From our special correspondent, Amiens
Amiens is in German hands. The three days’ fighting of last week culminated in a bloody engagement at Moreuil, in which the advantage remained with the enemy. The Allies have fallen back in good order, but the Germans are pressing forward to their objective — Paris; and when I left the outskirts of Amiens at 5 o’clock this morning their advanced guard was reported to be between Le Tartigny and Montdidier.
Not a shot was fired on Sunday nor on Monday save at an unfortunate chauffeur who was killed at the city gate by a sentry for failing to pull up in time. On the day the Germans entered Amiens some 10,000 French troops, mainly reservists, hastily retreated through Picquigny, blowing up both bridges over the Somme on their departure.
To escape from the German lines it became necessary to cross the Somme, and no boat was available. A friendly peasant pointed out that a railing and one girder, though hanging over the river in most perilous fashion, might with much care and more acrobatism be safely crossed. My chauffeur, who gallantly volunteered to accompany me on foot when the car broke down, and myself performed this feat with the peasant yelling out “Uhlans are coming — all the time.” This took place in the small hours of the morning, and when an hour later I forced an unwilling villager to open his door, under dire threats, he pointed to some dusky figures in the distance and muttered “Uhlans”. I took less time to close his door than he to open it, my chauffeur rolled himself up in my big macintosh and slept on the tiled floor, while I proceeded to nod over my notes until dawn when I persuaded with much difficulty the mayor of a poor battered village — for the explosion at Picquigny broke every window for miles round — to drive us to Flixecourt. The car was out of order and vehicles were hard to come by, so my position was a difficult one. Providence, in the guise of a British Staff officer, came to my aid, and some four hours later he left me, eternally his debtor, at St Omer, whence I proceeded by train to Boulogne, to find that there was no evening steamer to Folkestone.