In general direction, though not in scope or possible results, owing to the coast line being reached by the Allies, the parallel [Transcriber: original 'parellel'] is complete. The Japanese force concerned, however, was much smaller than ours and the distance covered by it was less than that from the Aisne to the Franco-Belgian frontier. Gen. Oku's troops, moreover, marched, whereas ours were moved by march, rail, and motor. What was implied in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy along the Aisne will be appreciated when the conditions under which we were then situated are recalled. In places the two lines were not one hundred yards apart, and for us no movement was possible during daylight. In some of the trenches which were under enfilade fire our men had to sit all day long close under the traverses--as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from lateral fire. Even where there was cover, such as that afforded by depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce bursts of machine gun and shell fire. The men in the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a time, and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for none could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not be removed until dark. The preliminary retirement of the units was therefore carried out gradually, under cover of darkness. That the Germans only once opened fire on them while so engaged was due to the care with which the operation was conducted, and also, probably, to the fact that the enemy were so accustomed to the recurrence of the sounds made by the reliefs of the men in the firing line and by the movement of the supply trains below that they were misled as to what was actually taking place. What the operation amounted to on our part was the evacuation of the trenches, under carefully made arrangements with the French who had to take our place in the trenches; the retirement to the river below--in many cases down a steep slope; the crossing of the river over the noisy plank roadways of floating or repaired bridges, which were mostly commanded by the enemy's guns--and the climb up to the top of the plateau on the south side. The rest of the move was a complicated feat of transportation which cut across some of the lines of communication of our allies; but it requires no description here. In spite of the various difficulties, the whole strategic operation of transferring the large number of troops from the Aisne was carried out without loss and practically without a hitch.