and behind them again, hot on their heels, the pursuing Germans, with a body of cavalry, detached by General Sarrail to head them off, advancing to meet them, and, though at a considerable distance, another French force, the XXth Army Corps, hurrying as fast as they could from the Moselle to overtake them from behind. Meanwhile, the Toul garrison army, which had advanced from the fortress, was keeping up the lateral pressure on the stationary German force along the Rupt de Mad. In contrast with the state of comparative immobility to which the campaign was shortly afterwards reduced, the manœuvres of the two forces were for the moment particularly lively. Looked at as a war game played on a chess-board, the position was more or less as follows: The French (White) had moved most of their pieces of value up towards the top left-hand corner of the board, where they had the Germans (Black) pretty well penned in front of them along the two back rows. Black, however, was still able to threaten an attack on White’s King (Verdun) at about the centre of their fourth row, though it was defended by a few white pawns (its garrison army). Two rows lower down in the centre a black castle (the Metz army at St. Mihiel) was only prevented from checking White’s King by some white pawns (the southern forts of Verdun) and, at the same time, threatened a move across the board to the left in order to get behind the main mass of White’s pieces. To remove this danger, and to guard a pawn (the Territorial battalion) to the left of Black’s castle, White moved back one of his knights (Sarrail’s cavalry) from the left-hand top corner, moved up one of his castles (the Toul garrison force) from his back row, and brought across his Queen (the XXth Army Corps) from the lower right-hand corner of the board, where it had been trying to check Black’s King (Metz). As the result of these three moves he was able to force Black’s castle back to its original position near the centre of the board.