It was amazing to see how quickly the Army recovered during these days from the first strain of the Retreat. Even on the 28th the improvement was notable. A general cheerfulness pervaded the ranks, whence derived no one seemed to care, but splendid and infectious. Men toughened and hardened; the limpers grew fewer, and already battalions were to be met marching with the old swing to the old song. By the 29th--for always we come back to this crucial date--the first hard apprenticeship was over; and when the Army rose from its sleep to take the road once more, it looked and felt an army of veterans. Officers smiled as they watched their men, and speculated happily on the day to come.
The chief difficulty now was to replace wastage in equipment, etc., which had been enormous. For in the strain and confusion of the Retreat everything detachable had been lost or thrown away, and whole companies were found, perfectly fitted out eight days before, which had now scarcely a single greatcoat, waterproof sheet, or change of clothing left. The deficiency of entrenching tools--to take only one article of equipment, though that, perhaps, the most easily lost--amounted, in the troops which had fought at Le Cateau, to over eighty per cent. It was much easier, unfortunately, to tabulate these deficiencies than to supply them. The stores existed, indeed, but they were not to be had. They were lying for the fetching on the quays and in the dépôts of Havre and Rouen and Boulogne, but every day’s march took us farther away from them and increased their exposure to the German advance. With Amiens already in the enemy’s hands, and the Channel ports uncovered, we were, for a moment, that portent of the textbooks, an army without a base. It was a case for prompt measures, and prompt measures were taken. On August 29, while the Army was recounting deficiencies on the Oise, the Inspector General of the lines of communication, by order of the Commander-in-Chief, was arranging a grand removal to the mouth of the Loire, and on August 30, the new British base was temporarily established at St. Nazaire and Nantes, with Le Mans as advanced base in place of Amiens. It was a great achievement, but an unwelcome change, for both by sea and by land the distances were greater, and it had the inevitable consequence of delaying the arrival of everything on which the Army depended for replenishment. The infantry went without their greatcoats and entrenching tools; and though reinforcements of men continued to arrive at stated intervals,--the first reinforcement on September 5, and the second on September 7 and 8,--the guns which should have come on August 29 were not actually received till September 19. It was not until October 11, when the British Army was setting out for Flanders, that St. Nazaire was at last definitely closed down, and Havre and Boulogne reopened in its place. It was a difficult period for the administrative departments of the Army, and had its own triumphs.