except for the officers.

GERMANS LEAVE SPOILS BEHIND

"The enemy crossed the Marne on the return journey north under great
difficulties and beneath a withering fire from the British troops, who
pursued them hotly. The German artillery operated from a height. There
was again much hand-to-hand fighting and the river was swollen with
dead.

"Tuesday night the British were in possession of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre
and Chateau Thierry and the Germans had fallen back forty miles, leaving
a long train of spoils behind them.

"On the same day, in the neighborhood of Vitry-le-Francois, the French
troops achieved a victory. Incidentally they drove back the famous
Imperial Guard of Germany from Sezanne, toward the swamps of Saint Cond,
where, a century ago, Napoleon achieved one of his last successes. The
main body of the guard passed to the north of the swamps, but I heard of
men and horses engulfed and destroyed.

"'It is our revenge for 1814,' the French officers said. 'If only the
emperor were here to see.'

BRITISH KEEP UP PURSUIT

"Wednesday the English army continued the pursuit toward the north,
taking guns and prisoners.

"On that day I found myself in a new France. The good news had spread.
Girls threw flowers at the passing soldiers and joy was manifested
everywhere.

"The incidents of Wednesday will astound the world when made known in
full. I know that two German detachments of 1,000 men each, which were
surrounded and cornered but which refused to surrender, were wiped
out almost to the last man. The keynote of these operations was the
tremendous attack of the Allies along the Ourcq Tuesday, which showed
the German commander that his lines were threatened. Then came the
crowning stroke.

"The army of the Ourcq and of Meaux and the army of Sezanne drew
together like the blades of a pair of shears, the pivot of which was in
the region of the Grand Morin. The German retreat was thus forced toward
the east and it speedily became a rout."

RETREAT SEEN FROM THE SKY

The best view of the retreating German armies was obtained, according to
a Paris report, by a French military airman, who, ascending from a point
near Vitry, flew northward across the Marne and then eastward by way of
Rheims down to the region of Verdun and back again in a zigzag course to
a spot near Soissons.

He saw the German hosts not merely in retreat, but in flight, and in
some places in disorderly flight.

"It was a wonderful sight,"