on the second or third day the retreat of White is being secured
by an increasing gap between pursued and pursuers. The process is
continued. Every succeeding day--if that process is successful--should
further widen the gap until White can feel free from immediate
pressure.

Such is the principle--modified indefinitely in practice by variations
of ground and numbers--under which a retirement must be conducted if
it is to have any hope of ultimate success in saving the pursued.

But it is clear that the process must always be a perilous one. Unless
the most careful co-ordination is maintained between the moving parts
of the retreat; unless the rearguard in each action falls back only
_just upon_ and not a _little while after_ the precise moment when it
can last safely do so; unless the new rearguard comes into play in
time, etc., etc.--the pursuers may get right in among the pursued and
break their cohesion; or they may get round them, cut them off, and
compel them to surrender. In either case the retreating force ceases
to exist as an army.

In proportion as the pursuers are numerous (mobility being equal)
compared with the pursued, in that proportion is the peril. And with
the best luck in the world some units are sure to be cut off, many
guns lost, all stragglers and nearly all wounded abandoned in the
course of a pressed retreat, and, above all, there will be the
increasing discouragement and bewilderment of the men as the strain,
the losses, and the ceaseless giving way before the enemy continue day
after day with cumulative effect.

The accomplishment of such a task, the maintenance of the "operative
corner" in being during its ordeal of retreat before vastly superior
numbers, and in particular the exceedingly perilous retirement of the
British contingent at what was, during the first part of the strain,
the extreme of the line, are what we are now about to follow.

The initial counter-attack, then, on this Monday, the first day of the
retreat, was undertaken by the 2nd British Division from the region of
Harmignies, which advanced as though with the object of retaking
Binche. The demonstration was supported by all the artillery of the
1st Army Corps, while the 1st Division, lying near Peissant, supported
this action of the 2nd. While that demonstration was in full activity,
the 2nd Corps to the west or left (not all of it was yet in the field)
retired on to the line Dour-Frameries, passing through Quaregnon.