On September 11 the British were still advancing upon a somewhat
narrowed front. There was no opposition, and again the day bore a
considerable crop of prisoners and other trophies. The weather had
become so foggy that the aircraft were useless, and it is only when
these wonderful scouters are precluded from rising that a general
realises how indispensable they have become to him. As a wit expressed
it, they have turned war from a game of cards into a game of chess. It
was still very wet, and the Army was exposed to considerable privation,
most of the officers and men having neither change of clothing,
overcoats, nor waterproof sheets, while the blowing up of bridges on
the lines of communication had made it impossible to supply the wants.
The undefeatable commissariat, however, was still working well, which
means that the Army was doing the same. On the 12th the pursuit was
continued as far as the River Aisne. Allenby’s cavalry occupied Braine
in the early morning, the Queen’s Bays being particularly active, but
there was so much resistance that the Third Division was needed to make
the ground good. Gough’s Cavalry Division also ran into the enemy near
Chassemy, killing or capturing several hundred of the German infantry.
In these operations Captain Stewart, whose experience as an alleged
spy has been mentioned, met with a soldier’s death. On this day the
Sixth French Army was fighting a considerable action upon the British
left in the vicinity of Soissons, the Germans making a stand in order
to give time for their impedimenta to get over the river. In this they
succeeded, so that when the Allied Forces reached the Aisne, which is
an unfordable stream some sixty yards from bank to bank, the retiring
army had got across it, had destroyed most of the bridges, and showed
every sign of being prepared to dispute the crossing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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