him to catch up. On 16 August, in exchange for the loss of XI Corps, Joffre transferred XVIII Corps to Lanrezac. Lanrezac received three reserve divisions, containing men from Bordeaux, Gascony and the Basque Country, and two extra divisions of French settlers from Algeria. Spears described Lanrezac as “a big flabby man” with a habit of hitching his spectacles behind his ear, whilst Sir John, who disliked him, later described him as “a Staff College pedant” with no practical ability at command in war. Sir John had an infamous meeting with Lanrezac at Rethel (17 August), at which he attempted to speak in French, despite not being able to do so well. When he asked whether the Germans spotted at Huy were crossing the river, his attempt to pronounce the name "Huy" caused Lanrezac to exclaim in exasperation that the Germans had probably gone there to fish. Not only did they form a mutual dislike, but Sir John also believed Lanrezac was about to advance further, whereas in fact Lanrezac wanted to fall back from his strong position behind the angle of the Rivers Sambre and Meuse, but was forbidden to do so by Joffre. Concerned at having to guard against a German Meuse crossing south of Sedan, at Mezieres, or (most likely) at Namur north of Givet, Lanrezac urged that he be allowed to retreat to Maubeuge to avoid being flanked. At the Rethel meeting on 17 August Lanrezac also thought that Sir John French, whose BEF only consisted of four infantry divisions rather than the planned six, intended to use the British cavalry on foot (it is thought likely that he had misunderstood Sir John's intention to keep his cavalry in reserve). Whereas Sir John wanted Sordet's French cavalry to cover the assembly of the BEF, Lanrezac wanted them to gather tactical intelligence and was told by Joffre's deputy chief of staff Berthelot on 17 August that this took priority. Nonetheless Joffre ordered Sordet to move up to Namur and Louvain to try to prevent the Belgians falling back on Antwerp. GQG were unfairly angered at Sordet's “dilatoriness”, even though his horses were too tired to do more than walk. Lanrezac demanded to Joffre on morning of 18th that he have use of Sordet's corps. Although Joffre was aware (18 August) that as many as fifteen German corps were moving through Belgium (in fact it was sixteen, and