To this post of honour Sir John French now laid claim. At Mons his army had been on the left of the Allied line; now it was in the centre. This meant that it was far from its base, and could only obtain its supplies by cross-country routes which ran through the lines of communications of the French armies. Sir John now asked to be transferred to his old position on the extreme left wing, where he would be near the coast, and could be readily supplied with food, ammunition, and reinforcements. His fine, seasoned soldiers were wasted on the Aisne, where the fight had dwindled to a series of artillery duels, with here and there a sharp struggle in the advanced trenches. If, as seemed likely, the Germans were about to make a dash for the coast, in order to capture Calais and the Channel ports, and thus threaten England, the British army desired nothing better than the chance to stop it. In these circumstances, General Joffre agreed that the British army should be carried northward by train, and should take up a position on the left flank of Maud'huy's army, which early in October 1914 had reached the south bank of a canal running westwards from Lille through La Bassée to Bethune.[153]
I need not tell you that the transfer of an army from the Aisne to the Franco-Belgian border was a very difficult and delicate operation indeed. Our trenches on the Aisne were in many places only about 100 yards from those of the enemy yet, platoon by platoon, battalion by battalion, and brigade by brigade, our men were shifted out of their trenches at night, and French soldiers were slipped in to take their places. The transfer began on 3rd October, when the 2nd Cavalry Division, under General Gough, marched to Compiègne, where it took train through Amiens to St. Omer, which lies to the west of Bethune. For sixteen days the business of withdrawing our men from the Aisne and sending them northwards by train continued, and all the time the Germans were quite unaware of what was going on. They had one of the greatest surprises of their lives when they discovered that the British army was opposing them on the Franco-Belgian border. German prisoners could not believe their eyes when they saw that their captors wore the familiar khaki. They firmly believed that the British army was in the trenches of the Aisne valley.