Throughout the Battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding position was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable services rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the Army Corps under his command. Day after d and night after night the enemy's infantry has been hurled against him in violent counter-attack which has never on any one occasion succeeded, whilst the trenches all over his position have been under continuous heavy artillery fire.
The operations of the 1st Corps on this day resulted in the capture of several hundred prisoners, some field pieces, and machine guns.
The casualties were very severe, one brigade alone losing three of its four colonels.
The 3rd Division commenced a further advance, and had nearly reached the plateau of Aizy when they were driven back by a powerful counter-attack supported by heavy artillery. The division, how- head. ever, fell back in the best order, and finally entrenched itself about mile north of Vailly Bridge, effectively covering the passage.
The 4th and Sth Divisions were unable to do more than maintain their ground.
5. On the morning of the 15th. after close examination of the position, it became clear to me that the enemy was making " determined stand; and this view was confirm:
by reports which reached me from the French Armies fighting on riy right and left, which clearly thowed that a gly entrenched line of defence was being taken up from the north of Compiégne, eastward and south-eastward, along the whole valley of the Aisne up to and beyond Reims.
'A few days previously the for-reas of Maubeuge fell, and a considerable quantity of siege artillery was brought down from that place to strengthen the enemy's po-ition in front of us.
During the 16th shells fell in our position which have been judged by experts to be thrown by eight-neb siege guns with a range of 10,000 yards. Throughout the whole course of the battle our troops have suffered very heavily from this fire. although its effect latterly war largely mitigated by more efficient and thorough entrenching, the ne-for which I impressed strongly upon Army Corps Commanders. In order to assist them in this work all villages within the area of our occupation were searchsd for heavy entrenching tools, large number of which were collected.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.