to exploit the gap between German Second and Third Armies. However, he is more critical of von Bülow (commander of German Second Army and effectively Army Group commander over von Kluck’s First Army in the west and Hausen’s Third Army to his east) for failing, for the second time, to encircle and destroy Lanrezac’s Army. On 31 August, German cavalry, hampered by lack of fresh horseshoes and nails, almost penetrated behind French Fifth Army, almost capturing the British politician J.E.B. Seely then serving as a liaison officer, and came close to capturing the Aisne bridges, which would have cut off its retreat. On 1 September Fifth Army retreated across the Aisne in some confusion, with Lanrezac at one stage being heard to exclaim “Nous sommes foutus! Nous sommes foutus!” (roughly: "We're shafted!"). Dismissal Lanrezac's harsh criticism of his superiors in the Staff Corps overshadowed his impressive ability to avoid envelopment by the Germans, and he was replaced by Louis Franchet d'Espérey just before the opening of the First Battle of the Marne. Joffre later recorded that ever since the Battle of Guise, Lanrezac's normal tendency to criticise and argue about his orders had been exacerbated by fatigue, to the detriment of Fifth Army staff's morale. Lanrezac's staff were bickering among themselves. As he could not be counted upon for the planned counterstroke, it was necessary to relieve him on the afternoon of 3 September. The eyewitness accounts of Lanrezac (who claimed that he protested that events had proved him right about most of the issues under dispute, but that Joffre refused to meet his gaze, so that it was clear that he had exhausted Joffre's confidence), Joffre (who claimed that Lanrezac immediately agreed and cheered up when relieved of command, in his own office) and Spears (who recalled seeing them having a lengthy and strained conversation in the playground of the school where Fifth Army HQ was currently based) differ somewhat. Joffre and Spears both claimed in their memoirs that, whatever his intellectual accomplishments, Lanrezac had been overwhelmed by the strain of command, Spears adding that he had done little to prepare the Charleroi position for defence and had never once in the entire campaign willingly engaged the enemy. Much of Lanrezac's poor reputation in English comes from Spears' memoirs (Liaison 1914) published in 1930. Coming after criticism of the British in the memoirs of Huguet and Foch, the book