That, at all events, is what they did, on or near September 22nd. The line in the south of the Woevre had already been considerably thinned by the despatch of a certain number of troops westwards across the Meuse to strengthen the right wing of the army in the Argonne during the Battle of the Marne and the operations which followed it. The effect of the removal of several additional battalions in the opposite direction, to the north of Nancy (where they found that their presence was urgently needed) was that St. Mihiel and the Camp des Romains were left almost isolated, with practically no soldiers at all to guard the town. The news was quickly carried to the enemy (not by journalists, since there were none anywhere near, but by the spies who were particularly thickly planted in that district of France) and while the French troops which had moved eastwards were engaged to the north of Nancy, and the Toul force from the south was pushing back the main body of the XIVth German Army Corps in the direction of the Rupt de Mad, the extreme right of the Army of Metz, as the result of a bold flank-march along the left or north bank of the Mad, were able to advance nearly as far as St. Mihiel. The presence of their advance-guard was first observed on the 23rd by a small patrol of French dragoons, who were attacked by a company of German infantry lying in ambush in a little wood by the side of the road about a mile from the town, and fell back on St. Mihiel after a slight skirmish. The news of the approach of the enemy created a panic in the town, and a large number of the inhabitants fled in the direction of Commercy. Next morning a squadron of Uhlans rode in and took possession of the place, cutting the telegraph and telephone wires, and carrying off as “hostages” some forty of the inhabitants, who must have bitterly regretted not having joined in the general exodus of the day before. (Three months later M. Lamure received a letter on the subject of these hostages from a sergeant attached to the Bureau de Police of one of the eastern armies, who was anxious about some relations of his who were among them, as nothing was known up till then of their fate. He was a stranger to us, but he had heard of our existence, and had a pathetic though gratifying belief that the correspondents of _The Times_ might be able to give him the information which his own intelligence office could not.) The Uhlans were followed, some hours later, by the main body of the German army, which turned off from the Vigneulles-St. Mihiel road somewhere near Chaillon and made its appearance on the Meuse to the north of St. Mihiel at a point where by the natural lie of the ground and the intervening hills it was protected from the fire of the guns both of Les Paroches and the Camp des Romains, which were in any case busy fighting their own battles.