On Sunday afternoon fighting was resumed along the whole line.  The German vanguard had by this time been supported by a fresh army corps, which had been brought from Belgium.  At least 1,000,000 men were on the move, pressing upon the allied forces with a ferocity of attack which has never before been equaled.  Their cavalry swept across a great tract of country, squadron by squadron, like the mounted hordes of Attila, but armed with the dreadful weapons of modern warfare.  Their artillery was in enormous numbers, and their columns advanced under cover of it, not like an army, but rather like a moving nation—­I do not think, however, with equal pressure at all parts of the line.  It formed itself into a battering ram with a pointed end, and this point was thrust at the heart of the English wing.

It was impossible to resist this onslaught.  If the British forces had stood against it they would have been crushed and broken.  Our gunners were magnificent, and shelled the advancing German columns so that the dead lay heaped up along the way which was leading down to Paris; but as one of them told me:  “It made no manner of difference; as soon as we had smashed one lot another followed, column after column, and by sheer weight of numbers we could do nothing to check them.”

After this the British forces fell back, fighting all the time.  The line of the Allies was now in the shape of a V, the Germans thrusting their main attack deep into the angle.

This position remained the same until Monday, or, rather, had completed itself by that date, the retirement of the troops being maintained with masterly skill and without any undue haste.

Meanwhile Gen. Pau was sustaining a terrific attack on the French centre by the German left centre, which culminated on (date omitted).  The River Oise, which runs between beautiful meadows, was choked with corpses and red with blood.

From an eyewitness of this great battle, an officer of an infantry regiment, who escaped with a slight wound, I learned that the German onslaught had been repelled by a series of brilliant bayonet and cavalry charges.

“The Germans,” he said, “had the elite of their army engaged against us, including the Tenth Army Corps and the Imperial Guard, but the heroism of our troops was sublime.  Every man knew that the safety of France depended upon him and was ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, with joyful enthusiasm.  They not only resisted the enemy’s attack but took the offensive, and, in spite of their overpowering numbers, gave them tremendous punishment.  They had to recoil before our guns, which swept their ranks, and their columns were broken and routed.

“Hundreds of them were bayoneted, and hundreds were hurled into the river.  The whole field of battle was outlined by dead and dying men whom they had to abandon.  Certainly their losses were enormous, and I felt that the German retreat was in full swing and that we could claim a real victory for the time being.”