Regiment, who stated that they had lost three entire companies in their first advance upon Mezières. This spirited counter-attack was covered by the guns of the Fiftieth Division which, under Major Johnson, had worked very hard during those last trying days. About 2 o'clock on March 29 Watts' Corps was reinforced by another skeleton division, the Eighteenth--2000 bayonets, in all. It was merged with the Sixty-first and placed in the Berteaucourt-Bois de Blangy line. The thin ranks of the Twenty-fourth were still able to muster at the south end of the position, but only one brigade of the Eighth Division, the Twenty-fifth, was in a condition for service. This unit moved to the edge of Moreuil Wood, and co-operated with the French One hundred and thirty-third Division which was holding the line at that point. From this time onwards the Moreuil-Ailly-sur-Noye Road and everything south of it was French. As the British force dwindled its front also contracted, otherwise the situation would have indeed been impossible. As it was, it continued to be desperately critical, for beyond the telescoping of units and the contraction of front there was no help for the British line, while the assailants were still very numerous and aggressive. About noon on this day, March 29, the Thirty-ninth Division, and indeed the whole army, sustained a severe loss in the person of General Feetham, a leader of great valour and experience, who was killed by a shell while walking with Colonel {148} Gosset, his chief of staff, in the village of Demuin. His death was to some extent revenged at once by his devoted troops, for a German attack which followed at once down the valley of the Luce was driven back with heavy loss by the rifles of the infantry. General Feetham was replaced next day by General Blacklock. It is a remarkable fact that Feetham was the second commander of the Thirty-ninth Division killed within a fortnight, for General Cape, his _locum tenens_, fell upon the 13th of March. [Sidenote: Nineteenth Corps. March 30.]