From Mons to the Marne lies the bloodiest trail of sacrifice in history.
In all the records of war, there stands forth no more magnificent and no
more melancholy achievement than that of the British regular army, which
bled its heroic way in ever-diminishing numbers from the challenge to the
check of the initial German sweep upon Paris. It could not hope for
decisive victory; it could only clog the wheels of the Juggernaut with
lives and lives and lives, sold bravely and dearly. Before a countless
superiority of numbers and an incalculable advantage in enemy
preparedness, it could only stand, and fall--and stand again, and
fall--until the end; when the cause of the Allies was saved for the hour,
and of French's hundred thousand there remained barely a little leaven of
trained men for the British forces then assembling to learn the trade of
warfare.
The ablest pens writing of the Great War have paid tribute to this
splendid deed which changed the course of its beginning. French's retreat
from Mons has been a topic to inspire the highest eloquence of the
patriotic historian and the most profound admiration of the militarist.
Everything, from the point of the onlooker, has been said of it. And
everything that has been said retires into the perspective of the
academic, when one reads, in this volume, the words of a trained British
soldier who experienced and survived it. For stark and simple strength,
for realism of detail, for a complete picturization of the desperate and
heroic resistance of the sacrificial army, this soldier's tale is, and
will remain, unequalled and unique. This prefatory emphasis is not vain or
extravagant. It need not fear the fact that there is but the turning of a
page between promise and performance. Here is a writing which is _of_ the
war, and therefore differs from all writings which can only be _about_ the
war. It conveys to the reader an almost paralyzing sense of wonder at the
steadfastness of Britain's military traditions, put to an unexampled
test. It shows how marvellously well a soldier may learn his business in
advance--when his business is to die. Concerning one of the most
noteworthy accomplishments of the arms of Britain, there will survive in
print no more compelling and convincing narrative than this, the utterance
of one whose trade was fighting and not writing.