Even if the local pressure had not caused a rapid withdrawal at this portion of the line, it would have been enforced by the general strategic position, for the German advance in the south had been so masterful that on this night of March 25 Roye was taken, which is far to the south-west of Nesle. The 61st Brigade had been sharing the hard fortunes of the Thirty-sixth Division, but now, as the latter had been drawn out, it was restored to the Twentieth Division. So severe had been the strain upon it that it only numbered about 500 bayonets, and some battalions, {169} such as the 2/6th Royal Warwicks, had not a single combatant officer left standing. None the less, it was at once sent to man a supporting line stretching through Gruny, Cremery, and Liancourt, and had hardly reached it before the Germans were also at Liancourt. The brigade held them, however, and so enabled the front line to fall back upon an organised position whence, on the next morning, a swift retreat became necessary. After dark on March 25 the One hundred and thirty-third French Division had come up to relieve the Twentieth and Sixty-first, but the situation was such along the line of the Nesle Canal that no fixed line could be formed, and the three divisions were finally greatly mixed up in the darkness and there was a good deal of confusion in their councils, since the general directions of the French were to fall back to the south, while the line of retreat of the British lay rather to the west. There was little time for deliberation, for word had come in that the Germans were closing in upon Liancourt, pressing south and west, in a way which threatened to cut off the whole forward line. At midnight, the British, many of them hardly able to move for fatigue, staggered off in such formations as they could assemble, with orders to concentrate north and east of Roye. Thanks largely to the presence of the remnants of the 61st Brigade near Liancourt, this most hazardous march was successfully accomplished, but as Roye was within the grasp of the enemy the movement was continued so as to reach a line between Hangest and Le Quesnel. The Germans were close upon them in the north, so the 61st Brigade, now down to 400 men, acted as flankguard, fending off their constant attacks. {170} The war has shown few finer instances of disciplined and tenacious valour than in the case of the three handfuls of men who represented what had once been the 12th King's, 7th Somersets, and 7th Cornwalls. The enemy were in Liancourt, and their patrols were in actual hand-to-hand fighting with a French detachment aided by some of the Somersets. Other German troops pouring down from the north and using to the utmost the gap which had opened between the corps, endeavoured to cut in and to seize Le Quesnoy (not to be confused with Le Quesnel towards which the troops were marching). It was, however, upon their line of retreat, and about halfway to their destination, so that a German