concentrated rifle and artillery fire. However, they were unable to block the Germans advancing from Peronne for long. Spears wrote that Maunoury was able to fall back behind the River Avre (29 Aug) because of the Battle of Guise. On 1 September, with French forces falling back, Joffre vetoed Maunoury's proposal to attack the Germans near Compiegne and instead ordered him to fall back, cover Paris and make contact with Gallieni, Military Governor. Planning the Counterattack Maunoury's Sixth Army, as it was now called, had VII Corps, 3 reserve divisions and 45th Division from North Africa, plus Ebener's 61st and 62nd Reserve Divisions; IV Corps (formerly part of Third Army) was detraining in Paris on 3 September to join Maunoury. In 62nd Reserve Division four out of the six colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and a similar proportion of the battalion commanders (a post normally held by a major in the French Army) had been killed or wounded, replaced by “a few” reserve sub-lieutenants. The reserve divisions contained men from Lorraine, Auvergne, Brittany and the Charente. In a handwritten note, responding to a request for information, Joffre recommended to Gallieni that “part of General Maunoury’s active forces” strike east against the German right wing. Joffre's orders at this stage did not specify a date or time for the attack, although he did suggest that if the Germans continued to push south south east Maunoury might best operate on the north bank of the Marne. Von Kluck was probing into the gap between the BEF and French Fifth Army, a gap covered only by Conneau's cavalry corps. At 09:10 on 4 September Gallieni, following air reconnaissance reports and concerned that a continued French retreat would leave Paris uncovered and vulnerable to German attack, ordered Maunoury to be ready to strike east to take von Kluck in flank. Joffre, who was not consulted in advance but who had separately reached the same conclusion, approved the order, while still making up his mind about the timing of Fifth Army's stand on the Marne. Gallieni also put Antoine Drude’s newly arrived 45th Infantry Division (white settlers from Algeria) under Maunoury, raising Sixth Army to about 150,000 soldiers. Maunoury attended Gallieni's three-hour meeting with Murray (BEF Chief of Staff) on 4 September, which ended with their believing that the BEF would not join in any attack. Simultaneous negotiations were taking place between Wilson (BEF Sub Chief of