In addition to the above-mentioned French detachment the 2nd Div. had been sent from the I. Corps. That division moved upon Morville but was not engaged.
At the end of Aug. 23 Gen. Lanrezac weighed in his mind the various happenings of the day, and quickly came to the con- clusion that immediate retreat was called for on the part of the V. Army. The chief causes of his decision are given by himself as follows: In the first place he had learnt definitely that the offensive of the IV. Army had failed and that the beaten troops were falling back to the Meuse with the left of the army on Mezieres. The line of the river between that place and Givet was guarded by but a few battalions of reserve troops, whose efficiency Gen. Lanrezac had reason to suspect. The rear of the V. Army was thus threatened once again. In the second place Namur had fallen, and this incident undoubtedly made a pro- found difference to the strategic situation; in addition the roads on the right flank of the V. Army, already encumbered with thousands of civilian refugees, would be further blocked by the retreating Belgian troops from the fortress. Thirdly, the British army was checked, and Von pent prevoir qu'elle iia lire obligee de retrograder. It is perhaps a sufficient refutation to this state- ment to say that half the British army had not been engaged at all, that the other half had held off the Germans without serious difficulty, that the total British losses were less than 2,000, while a moderate estimate of the casualties inflicted on the Germans would be more than twice that number, and that when night fell the universal opinion among the British rank and file was that they had won a victory. Gen. Lanrezac, however, issued orders for the V. Army to retire on the 24th to the line Givet-Philippeville-Beaumont-Maubeuge. Amongst the officers of his own staff the decision does not seem to have been well received; and Gen. Lanrezac relates that " quelques officiers de man flat-major loin de reconnoitre ma clairvoyance me taxent de pusillanimite; pour eux je ne snis'qu'uncalastrophard' dont il faul se debarrasser au plus vile."
On the 24th the retreat began before daybreak, and the line Givet-Maubeuge was reached without incident other than the action of rear guards, who easily held off the advanced guards of the German II. Army. The right flank was covered by the 2nd Div. of the I. Corps, which fell back slowly from position to position without any interference by the enemy, and at nightfall it bivouacked immediately N.W. of Givet. (F. E. W.*)
(5.) MONS AND LE CATEAU
The battles of Mons and Le Cateau were fought by the British on Aug. 23 and 26 1914 respectively, against the extreme right wing of the Germans during the advance of the latter through Belgium and northern France.
When England declared war on Germany during the night of Aug. 4-5 her forces available to take the field consisted of a cav- alry division, six infantry divisions, and some battalions of line- of-communication troops, the whole forming the Expeditionary Force for service overseas. The Government decided to retain two divisions temporarily in the United Kingdom and to trans- port the rest of the Expeditionary Force to France. The first ships sailed on Aug. 9, and, thanks to the perfection of the arrangements for mobilization and transportation, the operation' was completed without a hitch by Aug. 18. Sir John French, the British commander-in-chief, had reached his headquarters at Le Cateau on the previous day; and his army consisted of the I. Corps (ist and 2nd Divs.), Lt.-Gen. Sir Douglas Haig; II. Corps (3rd and 5th Divs.), Lt.-Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien; and the cavalry division under Maj.-Gen. Allenby. Concentra- tion was completed by the 2oth S. of Maubeuge, and the post assigned to the British was on the left of the French V. Army, preparatory to an advance N. of the Sambre towards Soignies.
The two following days were spent in moving forward to positions about Mons which were reached on the 22nd; and on Aug. 23 the position of the Allied forces in the N.W. of France was as follows: From Valenciennes by Lille to Dunkirk were some French territorial divisions, of which one, the 84th, was at Conde. Working from left to right, then came along the canal
the British igth Bde., made up of battalions of line-of-commuia- cation troops. Then came the 5th Div., while next on the right was the 3rd Div., holding a salient round Mons as far S.E. as Villers St. Ghislain. The line was continued by the British I. Corps farther south-eastwards to Peissant. The cavalry division was in rear of the British left, except the 5th Cav. Bde., which was posted in advance of the right flank. The French V". Army, farther to the right, was now in rear of the line held by the British.
The British position was thus in shape somewhat that of a broad arrow, with the two army corps practically at right angles to one another and facing, generally speaking, E. and N. respec- tively. As matters turned out the German attack was directed almost entirely against the II. Corps, and here on the left the situation was favourable to the British, for the canal made a valuable defensive line, while the terrain on the farther side held numerous difficulties for the attackers. Muddy ditches and barbed-wire fences impeded their movement, although on the other hand groups of trees and bushes gave useful cover from view and were of service for the enemy's machine-guns. South of the canal the crests of the high ground afforded the British useful sites for artillery, but the slag heaps of the numerous mines limited observation to some extent. The line of the canal, however, had one very disadvantageous feature: after running from Conde to Mons in a mathematically straight line, it forms a loop round Mons, thus constituting a marked salient. Such a position might easily be found to be untenable, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had prepared another and more defensible line in rear running through Frameries-Paturages-Wasmes-Boussu. During the 22nd Sir John French had visited the area of the French V. Army on his right, and had been somewhat discon- certed to meet columns of infantry and artillery moving south. As the left of the V. Army, formed by some reserve divisions, was drawn back, and the centre and right were in process of retiring, Sir John French considered that his own position on the Mons canal might quickly become very precarious. He accordingly informed Gen. Lanrezac that he would hold his position for 24 hours, but that the retirement of the V. Army might require a withdrawal of the British, after that time, to the Maubeuge position.
On the German side the battle of Charleroi (see above) was not producing all the effect hoped for by the Germans. The German plan had been that the II. Army was to attack S. across the Sambre, while the III. Army was to cooperate by attacking W. across the Meusc, towards Mettet, sending a strong force across the Meuse by Dinant towards Rocroi to bar the French line of retreat. As for the extreme right army of the Germans (the I. under Gen. von Kluck, who was temporarily subordinated to Gen. von Billow) during the 23rd, it was, generally speaking, to conform to this offensive movement. Gen. von Billow had, however, made the mistake of attacking prematurely with his II. Army; the combined movement with the III. Army was unsuccessful, and consequently the trend of the fighting drifted westwards to where the advanced guards of the I. Army were coming into contact with the British on the Mons-Conde canal.
When day broke on Aug. 23 Gen. von Kluck had three active corps and Gen. von Biilow one (the VII.), or about 150,000 men and 600 guns, within striking distance of the British force of some 75,000 men and 300 guns. Further, Gen. von Biilow had been for two days successfully engaged against the French V. Army, which had been pushed back some way S. of the Sambre. Not only, therefore, was the British army heavily outnumbered, but it was becoming isolated. The great advantages which the Germans possessed in this respect were, however, neutralized by their lack of accurate information. By the 2oth it had not been definitely ascertained that the British Expeditionary Force had completed its landing, and its line of advance when landed was expected to be towards Lille. Not only at the time, but for several days after the battle of Mons, it was believed that the British were based on Calais and the ports near it instead of upon Le Havre and Rouen.
On the evening of Aug. 22 the German I. Army had halted E. of the line Mignault-Laugrenee (IX. Corps), Chaussee Notre
