Points that had fallen to the Germans--Fossoy, La Chapelle, St. Agnan, Bois de Condé, Crezancy, and Mézy--were recovered with French aid. By 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Germans had been driven to the railroad track skirting the south bank of the Marne. There they took up positions; but there was no pause for them. The American gunners got the range of the landing places, where the Germans had stretched cables by which they hauled boats across the swollen stream, and there was no retreat in the way they had come. The Americans pursued them behind the railroad embankment. Slowly the graycoats were forced back. Some of them swam the Marne to safety, but their number was few. Many of them were drowned in the river. The Americans in front were on open ground, making the best use of whatever shelter offered. German forces were on the hills on the opposite side of the river, showering high explosives and gas shells upon them, but the Americans went forward, nevertheless, with gas masks adjusted, and crawling at times for a considerable distance on all fours. In this way they advanced bit by bit, and when they came within range close enough they drove the enemy back. The Germans retained some precarious positions south of the Marne; but they were completely swept back across the river between Château-Thierry and Jaulgonne. They were driven where they were before the advance began. They vented their wrath the next morning by sending thousands of high explosive and noxious gas shells into the American lines. They had set out to swing their line northeast of Château-Thierry; but it still swung northwest, and presently it was to swing much farther back. The American losses were serious, as was to be expected in the most important action in which the Americans had yet engaged. In return, however, they exacted a toll from the Germans that made their losses seem light. It was estimated that they killed, wounded, or captured 20,000 of the enemy. Hundreds of the latter were slain while retreating across the Marne. One battalion of the 6th German Grenadiers, according to prisoners, was annihilated in the woods, and of the other battalion only one company survived. The south bank of the Marne was lined with German dead, while in the woods south of Mézy, through which the Germans advanced and retreated, 5,000 enemy dead lay, some bodies three and four deep where they had dared, in close formation, the American machine guns. There were sporadic counterattacks, which were readily repulsed by the Americans and French. The lines wavered back and forth, and then came a sudden shift of the pivot of the entire German action in the Soissons-Rheims salient. The Marne was no longer an object to be gained, but rather a danger to flee from. CHAPTER LV FORWARD WITH FOCH