The French on the left were resisting like masses with the same bravery; contact was lost with them for a short time, as also with the British 25th and 8th Divisions further east, and as the men fell back a front could be preserved only by a converging retreat toward the south by night. When the hills north of Vosle were reached the 50th Division had lost a number of its officers and other ranks. The British centre, consisting of part of the 25th and 8th Divisions, was more fortunate. The 25th had been in reserve, and its support in the low and difficult ground at the east end of the Aisne Valley was most important. It and the 8th maintained their second positions till late in the afternoon. On the right the 21st Division, together with the neighboring French division, had to defend the line of the canal from Berry-au-Bac to Bermericourt against the onset of four German divisions, aided by the strongest fleet of tanks the enemy has yet put into the field. This northwestern edge of the great plain of Champagne is very favorable ground for the use of cars of assault, and it was here that the French made their first experiments with indifferent results that have since been greatly bettered. These two British and French divisions had the advantage of a line of heights with batteries and perfect observation behind them. They held out obstinately till the retreat of the left made it necessary to move southward. DESTRUCTION OF SOISSONS May 30.--During last night the enemy took Fère-en-Tardenois and drove the allied rearguards back to Vesilly, whence the line ran this morning northeast to the outskirts of Rheims. As the Marne is thus brought into the picture, it is pertinent to point out that in the famous battle of September, 1914, the Germans reached to more than thirty miles south of the river in this region. This is at present their strongest push. The road from Soissons to Compiègne is closed to them, but further south they have got to the road Soissons-Hartennes. Lest it be thought that the allied reserves are slow in coming into play, I may point out that the front of the offensive has been nearly doubled in length in the last three days. At the outset it was about thirty-five miles. It is now sixty. Merely to make good losses and to provide a screen of troops along this greater extent, with everything in movement, has required effort. At midnight on May 26 the battlefront was ten miles away from Soissons. The few civilian inhabitants and the many hospital patients had settled down to sleep, the usual hour for airplane raids having passed. An hour later they and the few army bureaus in the neighborhood were aroused by a sudden outbreak of bombardment, such as they had never heard before, and soon afterward shells began to crash upon the town.