A consideration of these facts induced the C. in C. to change his original intention of making a stand behind the Le Cateau road, and he decided to continue his retirement to the single line of rail which runs from St. Quentin to Roisel, where his force would be once more in line. This change of plan he communicated to his two Army Corps commanders, Sir Douglas Haig and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. The former fell in with it gladly; the latter, however, was not to the same extent a free agent, and he returned word that, in view of the immense superiority in numbers of the German forces, which were practically treading on his heels, and of the necessarily slow progress made by his tired troops, it was impossible to continue his retirement, and that he had no alternative but to turn and fight. To which the C. in C. replied that he must do the best he could, but that he could give him no support from the 1st A.C., that corps being effectively cut off by natural obstacles from the scene of action. As a matter of fact the 1st Division was a good thirty miles away to the east at Marbaix and Taisnières. The 2nd Division was nearer, but very much scattered, the 5th Brigade--owing to rear-guard scares--being still twenty miles behind at Leval, and quite out of the reckoning, as far as the impending battle was concerned. The 4th Brigade, on the other hand, in spite of its all-night fight at Landrecies, might, by super-human efforts, have crossed the Sambre during the night at the little village of Ors, and reached the flank of the Le Cateau battlefield towards eight on the following morning; but the wisdom of such a move would have been more than questionable in view of the complete exhaustion of the troops, and, in point of fact, no such order reached the brigade. The orders were to fall back on St. Quentin, and by the time the first shot was fired at Le Cateau, the brigade was well on its way to Etreux. Four miles further east, at Maroilles, the order to retire raised some doubts and a certain difference of opinion among the various commanders of the 6th Brigade as to the best route to be followed in order to arrive at the St. Quentin position. Local opinion was divided, and, in the end, the commanders assembled at midnight in the cemetery to decide the point, with the result that it was arranged that each C.O. should follow the road that seemed best to him. It will be seen then that the disposition of the 1st A.C. was such that the C. in C. by no means overstated the case when he told Sir Horace that he could give him no help from that quarter. The position of the 2nd A.C. was now very nearly desperate, and it is to be doubted whether Sir Horace or the C. in C. himself saw the dawn break on August 26th with any real hope at heart that the three divisions west of the Sambre could be saved from capture or annihilation.