At midday, Von Buelow was being pushed northwards by the hammer blows of d'Esperey, whose army was fighting in fine fettle, aided by the British heavy artillery. This army was strong enough to lend a corps to help Foch to sustain the central German push. Von Buelow, then, also was being pushed north. At midday, Foch's left wing, stiffened by the extra army corps, was holding the right wing of the Prussian Guard, but his right wing had been thrust ten miles out of the line by Von Hausen's drive. Von Hausen was therefore exerting every pound of force he owned to break through Foch's right wing, in other words, he was driving southeastward. At midday, then, Von Buelow and Von Kluck, going northward and westward, were being dragged away from the Prussian Guard and Von Hausen, being dragged southward and eastward. This thinned the German line, and it thinned it at a very dangerous point, just where the edge of the plateau of Champagne drops suddenly to the marshes of St. Gond. Possibly Von Hausen was aware of this, but if so, it is evident that he thought that the piercing of Foch's line was only a matter of hours. In any case, Von Hausen was as certain of piercing the line next day as Von Kluck was certain of swallowing Manoury the next day. At midday, Foch ordered the 42nd Division, one of the crack corps of the French Army, to fall back and rest. The order was thought to be a blunder and the men fumed, for, they thought, they were holding the Germans triumphantly. All through that sultry afternoon, while the skies grew blacker and blacker and the thunder rumbled in the distance, the 42nd Division waited with piled arms, hearing the sound of battle only two miles away. And all through that afternoon, Von Hausen summoned his reserves from behind the Prussian Guard, gathered every man he could get to hurl them into the gradually opening gap. To the German Commander, the French feet were slipping, slipping, slipping on the brink of disaster and defeat. At exactly four o'clock in the afternoon, when Foch's right wing was holding back the German fury of assault by sheer valor, the 42nd Division, rested and eager, received its long-awaited orders. It was bidden advance through the pine woods and burst upon the Prussian Guards, now forming a thin exposed flank to Van Hausen's army. At five o'clock, an order ran all along the whole line for a sudden stiffening and a French counter-offensive. At a few minutes after five o'clock, the pine-woods suddenly became as great green fountains of living warriors. For a moment the shouts of advancing hosts silenced the terrific roar of the artillery. Unnumbered batteries of the ever-potent and death-dealing "Soixante-Quinze" came galloping. As an avalanche sweeps away saplings, so was the Prussian Guard swept away. There was scarcely a pause as the armies joined. The French went through with a thunderbolt's strength and vindictive power.