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Monday found our centre fighting on the old Somme battlefields.

The enemy, who had by now brought seventy divisions into action, was still delivering incessant assaults of the utmost violence. Our left or northern wing still held fast, but the centre was compelled to fall back slowly from Bapaume and Pert nne to a line through Courcelette to the Somme, while the right wing, in touch with the French, retired further westward from the river. At this stage the enemy claimed to have taken forty-five thousand prisoners-- most of whom, no doubt, were wounded--and six -hundred guns. Our losses have no doubt been large, but they cannot compare with the losses sustained by the enemy in his determination tea back his way through, regardless of his sacrifices.

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