Once again there was a thick morning fog, under cover of which the German infantry broke suddenly {190} upon the One hundred and twenty-fifth French Division, north-east of Chauny, driving them back towards Abbecourt. This placed the British troops at Condren in a perilous position, but it was essential to hold the line of the Oise, and any abandonment of the bridge would have been fatal. The Fifty-eighth Division was ordered to stand fast therefore, and the 173rd Brigade was reinforced by the 16th and 18th Entrenching Battalions. These entrenching battalions are, it may be remarked, entirely apart from the Labour Corps, and were soldiers, well officered and organised, formed from those units which remained over after the re-organisation of the three-battalion brigades. Apart from these were the labour battalions who also in those hard days were occasionally the final weight which tilts the balance where the fate of armies and finally of empires was in the scale. Manfully they rose to the occasion, and the Empire owes them a very special word of thanks. During the afternoon all the British and French troops in this quarter passed over the Oise, mostly in the Abbecourt district, blowing up the bridges behind them and passing under the command of General Duchesne of the Sixth French Army. This left a blank upon the right of the Eighteenth Division upon the north of the river, but General Seely brought up his cavalry and endeavoured to cover it, while the Second Dismounted Cavalry Division was pushed out upon the left of the Fourteenth Division in the north, to preserve the connection between the Third and Eighteenth Corps. The Third Cavalry Division under General Harman was thrown in also at this point, and about 2.30, having mounted their horses, they charged most gallantly in order to re-establish {191} the line north of Villeselve on the front of the Ulster Division. The Royal Dragoons were prominent in this fine charge in which they sabred many of the enemy, took over 100 prisoners, and relieved the pressure upon the Irish Fusiliers of the 109th Brigade at a time when it was very heavy. The whole corps front was slowly falling back during the day, partly on account of the steady pressure of the German attack and partly in order to conform with the line to the north. The Fourteenth Division, moving south-west through Crisolles, found itself in the evening on the west side of the Noyon Canal, covering the two crossings at Haudival and Beaurains. A vamped-up detachment of stragglers and nondescripts under Colonel Curling were placed to fill up the gap between the Fourteenth Division and Noyon. The left of the Fourteenth Division at Guiscard was covered by General Harman's detachment, and it is characteristic of the adaptability of the British soldier that seventy Northumberland Hussars who had become cyclists were suddenly whipped off their machines, put upon horses and sent up to reinforce the thin ranks of the cavalry.