But on all sides, from the French officers, there is immense praise for the magnificent conduct of our troops, and in spite of all alarmist statements I am convinced from what I have heard that they have retired intact, keeping their lines together, and preventing their divisions from being broken and cut off.
The list of casualties must be very great, but if I can believe the evidence of my own eyes in such towns as Rouen, where the Red Cross hospitals are concentrated, they are not heavy enough to suggest anything like a great and irretrievable disaster.
DIEPPE, Sept. 3.—Let me describe briefly the facts which I have learned of in the last five days. When I escaped from Amiens, before the tunnel was broken up, and the Germans entered into possession of the town on Aug. 28, the front of the allied armies was in a crescent from Abbéville, south of Amiens on the wooded heights, and thence in an irregular line to south of Mézières. The British forces, under Sir John French, were at the left of the centre, supporting the heavy thrust-forward of the main German advance, while the right was commanded by Gen. Pau.
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.