A day's march away from Ypres is the ford where, two thousand years ago, Cæsar was in dire peril of being overwhelmed by the Nervii.[79] In that battle he snatched a shield from a soldier, and, plunging into the fray, rallied the Roman army, and turned defeat into victory. It was now Sir John French's part to play the part of Cæsar. He jumped into his motor car and sped towards the 1st Division. He found Sir Douglas Haig riding up and down trying to learn what had happened, and to settle what was to be done. As commander-in-chief and general greeted each other, orderlies, one after the other, rode up with the news that the British line was broken, that regiments were in retreat, that Gheluvelt had at last been taken, and that the Germans were advancing in overwhelming force. It was the most critical moment of the great battle. The 7th Division was now ordered to retreat, and this exposed the left flank of the French division on their right. It was under the command of General Moussy, who was struggling hard to keep his line intact. He had come to the assistance of the British at the very moment when all seemed lost, just as the French had come to the aid of the British at Inkerman[80] sixty years before. He was now terribly assailed, and again and again it seemed that his line must be staved in. At one point the Germans nearly broke through, and without reinforcements they could not be held back. Immediately the general sent off a corporal of his escort to scour the country, and to bring up every man that he could lay hold of. The corporal dismounted the sixty-five men of the general's escort, and called on lorry drivers, motor men, servants, cooks, anybody and everybody he saw to join him. With this motley array, many of them unarmed, he hurried to the trenches, and in a few minutes his scratch force was making a bayonet charge, practically without bayonets. The Germans thought that reinforcements had arrived, and therefore retired. This incident will remind you of the turning-point in the Battle of Bannockburn,[81] six hundred years before. While the English were struggling to break the Scottish line, they thought they saw a new army approaching. What they really saw was a band of camp followers and servants who had made banners of sheets and blankets tied to sticks and tent poles. They had formed themselves into ranks, and were now marching down a hill towards the battle. At this sight the English broke and fled. When General Moussy's corporal came up with his scratch regiment of 250 men the old incident of Bannockburn was repeated.