Bluecher crossed the Marne on February twenty-seventh with half his force, and then attempted to cross the Ourcq in order to attack Meaux from the north. But he was checked by Marmont and Mortier, with the sixteen thousand men they already had, and then, after six thousand new recruits came in from Paris, he was forced to retreat. Should Napoleon arrive in time he would be annihilated. Accordingly he hastened up the valley of the Ourcq with his entire force. Napoleon arrived on the Marne too late to attack Bluecher's rear, and after some hesitation as to whether he should not return to complete his work with Schwarzenberg, he finally determined that, inasmuch as the fortress of Soissons was secure, and Bluecher must therefore retreat to the eastward, he could himself deliver an easy but staggering blow on the Prussian flank when they should cross the Aisne at Fismes. Accordingly, on March third the worn-out columns of the French passed over the Marne. Unfortunately, Soissons had been left by Marmont in charge of an inexperienced commander, who had surrendered almost without resistance when, on March second, Buelow and Wintzengerode, having come in from the Netherlands, suddenly appeared before the place. This stroke of good fortune enabled Bluecher not merely to find a city of refuge for his exhausted and disorganized force, but to recruit it by the two victorious and elated corps which thenceforth served him as an invaluable rear-guard. Napoleon, thwarted again, gave no outward sign of the despair he must have felt, but crossed the Aisne on March fifth, and occupied Rheims, in order at least to cut Bluecher off from any connection with Schwarzenberg. He then turned to join Marmont and Mortier in order to drive Bluecher still farther north, so that, as he wrote to Joseph, he might gain time sufficient to return by Chalons and attack Schwarzenberg.