From Rheims to the Swiss frontier, therefore, the Germans had already succeeded in carrying out Moltke’s order of 10 September to “entrench and hold” the positions reached after the retreat from the Marne, while from the Aisne northwards towards the English Channel a line of entrenchments was being dug piecemeal as the series of short-range outflanking movements failed one after the other. The last of these stages of the “Race to the Sea” ended in episodes of ditch-deepening, scraping, scrabbling, pumping and rough field-carpentry, as described by the officers of the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers,
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