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The front of the Sixth Army to which he was attached, extending from Ribécourt beyond the forest of Laigue, passed in front of Railly and Tracy-le-Val, hollowed itself before the enemy salient of Moulin-sous-Touvent, straightened itself again near Autrèches and Nouvron-Vingré, covered Soissons, whose very outskirts were menaced, was obliged to turn back on the left bank of the Aisne where the enemy took, in January, 1915, the bridge-head at Condé, and Vailly and Chavonne, and crossed the river again at Soupir which belonged to us.
On the 15th the Germans counter-attacked. Maunoury was driven out of Nouvron and Autrèches, the British were forced back from Vregny almost to the river, and the Moroccan troops withdrew on Haig's right flank.
Closely allied to the Soissons bombardment, and occurring simultaneously with the battle of the Aisne, was the series of engagements occurring in the quarries around Autreches and Coucy-le-Château, fought by advanced bodies in front of the right wing of the German army encamped on the ridge of the Aisne.
The 2nd Division was also only partially successful in the region of Chavonne, but the whole of the 1st got across at Pont-Arcy and Bourg. On Monday, Maunoury pressed forward up the heights, capturing Autrèches and Nouvron, but, like the British on his right between Vregny and Vailly, he found the German positions impregnable on the plateau.
Concentrating on the need of driving the invaders out of the quarries of Autreches, the French succeeded. This eased the western end of the line, and the Second and Third British Army Corps were left in peace. Friday, September 18, 1914, is again a date of moment, not because anything of importance was transacted, but because nothing was transacted. It was a day of realizations.
There was a lull on the 16th, and on the 17th Maunoury recovered the quarries of Autrèches; but east of Reims the 9th Army had fallen back from the Suippe, and the Prussian Guard had captured Nogent l'Abbesse and was threatening Foch's connexion with Langle in Champagne.
The French infantry of General Manoury's army, far less exhausted than the harassed regiments of General von Kluck's forces, found little difficulty in forcing the Germans back from Autreches, but, no sooner were they well established, than the roar of the combined guns of General von Kluck and General von Zwehl would make the position untenable, and under cover of that appalling rain of death, the German infantry would creep back to reoccupy the positions from which they had been ousted by the bayonets only a few hours before.
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