We captured a number of prisoners during this advance to the Ourcq. The 9th Brigade alone took 600 north of Germigny, and at Haute Vesnes the 6th Brigade captured 400 and put as many more _hors de combat_, the 1st K.R.R., who were well supported by the 50th Battery R.F.A., being the main contributors to this result. In all, we took over 2,000 prisoners that day and many guns. The woods were everywhere full of stragglers, many of whom were only too glad to surrender. Others, however, put up a fight and were only taken after a stubborn resistance. On the 11th Gen. Joffre shifted the advance half a point to the east, the effect of which was to narrow the front of the British troops and so cause a good deal of congestion on the few roads at our disposal. On this day a sudden and very abominable change came over the weather, the wind chopping round to the north-west, and the temperature dropping in one day from great heat to bitter cold. Rain fell continuously, and there was wide-spread lamentation over the greatcoats thrown away in the heat of the Mons retreat. THE PASSAGE OF THE AISNE On September 12th the battle of the Aisne may be said to have begun. The first and second stages of the war, the retreat from Mons, and the advance from the Grand Morin, were of the past. The third stage--the passage and occupation of the Aisne by our troops--covers a period of some four weeks, the greater part of which was, comparatively speaking, barren of incident. The first three days, however, were eventful, and the 14th saw one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the war. This will be dealt with in its place. The 12th saw the first real check to our fifty-mile advance. Very early in the day it became apparent to our commanders that the retreat of the Germans had been in accordance with a plan pre-arranged (in the event of certain happenings) and that the pursued now definitely stood at bay. The situation was not one to encourage a reckless offensive. A wide valley some two miles across, down the centre of which wound the sluggish Aisne, now swollen and discoloured by the rains; steep down-like bluffs on either side of the valley, furrowed by deep-cut roads that twisted down to the lower ground--the bluffs in many places thickly and picturesquely wooded. To the west Soissons, to the east Rheims; and in face, on the opposite slope, the great German Army. It was not known at the time that, on the Craonne plateau crowning the slopes opposite, the forethought of the Germans had prepared in advance a complete system of very elaborate trenches, of a kind then new to warfare, but since horribly familiar. These were supplemented in many cases by the old stone quarries and caves which run the length of the heights.