It is not to be supposed that so huge a force was all moving abreast, or available simultaneously at any one point. None the less a General can use his advance corps very much more freely when he knows that every gap can be speedily filled. A tiny reinforcement had joined the Army on the morning after the battle of Mons. This was the 19th Brigade under General Drummond, which consisted of the 1st Middlesex, 1st Scots Rifles, 2nd Welsh Fusiliers, and 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. This detached brigade acted, and continued to act during a large part of the war, as an independent unit. It detrained at Valenciennes on August 23, and two regiments, the Middlesex and the Cameronians, may be said to have taken part in the battle of Mons, since they formed up at the east of Condé, on the extreme left of the British position, {85} and received, together with the Queen's Bays, who were scouting in front of them, the first impact of the German flanking corps. They fell back with the Army upon the 24th and 25th, keeping the line Jenlain--Solesmes, finally reaching Le Cateau, where they eventually took up their position on the right rear of the British Army. As the Army fell back, the border fortress of Maubeuge with its heavy guns offered a tempting haven of rest for the weary and overmatched troops, but not in vain had France lost her army in Metz. Sir John French would have no such protection, however violently the Germans might push him towards it. "The British Army invested in Maubeuge" was not destined to furnish the head-line of a Berlin special edition. The fortress was left to the eastward, and the tired troops snatched a few hours of rest near Bavai, still pursued by the guns and the searchlights of their persistent foemen. At an early hour of the 25th the columns were again on the march for the south, and for safety. It may be remarked that in all this movement what made the operation most difficult and complicated was, that in the retirement the Army was not moving direct to the rear, but diagonally away to the west, thus making the west flank more difficult to cover as well as complicating the movements of transport. It was this oblique movement which caused the Third Division to change places with the Fifth, so that from now onwards it was to the west of the Army. The greater part of the Fourth Division of the Third Army Corps, coming up from the lines of communication, brought upon this day a welcome {86} reinforcement to the Army and did yeoman work in covering the retirement. The total composition of this division was as follows:-- THIRD ARMY CORPS GENERAL PULTENEY. DIVISION IV.--General SNOW. 10_th Infantry Brigade--General Haldane_. 1st Warwicks. 2nd Seaforths. 1st Irish Fusiliers. 2nd Dublin Fusiliers. 11_th Infantry Brigade--General Hunter-Weston_. 1st Somerset L. Infantry. 1st East Lancashires. 1st Hants. 1st Rifle Brigade.