As the corps turned to face the enemy upon the south side of the canal the general line of battle showed the 41st Brigade just south of St. Simon, connected up on the left by the only surviving battalion of the 42nd Brigade with the 61st Brigade of the Twentieth Division who were in support of {179} the Thirty-sixth Ulsters at that place. Then came the 43rd and 54th Brigades, facing Jussy and Mennessis with the 3rd and 5th Dismounted Cavalry Brigades in support. South of this point were the 4th Cavalry Brigade, the 55th Brigade, and the 53rd Brigade, all in the Frières area. Then came the 173rd Brigade in the Vouel neighbourhood with the 18th Entrenching Battalion and the 6th Dismounted Cavalry Brigade. This force had already lost heavily, and many of the men were suffering from gas, but they were sustained by the certainty that French reinforcements would speedily reach them from the south, as a system of mutual lateral support had been agreed upon between the commanders. A line of trenches had been begun in this neighbourhood by the French some time before, and it had been carried on by Italian labour, but it was still very unfinished, with many gaps, so that the tired soldiers had to lay down their rifles and take to their trenching tools to get some cover. It was already clear that they would need it, for with early daybreak on March 22 the Germans showed that they had reached the north bank of the canal at Jussy. It was again very misty, and they were able to bring up their machine-guns and small artillery with perfect impunity and place them under cover. It was not until between 10 and 11 A.M. that the mist began to lift, and the British outposts peering through it could see the flash of the guns among the plantations on the farther side. At an earlier hour the Germans had tried to cross at Jussy, but had been driven back. It was already evident, however, that they were in a position to repair the bridges in such a way as to find a passage wherever they desired. The general {180} situation might be described as a curious reproduction of the first action of the war when the two armies lay upon either side of the Mons Canal. The French Sixth Army on the right had acted with loyal promptitude, and the One hundred and twenty-fifth Division, under General Diebold, was already moving up from the south. One would have imagined that the most efficient relief would have been to replace the two British brigades in the south of the Oise, and so re-unite the Fifty-eighth Division. For some reason this was not done, and General Worgan's 173rd Brigade continued to be a lone unit. A very welcome reinforcement consisted of nine batteries of French 75's. It was understood also that the whole Fifth French Corps, under General Pellé, was due at Noyon that evening, and that the Third British Corps would be relieved by it as soon as possible, but further help was slow in materialising.