By the late afternoon of March 23 the bulk of the Nineteenth Corps was across the Somme. The Germans had followed closely, and there was rearguard fighting all the way in which the Fiftieth Division slowed down the pursuit of the enemy. The officers who were entrusted with the defence of the line of river soon realised that they had a difficult task, for the dry weather had shrunk it into insignificance in this section, and owing to trees and thick undergrowth the fields of fire were very limited, while the thin line of defenders scattered over some twelve miles of front offered, even after the advent of the Eighth Division, an ineffective screen against the heavy advance from the east. Heneker's Eighth Division, a particularly fine unit consisting entirely of Regular battalions, had made heroic exertions to reach the field of battle, and fitted itself at once into its correct position in that very complicated operation in a way which seemed marvellous to soldiers on the spot. In the evening of March 23 a number of Germans, some of them cavalry, were observed upon the farther side of the Somme and were heavily punished by artillery fire. None got across before dark, but during the night numerous bodies established themselves upon the western side. Local reserves had {129} been placed near the probable crossings, and these in several cases hunted the enemy across again; but the fact was that the river could be forded anywhere, and that a German concentration on a given point could always overpower the thin local defence. The line of resistance was further weakened by the First Cavalry Division, which had linked up the Nineteenth Corps with the Eighteenth Corps on the south, being now ordered to join the Seventh Corps in the north. The general order of the troops at this moment was, that the newly arrived Eighth Division was on the extreme right touching elements of the Eighteenth Corps at Bethencourt and extending with the aid of one brigade of the Fiftieth as far as Eterpigny, nearly eight miles. From Eterpigny to Biaches, south of Peronne, were the remains of the Sixty-sixth Division, covering about four miles, and joining the Thirty-ninth Division on the right of the Seventh Corps near that point. The Twenty-fourth was lining up between Hattencourt and Chaulnes. [Sidenote: Nineteenth Corps. March 24. March 25.]