The British Army had now in twelve days covered a distance from Mons of 140 miles as the crow flies, and of considerably more as troops march. During these twelve days two pitched battles had been fought, in addition to many rear-guard actions and cavalry skirmishes. The bulk of the fighting had so far fallen on the 2nd A.C., whose casualties already amounted to 350 officers and 9,200 men. However, the long, demoralizing retreat had now at last reached the turning-point. At Rebaix we picked up 2,000 fresh troops belonging to the 6th Division. These had been trained up from the mouth of the Loire, Havre being no longer reckoned safe, and were a welcome stiffening to the footsore veterans from Mons. The period that follows is familiarly known as the battle of the Marne, a broad classification which--as such--is allowable, but which is apt to mislead. In the strict sense there was no battle during the British advance. The fighting that took place between September 5th and September 14th was desultory, and was chiefly in the nature of independent and--to a great extent--disconnected engagements, mostly of the advance guard and rear-guard type. The tributaries of the Marne, the Grand Morin and the Petit Morin were each defended, the latter as stubbornly as was the Marne itself, and, in point of fact, some of the hardest fighting which the advancing army met with was on the 10th, after the Marne had been left well behind. The advance at first was slow and cautious. When an army has for fourteen days been systematically falling back before an enemy, the only casualties within its ken are its own. It may be assumed--and with every right--that there are also killed and wounded among the pursuing force. But they are never seen. Only khaki-clad figures fill the field ambulances; only khaki-clad figures are left behind in the hospitals, and in the cemeteries and roadside trenches. The ever-swelling roll of "missing" is all on one side. There are no missing among those who pursue. In such circumstances, to the tired soldier-mind the pursuing enemy becomes in time invested with a species of invulnerability. At the end of fourteen days that enemy has assumed an altogether fictitious value for evil; it becomes a death-dealing engine, relentlessly sweeping up wounded and stragglers, and itself showing no scars; it inspires an all but superstitious dread. To such a frame of mind the sight of a few grey-clad figures stretched upon the ground and a few groups of grey-clad prisoners marching to the rear acts as a very salutary tonic. The scales drop from the eyes; the glamour of the unknown fades away, and the enemy sinks from its apotheosis to the level of mere mortal clay. It took two days for this new spirit to get hold of the British force feeling its way northward. Then it got confidence and began to push; and in exact ratio to the vigour of its push was the tale of prisoners and guns captured.