the sappers (after careful investigation for, and destruction of, the
numerous booby-traps) had to bridge or to circumvent them, or both.
Bridges, of course, were all blown up. Hirson, entered on the 8th of
November (Plate 120), is an example of many others, where there has
not been time to erect a girder bridge. Plate 121 shows one of the
pile bridges over the Condé Canal--bridges which were often erected
in an incredibly short time. The Americans reached the Meuse at Sedan
(Plate 122) on the 5th of November, and took the western half of
the town on the 7th, and the British under Byng retook the ancient
fortress of Maubeuge (Plate 123 shows the girder bridge over the Meuse
here put across after the German retreat), which had been compelled
to surrender, after a fortnight's siege, on the 9th of November in
1914. Finally British troops (Canadians) reached Mons (Plate 124),
and entered the city at dawn on the 11th of November, a few hours
before the Armistice came into effect. So ended the campaign where it
had been commenced more than four years earlier. A story told by Mr.
Buchan[48] is well worth repeating: The 8th Division in Horne's First
Army had spent the winter of 1917-18 in the Ypres Salient; it had done
gloriously in March in the retreat from St. Quentin; it had fought in
May in the third battle of the Aisne, and from the beginning of August
had been hotly engaged in the British advance:
[48] "History of the War," xxiv., p. 73.
"Yet now it had the vigour of the first month of war. On the 10th of
November one of its battalions, the 2nd Middlesex, travelled for seven
hours in 'buses, and then marched twenty-seven miles pushing the enemy
before them. They wanted to reach the spot near Mons where some of
them (then in the 4th Middlesex) fired almost the first British shots
in the war, and it is pleasant to record that they succeeded."
With the recollection of this exploit and the story of Cambrai and
Bourlon (and many others) before them, will anyone in future be daring
enough to try to convince us of the physical and moral decadence of the
Cockney--a doctrine which some offensively superior people tried to
preach not so many years ago?
[Illustration: _PLATE CVII._
THE MONS-CONDÉ CANAL.
_General Smith-Dorrien's men were in position along the canal when
they first received the German attack on Sunday, the 23rd of August,
1914._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CVIII._
SLAG HEAPS AT MONS.
_The colliery slag heaps close to Mons, among which fighting took
place on the first day of the retreat from Mons in 1914._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CIX._
THE MORMAL FOREST.
_The western end of the road across the Mormal Forest to Jolimetz. The
wood has been much thinned by the Germans during their four years of
possession._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CX._
LANDRECIES.
_Here the Guards first came into action in August, 1914, and here in
1918 the German Guards failed to stand in their retreat against our
infantry._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXI._
LE CATEAU.
_The town is very little, if at all, damaged. It stands close to the
"Roman Road" at the eastern end of the road to Cambrai, across and to
the south of which we fought heavy rear-guard actions in 1914, and
across which, in the opposite direction, the Germans retreated four
years later._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXII._
THE MARNE.
_This view gives some idea of the size of the river. It was taken near
La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, which was in the British lines in the first
battle of the Marne in September, 1914._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXIII._
DORMANS.
_On the Marne, a few miles east of Château Thierry. It is one of the
places covered in Ludendorff's_ Friedensturm _advance, and therefore
one of those first to be recovered by Foch in 1918._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXIV._
EPERNAY.
_Ludendorff's great attempt at encircling Rheims involved that two
advances, one east and one west of the Montagne de Reims, should meet
at Epernay, and thence advance on Paris by the Marne Valley. But
Epernay was never reached from either side, although it was shelled
from a distance of seven or eight miles._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXV._
THE VESLE AT SILLERY.
_About six miles from Rheims, where General Gouraud held up the
eastern arm of Ludendorff's "pincers."_]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXVI._
BUZANCY CHÂTEAU.
_At the top of a little ridge above the Crise, south of Soissons.
It was stormed by the Highlanders in very notable fashion in July,
1918. The plateau beyond it gave General Mangin command of the German
communications farther east._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXVII._
MONUMENT AT BUZANCY.
_This memorial was erected by the 17th French Division, who took over
from the Camerons, with the inscription "Ici fleurira toujours le
glorieux Chardon d'Écosse parmi les Roses de France."_]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXVIII._
LE QUESNOY.
_An old town with Vauban fortifications, of which the photograph shows
the moat, which was taken by storm in November, 1918._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXIX._
DESTRUCTION OF ORCHARDS (1917).
_A copy from a captured German photograph of a blown-up railway
bridge, incidentally showing the deliberate destruction of the
fruit-trees in the German retreat of 1917._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXX._
HIRSON.
_Everywhere in their retreat of 1918 the Germans naturally blew up
bridges in order to hinder our progress behind them. At Hirson the old
bridge was still only replaced by a timber structure._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXXI._
A PILE BRIDGE.
_One of the very rapidly constructed pile bridges (in this case over
the Condé Canal), which the Engineers threw up in place of those
destroyed in the German retreat._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXXII._
SEDAN.
_The River Meuse at Sedan,--where the entrance of Americans and French
in 1918 avenged the catastrophe of half a century earlier._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXXIII._
MAUBEUGE.
_The fortifications of Maubeuge, although of an old type, held a
considerable force of Germans back in the advance of 1914. The bridge
was, of course, destroyed by the retreating Germans in 1918, and the
girder bridge has temporarily replaced it._]
[Illustration: _PLATE CXXIV._
MONS.
_For us the war began here on the 23rd of August, 1914, and ended on
the 11th of November, 1918._]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Obvious printer's errors corrected.
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, inconsistently
hyphenated words, inconsistent accent marks, and other inconsistencies.
End of Project Gutenberg's Ypres to Verdun, by Alexander B. W. Kennedy