Of the regiments engaged, each beginning with a strength of some 2,500 men, the 24th had lost 800, the 25th, a Cherbourg regiment, 1,200, the 25th (Caen) 1,000, the 49th (Bordeaux) 700, the 74th (Rouen) 800, the 129th (le Havre) 650.63 Strategically the result was even worse. Nine French divisions had been defeated by three German, and forced to retreat seven miles, contact with the Fourth Army, on the Meuse, had been broken, contact with the British Expeditionary Force at Mons had not been established and Sordet’s Cavalry Corps, which had wholly failed in its mission of finding the Germans
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