The 3rd Brigade was a little north of Crépy-en-Valois, and, without waiting for the enemy, themselves made a spirited advance for a short distance, and did excellent work with their R.F.A. against the German infantry. Soon after midnight on Wednesday, September 2nd, the Force continued its retirement. There may have been some little grumbling, and it became increasingly difficult to keep up the old fiction--now indeed a fact--about a "strategical retirement"; but, somehow or other, a genuine conviction was stealing through the ranks that at any moment the real end would come. If our men were very, very weary, so also were the enemy, and every day brought fresh evidence of the fact. Then, too, news came to us that the French (the 7th Army) were really tackling von Buelow's armies, and were doing well against them. That had a very inspiriting effect. Now the Force, or rather our left, was actually in sight of the outlying forts of Paris, about a dozen miles off. Great was the excitement, for, of course, everyone jumped to the conclusion that we were making for the capital. G.H.Q. was at Lagny-sur-Marne, just 15 miles due east of Paris. They actually got as far south as Melun, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, before the tide turned. If you look at these places on the picture-map you will see that, after Senlis was passed, the Force, instead of retiring straight on towards Paris, as it had been doing, now swung round, with the right flank of the First Corps as pivot, and marched in a south-easterly direction. Possibly the enemy imagined from this that their chance had come, and that they would now be able to slip in between our left and Paris. But the new French army was coming up from behind Paris, upon our left, to fill the gap and cover the approaches to the city. That swinging round movement to cross the River Marne was rather a risky business, for it meant marching for a certain distance across the enemy's front. However, it was successfully accomplished, and by the evening of September 3rd the Force was south of the river. That same afternoon our aircraft reported that the Germans had also swung eastwards, and were now apparently making for the large town of Château-Thierry, the point of division between our extreme right and the 5th French Army. The position in which the Force found themselves that evening was wellnigh hopeless from a defensive point of view. To make matters worse, we were very badly off for entrenching tools, the men having lost the greater part in the hurried retirement after the hard battle at the Wednesday. This question of entrenching tools was further complicated by the removal of our base to St. Nazaire, for that meant a much more serious difficulty in getting up supplies.