Copies of the original reports made out by observers before and during the retreat from Mons are preserved in the war diary of headquarters, Royal Flying Corps. It is not possible to say when each of these reports reached General Headquarters; they were sent in as soon as possible after the machines landed--some of them at once by telephone. When the reports are systematically mapped out, day by day, they give a fairly accurate picture of the German advance and throw light on the German plans. General von Kluck speaks more than once of driving the British army before him, but the complete map of the German movements, as they were reported day by day from the air, shows that his predominant idea was to envelop them. Always the crab-like claw is seen extended to the west and beginning to close in on the line of the British retreat; always the British army is already at a point farther south on the line, out of the reach of the claw. When with swollen and blistered feet and half asleep on the march, the patient British soldier carried on, he was doing more to defeat the Germans than he could have done if his dearest wish had been granted and he had been allowed to make a desperate stand. It is a wonderful army that can suffer the long depression and fatigue of such a retreat and yet keep its fighting quality unimpaired. Von Kluck's advance after the battle of Le Cateau was directed to the south-west. Speaking of the situation on the 28th. of August, he says, 'The occupation of the Somme area marked the conclusion of the fighting with the British Army for the time being. In spite of the great efforts of the First Army the British had escaped the repeated attempts to envelop them. They continued their retreat southwards.' On the same day the headquarters of the German army propounded a new task. 'The left wing of the main French forces', they wrote, 'is retreating in a southerly and south-westerly direction in front of the victorious Second and Third Armies. It appears to be of decisive importance to find the flank of this force, whether retreating or in position, force it away from Paris, and outflank it. Compared with this new objective the attempt to force the British Army away from the coast is of minor importance.' The German Supreme Command were giving most of their attention to the operations on their left wing, where the Fifth and Sixth German Armies were converging for the attack on Nancy, which town, when it fell, was to witness the triumphal entry of the German Emperor. Meantime, the French, trusting to the strength of their eastern fortifications, were rapidly taking troops away from their eastern armies to form a new French army, the Sixth, which was to operate to the north of Paris and was to take part in the counter-offensive against the German First and Second Armies. This was unknown to the German Command, who thought that victory lay within the grasp of their eastern armies.