it enters the Aisne on the west. He might have held out longer on the southern bank of the Aisne, but the result would have been the same--losses equaling if not surpassing those of the enemy and the surrender of thousands of guns and large quantities of war material. Finally, he would have gained nothing and might even have been unable to hold the Marne. It is obvious that he did none of these things. But what did he do? He left his front protected by only sufficient men and guns to produce the greatest possible losses among the enemy as he slowly advanced south and concentrated heavily on the enemy's flanks. It was he and not Ludendorff who decreed that the Germans should reach the Marne between Dormans and Château-Thierry, and nowhere else. But it was Pétain who executed the plans of Foch. THE FIGHT IN DETAIL The German attack under the personal command of the Crown Prince launched on the morning of May 27 was mainly directed against the British 8th, 50th, 25th, and 21st Divisions and the French 6th Army, which occupied the front from Vauxaillon eastward to the Brimont region--from north of Soissons to the north and a little west of Rheims. Certain sectors at once gave way under the strong pressure--particularly in the Chambrettes. There was no mistaking this for the main offensive, although in the Lys salient, between Ypres and Arras in the north, and on both sides of the Somme and the Ardre in the centre, there were simultaneous artillery preparations of great violence. Toward the end of the day the weight of the enemy's attacks carried his troops across both the River Aisne and the Chemin des Dames. The line, however, remained unbroken, as the Allies retreated across the Aisne between Vailly and Berry-au-Bac, which are eighteen miles apart, and then gave way across the Vesle near Fismes.