Soissons was drawing no color-line.

The Turcos were followed by engineers, who endeavored to repair one bridge and in consequence were heavily shelled with shrapnel, while, with the intent to destroy the road and retard the French advance, the hills where the French had halted were being pounded by German siege-guns.
This was at a point four kilometres from Chaudun, between the villages of Breuil and Courtelles.

From this height you could see almost to Compiegne, and thirty miles in front in the direction of Saint- Quentin.

It was a panorama of wooded hills, gray villages in fields of yellow grain, miles of poplars marking the roads, and below us the flashing waters of the Aisne and the canal, with at our feet the steeples of the cathedral of Soissons and the gate to the old abbey of Thomas a Becket.

Across these steeples the shells sang, and on both sides of the Aisne Valley the artillery was engaged.