Snowbound as they were, the troops of the 36th Division passed several days in the most agreeable conditions. One day there might be snow-fall; the next might succeed with keen frost, but there was no lack of timber for fuel, and the amenities of civilization were very welcome to men who for five months had dwelt amid devastation. Training was practically impossible owing to the depth of the snow in the fields, but some musketry was carried out on a good rifle-range near Lucheux. The Artillery, having been relieved by that of the 63rd Division on Christmas Day, got no further than the Beaulencourt staging area, where it remained hemmed in by drifts. The rest was, as usual, all too short, particularly in view of the exhausted condition of the troops. Immediately after Christmas the Division was again on the move, to the area Corbie-Boves-Moreuil. Brigade groups went by rail, the transport by road, staging at Puchevillers and Contay. The latter met with difficulties equal to those following the relief. Many lorries were stuck in drifts. In some cases the trains even were considerably delayed. The British Army was extending its flank, taking over from the French a front far greater than it had ever held, even at the time of the German retirement of 1917, when its right had been on the Amiens-St. Quentin Road. This is not the place to discuss the wisdom of that extension, or supposing, as few will deny, that it was in itself reasonable, of its magnitude. Suffice it to say that Sir Douglas Haig now found himself seriously short of reserves. The relief of successive French divisions was being slowly effected, and the progress of the 36th Division was leisurely. It remained five days at rest in the Corbie area, where it was joined by its Artillery. Then it went slowly forward, _via_ Harbonnières, to the area of Nesle, a town left undamaged by the Germans in their retirement, into which they had herded civilians, old men, women, and children, from other towns and villages destroyed by them. Here Divisional Headquarters were established on January the 12th. That night the 107th Brigade relieved a regiment of the 6th French Infantry Division astride the Somme before St. Quentin, remaining under the orders of the French Divisional Commander. The night following the 109th Brigade relieved the other French regiment in line, command passing to General Nugent at 10 a.m. on the 14th, when Headquarters took over from those of the 6th French Division at Ollézy. The 108th Brigade was billeted in villages on the Ham-St. Quentin Road, with headquarters at Dury. The Divisional Artillery had been joined by the 14th Army Field Artillery Brigade. The relief of the French artillery was not complete till the 15th.