John French, commanding the BEF] had immediately pushed it out to Solesmes, about seven miles north-west of Le Cateau, to cover the retirement of the Cavalry and 3rd Division. Snow's division retired after the battle but GHQ and the French were left with an exaggerated impression of the losses suffered at Le Cateau. Henry Wilson, BEF Sub Chief of Staff, issued the infamous "sauve qui peut" order (27 August), (addressed from "Henry to Snowball") ordering Snow to dump unnecessary ammunition and officers' kits so that tired and wounded soldiers could be carried. Smith-Dorrien was later rebuked by Field Marshal French for countermanding the order. Snow later wrote "the retreat of 1914 was not, as is now imagined, a great military achievement, but rather a badly bungled affair only prevented from being a disaster of the first magnitude by the grit displayed by the officers and the men". Brigadier-General Aylmer Haldane, who commanded the 10th Brigade under Snow in 1914, was highly critical of him, although he also thought many other officers of the division not up to the standards of competence required in war. By September 1914 three out of four battalion COs had been "sent home" and Snow was lucky to retain his command. Snow later revisited some places from the Great Retreat from Mons with Haldane, who recorded in his diary on 10 November 1917: "Though he is an old friend of mine I have never felt the same towards him since that time ... when he showed what a poor spirited man he was when troublous times were upon us". In September, during the First Battle of the Marne, Snow was hospitalised, badly injured with a cracked pelvis, after his horse fell and rolled on him. In November, after partially recovering (he required further treatment for the rest of the war), he took command of the 27th Division, then being raised at Winchester for deployment to the front at the end of the year. The division consisted of regulars returning from overseas. 1915 The 27th Division was initially trenched at St. Eloi before relieving a French division in the Ypres Salient. During Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, Snow's was at first the only unit with HQ east of Ypres. He led his division through the first German poison gas attack. His performance resulted in his appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of the