They were warned, and, so far as their local means allowed, were prepared for the attack. Gas masks, machine guns, grenade stores--everything was ready. The order was to hold ground between the second and third positions or to die in the effort, and it was carried out. It was to be expected that the telephone wires would be cut. There remained carrier pigeons. A rolling barrage two miles deep and of indescribable violence extinguished the poor efforts of the local batteries to reply. Thick clouds of artificial smoke, gas, and dust shrouded the assault, so that rocket signals were not seen at the rear and the enemy was invisible till he reached the parapets. The line was almost immediately broken and the battle became a struggle of isolated groups, heavily outnumbered without the possibility of reinforcement, defending scraps of broken trench dugouts or quarries and still resisting long after the main tide of the conflict had passed south. A copy lies before me of messages dated from 3:30 to 8:30 A. M. and sent back from these isolated groups by pigeon. No words could be so eloquent as their laconic brevity. When permission to retreat was given some officers refused to avail themselves of it. The Colonel, with his staff papers, crossed the Aisne at 10 A. M. and organized the defense of the passage. The survivors of the regiment were re-formed on the south bank, and on the following day received a reinforcement of men, bringing it up to a quarter of its original strength. This handful had to meet the heavy attack southwest of Soissons on May 29, and a series of attacks on the following two days. No more was humanly possible, and they were withdrawn. They say that not a man had uttered a complaint. BATTLE OF THE OISE _A fourth phase of the German offensive opened June 9 on a front of 20 miles between Noyon and Montdidier, which Mr. Perris describes thus:_ A new phase of the German offensive opened this morning at 4:30 o'clock on a front of about twenty miles, extending from Montdidier to Noyon. The artillery preparation, which again was rich in gas shells, began at midnight, and covered not only the front, but a deep zone behind it, especially villages and roads where the enemy thought to catch the French local reserves. There were evident reasons for the choice of this sector, and in particular for seeking control of part of it, for a successful push south along the line of the Roye-Compiègne railway would add another converging road to the four roads leading toward Paris by the Oise, Aisne, Ourcq, and Marne Valleys, which had already been tried. On the other hand, the enemy could not reasonably hope for any such surprise as was obtained in the first act of the offensive before St. Quentin and in the third act of that on the Chemin des Dames.