THE BATTLE OF MONS
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature’s teardrops as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
BYRON.
On Sunday, August 23, 1914, there was fought what will rank as one of
the great Battles of the Ages. For on that Sunday the whole flower of
the German Army, including the pick of their famous cavalry, was hurled
against the British Army in the proportion of six to one!
I had hoped not to sully with the Kaiser’s now notorious address to his
troops the pages of a book in which were to be recorded only gallant
deeds. But alone it explains the strong preponderance of numbers at the
Battle of Mons.
This is what the German Emperor evidently thought to be an inspiring and
dignified message to his generals. I must tell you it was issued on
August 19, that is, only four days before our first contact with the
enemy:
“It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies,
for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you
address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate
first the treacherous English and walk over General French’s
contemptible little army.”
How hard the Kaiser’s legions tried to obey his commands you will
shortly see. Also how completely they failed, and that although, as I
must again remind you, the great outstanding feature of the Battle of
Mons was the overwhelming number of the enemy compared to our forces.
The simplest and most homely account often brings a fact more truly home
to us than any fine language would do, and I doubt if we shall ever read
a more vivid picture of the opening of this terrific fight than the
following passage in a letter written by a young British soldier to his
father, who is a gardener: “You complained last summer, Dad, of the
swarm of wasps that destroyed your fruit. That will give you an idea of
how the Germans came for us!”
Yet another who took part in this terrific battle, wrote: “It looked as
if we were going to be snowed under! The mass of men who came on was an
avalanche, and everyone of us must have been trodden to death, if not
killed by shells or bullets, had not our infantry charged into them on
the left wing, not 500 yards from the trench I was in.”
A non-commissioned officer also shows how our side was outnumbered: “No
regiment ever fought harder than we did, and no regiment has ever had
better officers; they went shoulder to shoulder with their men. But you
cannot expect impossibilities, no matter how brave the boys are, when
one is fighting forces twenty to thirty times as strong.”
Everyone of the great battles in the world’s history has some
outstanding heroic action to its credit. The heroes of Mons were British
cavalry, for the 9th Lancers made there a charge every whit as gallant
and glorious as the famous Charge of the Light Brigade.
A German battery of ten guns had been posted inside a wood, each gun
having been skilfully made to look like a small haystack, which caused
the British to approach them unsuspectingly. When the guns opened fire,
terrible havoc was caused in our ranks, and it seemed impossible to
silence them.
It was then that the 9th Lancers made their splendid charge.
The whole regiment rode straight at the German battery, cut down all the
gunners, and put the guns out of action. As was the case in the Charge
of the Light Brigade they lost more men as they rode back than on their
way in.
I think the best account of this wonderful cavalry charge was written by
one who was wounded in it. “We were flying at one another as hard as the
horses could go. It was a charge such as you see in a picture, every man
hoping he would not get his knees crushed by the fellows on each side of
him.” Does not that remind you of Sir Walter Scott’s splendid lines?
“On came the whirlwind—like the last
But fiercest sweep of tempest blast;
On came the whirlwind—steel gleams broke
Like lightning through the rolling smoke,
The war was waked anew.”
There were at least two Frenchmen in this historic charge. The Vicomte
de Vauvineux, a French cavalry officer, who rode with the brigade as
interpreter, was killed instantly—a gallant officer whose death many in
England mourned. Captain Letourey, the French master at Blundell’s
School in Devon, rode by the side of de Vauvineux, but escaped death as
by a miracle. His horse was shot under him, but he caught another,
riderless, and rode off unscathed.
While the bulk of the brigade swerved to the right, riding for a hundred
yards across the face of the machine guns, a few rode desperately on,
bearing charmed lives. But only for a few yards. The trap, baited by the
desultory fire of the artillery, was complete. Wire entanglements were
buried in the grass thirty yards in front of the guns. Riding full tilt
into these, the few who kept their line to the guns fell, and were made
prisoners.
Of the 9th Lancers, not more than forty gathered that night in a village
hard by. Others came in next day, and finally some two hundred and
twenty in all mustered out of the entire regiment.
A trooper of the 9th Lancers in writing home mentioned a fact which I
thought very touching, and the admission of which showed that he was
really a brave man. He said that when going into action he found himself
crying out “Mother!” “Mother!” and then suddenly he felt courage, as he
strikingly put it, “loom” up in him.
I think, without boasting, we may say that it is characteristic of both
armies that whereas the German soldiers are played into action by a
band, the British march into action singing. During the present campaign
they seem to have preferred “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” and it is on
record that an Irish regiment sang that stirring old song “God save
Ireland.” The Manchester Regiment sing “Killaloe,” the Rifle Brigade are
fond of that fine old ballad “Colonel Coote Manningham’s a very good
man.” The Fusiliers have their own song, “Fighting with the Royal
Fusiliers.”
We must not allow ourselves to forget that other regiments of our
cavalry were also engaged in this great battle, among them the 18th
Hussars and the 4th Dragoons, who performed noble feats of valour and
suffered severely.
Another historic “scrap” was that between a regiment of Irish infantry
and three regiments of German cavalry splendidly horsed, equipped, and
armed. The Irishmen, who had been joking and smoking, rose up to meet
the oncoming rush of horsemen, and one who was there said they looked
like a bristling bulwark of giants, holding weapons of steel in steel
grips.
For a few minutes there was an awful chaos of horses, soldiers grey and
soldiers yellow, glittering lances and bayonets, the automatic spit of
machine guns, the flashes of musketry. Amidst it all the men in khaki
stood steadfast. Grimly and without budging they threw back, at the
bayonet’s point, in utter demoralisation, the cavalry of the Kaiser.
While they fought they sang “God save Ireland,” and “Whistle to me, said
I.”
Martial songs have always had a very great effect on armies taking the
field. The British have a great many battle songs. The French have only
the “Marseillaise.” The most famous German battle songs are
“Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,” and “Die Wacht am Rhein.” The
marching song of the troops who fought under Marlborough was
“Lillibullero.”
In the American Civil War there were many splendid songs sung by the men
going into action, of which perhaps the best known is “John Brown’s body
lies a’mouldering in the grave.” It is probable that nowadays, invoking
the shade of Lincoln, Americans would swing into battle singing “We are
coming, Father Abraham.”
There is a touching story to the effect that on one occasion when the
two great opposing armies—the strenuous North and the chivalrous
South—were actually only separated by a river, the soldiers on one side
began singing “Annie Laurie,” and suddenly the refrain was heard
floating over from the other side. Long after the deadly conflict which
took place the next day was forgotten, the incident of the song was
remembered in both Northern and Southern homes.
The instinctive fear felt and shown by the Germans of our cavalry, and
the great deeds of valour performed by them in the Battle of Mons,
recalls an exciting incident which occurred in the Indian Mutiny, when
what was known as the Volunteer Cavalry, raised by Sir Henry Lawrence
from among the unattached officers and civilians of Lucknow, did a
marvellous feat of arms while on their way to that beleaguered city.
There came a moment when Lawrence saw himself in danger of being
surrounded. He gave the order to retreat, a retreat which soon
degenerated into a rout. On approaching the Kokral stream which ran
across the road to Lucknow, about four hundred rebel cavalry were seen
prepared to dispute the passage of the one bridge on which depended the
safety of the fugitives. The situation was saved by the Volunteer
Cavalry. Without a moment’s hesitation some thirty of them with their
commander, Captain Radcliffe, at their head, hurled themselves at the
dense mass in their front, and before they could strike a blow the enemy
broke and fled, leaving the bridge free. To this splendid charge alone
was due the fact that a remnant of the British force finally reached
Lucknow in safety.
Let me recall in the same connection another tale of the Mutiny. It was
during the night of the 19th of June, when an especially determined
attack was made on the British position outside Delhi. Hope Grant, in
command of the cavalry, kept back the fiercest attacks of the enemy on
the rear of the British camp. At last, unhorsed, surrounded by the foe,
he must have fallen, had not his sowar, or native orderly, Rooper Khan,
ridden up to him saying, “Take my horse, sir, it is your only chance of
safety!” Hope Grant refused, but taking a firm grip of the animal’s tail
he was dragged by his sowar out of the mass of fighting men.
The British cavalry have been celebrated from the days of Julius Cæsar.
In his famous Commentaries, Cæsar remarks of his brave British foes,
“They display in battle the speed of horse with the firmness of
infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness
that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check
their horses at full speed and manage to turn them in an instant.”
The British cavalryman regards his horse as his friend. It is recorded
that after each of the great cavalry charges at Mons the men, though in
considerable danger of being “sniped,” went round and shot the poor
wounded horses, so that they might be at once put out of their misery.
Those of you who have ponies of your own may like to hear how kindly and
tenderly our battle-horses are treated. The Army Veterinary Corps,
officered by fully trained veterinary surgeons, always accompanies our
troops in the field. Immediately after an engagement these officers
attend to those horses which are only slightly wounded, and send them
along to a horse hospital if it be necessary.
As to what care horses should have on active service, opinions differ
curiously. In a letter written by the Duke of Wellington to a cavalry
officer, he begged him when in the field not to allow his men to dress
their horses’ skins. “You have no conception how much warmth the animals
derive from the dust which accumulates in their coats.”
Cavalry horses love the stir and din, even perhaps the danger, of
battle. The story goes that one day a milkwoman passing in her cart near
where a regiment of cavalry was manœuvring, heard the trumpets sound.
Her horse pricked up his ears and started off at full gallop towards the
sentries, dragging the cart after it in spite of the poor woman’s
efforts. It did not stop till it had joined the ranks!
We will now go back to the Battle of Mons—to the firing line, and to a
remarkable act of gallantry performed by Captain Grenfell. The tale, as
told by a corporal, cannot be improved on:
“The gunners had all been killed by shrapnel, and there were the guns
with no one to look after them, and a good chance that the Germans might
get them. The horses were safe enough, but there was no one to harness
them. Captain Grenfell stepped out. ‘We’ve got to get those guns back,’
he said. ‘Who’s going to volunteer for the job?’ He had a couple of
dozen of us before he had finished speaking. Since our chaps have seen
him in the firing line, they would go anywhere with him.
“Well, we went out. There were bullets flying all round us and shrapnel
bursting all over the place, but Captain Grenfell was as cool as if he
was on parade. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘They can’t hit us. Come
along!’ We got to the guns all right, hitched up the horses, and brought
them back, and only three of our chaps were hit. It’s a wonder the whole
lot of us were not wiped out.”
It was later in that same day that this gallant Captain Grenfell was
wounded. He got a bullet in the thigh, and a couple of his fingers were
hurt. His men brought him back from the firing line and sent for an
ambulance to take him away, but while they were waiting for the
ambulance a motor-car came along. “That’s exactly what I want,” said the
Captain. “What’s the use of an ambulance to me? Take me back to the
firing line.” And he got into the motor-car and went back, leaving the
doctors to make what they liked of it!
Here is another story, of which the hero this time is a cavalry
sergeant. This man had been badly wounded three times, but was still
going on fighting. Suddenly he heard a corporal shouting to be taken out
of the line. Turning round, he bound up his comrade’s wounds, set him on
his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then, regardless of his
own condition, he limped along to his regiment, and started fighting
again.
And now for a very pathetic little incident.
In the middle of the battle, in a beautiful cornfield from which the men
fighting could see all over the country, one of the drivers of a battery
was badly wounded. He asked to see the colours before he died. His
officer told him that the guns were _his_ colours, and he answered:
“Yes, that is true. Tell the drivers to keep their eyes on their guns,
for if we lose our guns we lose our colours.”
These brave drivers have the strongest feeling of affection and loyalty
for their guns.
On one occasion, also at Mons, two drivers brought a gun out of action,
the shells bursting all round them. They had noticed that the gunners
had all been killed, so they walked their horses down to save the gun.
One driver held the horses under a fearful fire while the other
“limbered up.” The gun was rushed safely back, neither men nor horses
being hit. Their comrades, watching them from the trenches, thought it
quite impossible for them to escape death, for shot and shell were
ploughing the ground up all round them.
So many were the brave, chivalrous, and merciful deeds in this battle
that it is difficult to make a choice. I should like, however, to tell
you of one such performed by a lieutenant of the “A” Company of the 1st
Cheshires, whose nickname is “Winkpop.”
He was shot through his right leg, and on the road some of his men cut
off his boots and tried to bandage his wounds. As he rose to his feet,
he saw a private in distress about fifteen yards away. Seizing a rifle
he hobbled forward and managed to bring him in on his back under a
murderous fire from the enemy.
This gallant deed recalls a splendid act of valour performed by two
non-commissioned officers, who were among the first group of V.C.
heroes. They were among the very few to return unscathed from the Charge
of the Light Brigade. Regardless of their own danger, they remained by
one of their wounded officers, and at last, by making a bandy-chair with
their arms, they actually brought him in safety to the British lines.
The cool courage of the doctors and of the ambulance men whose duty it
is to rescue and then to attend to the wounded must never be lost sight
of in what may be called the more showy deeds performed by our soldiers
and sailors.
The story you have just read recalls the astonishing coolness and
bravery of the man who, I believe, was the first doctor to receive the
V.C.—Surgeon Mouat of the Inniskillings. He dressed the wound, under
fire, of Captain Morris, of the 17th Lancers, who had just taken part in
the Charge of the Light Brigade, thereby saving his patient’s life.
The Middlesex Regiment, who bear the glorious nickname of “The Die
Hards,” greatly distinguished themselves on those eventful days, August
23 and 24. They were much pleased by a communication received by them,
containing a statement by Mr. J. B. Dolphin, British Vice-Consul at
Liège, in which the following passage occurred:
“A German general said that he had never dreamt of such magnificent
bravery as that displayed by them. The accuracy of their firing was a
revelation: their coolness was wonderful, and their trench work
splendid.”
As you will see later in this book, “The Die Hards” also distinguished
themselves in one of the later battles of the war.
In the first public speech made in England by a British officer wounded
at Mons, Captain Buchanan Dunlop, he paid a fine tribute to the French
non-combatants, as people who are not soldiers are called in a country
at war:
“I think England might get a very good lesson from the inhabitants of
France and Belgium. All the way as we proceeded through that country all
the inhabitants turned out and did all they could for us. They brought
us coffee, bread and butter, cigarettes, and anything they could think
of. The ladies even turned out balls of string in case the men might
find them useful, and handkerchiefs. We advanced up through this
country, and then had to retire through it. You can imagine our feelings
going back through the same country that we had previously traversed.
This did not make the slightest difference to the way we were treated by
the inhabitants. They brought us coffee and other things as before.
“Fugitives flying from their homes were eager to give us of the food
which they were carrying back for their own consumption. What struck us
the whole time was the thought, If this was England? What an awful thing
it would be to have an invading army in England, and everything
happening here that is now going on in France!”
Captain Buchanan Dunlop also told two splendid little stories to show
what pluck and fight our men have in them:
“I was talking to an officer of my own regiment in town yesterday. He
was also wounded, and he told me about a fight on Wednesday week when
one of his men lying just in front of him under heavy shell fire, turned
to him and said: ‘Sir, may I retire?’ ‘Why?’ asked the officer. ‘Sir,’
replied the man, ‘I have been hit three times.’”
Here is the other little incident:
“On the very first day we were holding a canal bank, and during the
night we had orders to retire, having held off the enemy all day. We
were to blow up the bridges. By some mishap a sergeant with ten men was
left on the wrong side of that canal with the Germans about two hundred
yards in front. We could hear the Germans talking. The next morning,
when we called the roll, we expressed sorrow at thinking that this
sergeant and his men must have been captured. But in the morning, when
they found they were cut off, what did they do? They did not put up
their hands, but blazed away at the Germans, with the result that the
Germans fled and the sergeant and his men got away.”
The following story shows how many sides there are to a modern battle.
It was at Mons that a fight occurred for the possession of a canal
bridge, and a handful of British soldiers held at bay the enemy, who
were in force a hundred yards away. The odds were overwhelmingly against
our soldiers, and the Germans were preparing to rush the bridge, when an
engineer sergeant perceived that if the enemy succeeded our men would be
cut off.
Urging the men to concentrate their fire on one particular point, this
cool, brave man proceeded to dynamite the bridge. But as time was short
he could only employ a few inches of fuse. This meant that he went to
certain death. Sure enough, he and the bridge blew up together, and as
an eye-witness quaintly said, “Another Victoria Cross was saved.”
A young Isle of Wight gunner named Butchers, from the pretty village of
Brading, was the hero of a magnificent episode.
A half battery in rather an exposed position was galling the enemy by
the accuracy of its aim. Several of the German batteries therefore made
a combined attack on it. It was a fight between a David and half-a-dozen
Goliaths. One by one its guns were silenced. The men who had been
serving them were shot down till at last only Butchers was left. He went
on doing his best, working steadily and to all appearance calmly, till
an officer called him away.
One of the first letters received from the fighting line contained the
following striking tribute from the writer, a private, to one of his
officers:
“You know I have often spoken of Captain ——, and what a fine fellow he
was. There was no braver man on the field. He got knocked over early
with a piece of a shell, which smashed his leg. He must have been in
great pain, but kneeling on one knee he was cheerful and kept saying,
‘My bonnie boys, make sure of your man.’ When he was taken away on the
ambulance he shouted, ‘Keep cool and mark your man.’”
You have already heard how splendidly our soldiers were welcomed by the
women and children when they landed in France. Well, during the Battle
of Mons the French peasant women showed their gratitude in an even more
practical way. It was very hot during those hours of fierce fighting,
and these valiant women brought water, and luscious cooling fruit, right
into our trenches and firing line. “I can assure you they are the
bravest souls I have ever met,” wrote a British private to his mother.
During the Battle of Mons the Germans may be credited with having
performed at least one act of kindness.
Lieutenant Irwin, of the South Lancashire Regiment, was wounded by
shrapnel at the end of the day’s hard fighting. He lay all night in a
turnip field. In the morning some German soldiers discovered him and one
of them brought a bundle of hay for Mr. Irwin to lie on till the
stretcher came up. He was taken to Valenciennes, and the German
commander most kindly allowed him to write home to his friends. There
were many French doctors and nurses in this hospital, and the German
officers behaved well to them also.
Very different was the experience of Private Charles Baker, of the 20th
Hussars.
After being wounded, he was taken into a cottage which had been turned
into a temporary hospital and where there were already twenty men,
including three Germans, in charge of an English doctor. Suddenly this
poor little hospital was raided by a party of fifty Germans, all more or
less drunk. Roughly they ordered the British wounded to say where their
regiment was, but, as Private Charles Baker wrote home to his people,
“Not one of us would give the game away.” Thereupon they were threatened
with death, and as Private Baker very honestly remarks: “I can tell you
I began to shake. I was really afraid then. I thought my number was up!”
Suddenly a most unexpected thing happened. The three wounded Germans
implored their comrades to spare the British, pointing out how very
kindly they had been treated by the English doctor. So the fifty Germans
went off as quickly as they had come in, and the next day the wounded
were all moved to another hospital.
Those of you who know anything of the Crimean War are aware what a
terrific battle was Inkerman. The British losses at Mons were the
highest for any single battle since Inkerman. On the other hand, there
were probably ten times greater forces engaged at Mons than at Inkerman,
when the numbers on either side were fairly even.
Now one last word as to where this battle was fought.
Very few English people who had not actually been there were familiar
with the name of Mons, and yet the town which gave its name to the first
big battle of this war, is not only the centre of the French “Black
Country,” but it has had a long and romantic history, and was founded by
Julius Cæsar.
A certain King of Spain, to whom Mons once belonged, must have been very
like the Kaiser. The latter, as we know, has with magnificent
lavishness, bestowed the Prussian V.C., the great decoration of the Iron
Cross, on some fifty thousand of his men. This King of Spain was once so
pleased with the inhabitants of Mons that he conferred a peerage on
every member of the Town Council!