Having sent French divisions north to help the British, plus the increase in frontage now held as a result of the bulge caused by Operation Michael, General Foch sent a request to Field Marshal Haig for British divisions to help reinforce his armies. It was decided to send four exhausted divisions to the quiet French Champagne sector, and by the middle of May the IX Corps comprising of the 8th, 21st, 25th and 50th Divisions were in the line of the French Sixth Army on a 15 mile front on the River Aisne.
Following the Twenty-Second 