On Friday week the enemy began to fall back northwards
from the Marne, leaving machine-gun detachments at every point of vantage in the rough wooded country to delay the pursuit. The French and Americans followed him up quickly. Last Sunday they crossed the Ourcq and entered Fexe-en-Tardenois. To the north- east and east of that place the Americans, after hot fighting, forded the Ourcq, and stormed Seringes, Sergy, and other villages on the ridge beyond. A picked division of the Prussian Guard retook Sergy, but failed to hold it. A desperate encounter that lasted for hours left the Americans in triumphant possession. Further east, the Allies advanced through Chatillon and captured villages close to the Dorman-Reims road. The Marne Valley was definitely cleared, and the French could once more use their important main line of railway from Paris to Chalons, by way of Chateau-Thierry and Epernay, which had been under fire and useless for two months.
