MONS (_continued_)
_But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France?_
It may be of interest at this point if the narrative be broken off for
a few minutes to give some details of the methods the Germans employ in
their infantry attack, especially as they differ so greatly from our
own.
The two main features are (_a_) they consider rifle work as of
comparatively little value and rely mainly on machine-gun fire, and
(_b_) they attack in dense masses, shoulder to shoulder.
British methods are, or were, precisely the opposite. Our men have
brought musketry to such perfection that an infantryman will get off in
one minute almost double the number of rounds that a German will; and,
what is more to the point, they will all hit the mark. Let it be noted
that the British Army owes this perfection to the wise foresight of
Lord Roberts. (Ah, if only the nation, too, had listened to him!)
British troops, adopting the lessons of the Boer War, attack with an
interval between the files, i.e. in extended order.
Now at Mons, and after, a German battalion generally attacked in three
double ranks. The rear double rank had with it four or six
machine-guns. They count upon the first three or four ranks stopping
the enemy's bullets, but, by the time these are swept away, the last
ranks (with the machine-guns) should be sufficiently near to carry the
position attacked: say about 300 yards.
This reckless sacrifice of life is typical of the German "machine," as
opposed to the British "individual."
As a matter of fact their method never succeeded over open ground
before the British fire, for the front ranks were always swept away at
the very beginning of the attack, and so they did not get near enough
with the rear ranks.
The German officer who gave me these details remarked that the rapidity
and accuracy of the British fire were simply incredible, that they
never had a chance.
"Our men," he said, "have come to believe that every one of you carries
a portable Maxim with him."
* * * * *
It must have been about 2.30 in the afternoon that Binche had to be
abandoned. But it was before this that the German infantry attacks
began all along the line.
For nearly two hours our men had somehow or other been weathering the
storm of shrapnel, and we have seen that they had by now settled down
under it. Let us get back to the Second Corps and see what is
happening. You have got some idea of the look of the country in front
of our positions, all broken up, uneven ground, little woods here and
there. Out on the left flank there are county regiments, men of
Dorset, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cheshire, Surrey. They know something about
"ground" work, and they have learned a deal more with their regiments.
One end of the Yorks L.I. trench ends in a little stone-walled pigsty.
At least it was a pigsty about church time that morning, but a German
gunner thought it would look better without any roof or walls.
There is still a fragment three feet high on the weather side, and the
Yorks C.O. finds it a convenient shelter for the time being. He is not
attending church-parade that day, so it doesn't matter about lying full
length in the filth on the ground. The last remaining company
colour-sergeant is with him--also embedded in the manure. They are
both nibbling chocolate. Tobacco would be particularly useful just
now, but they have both run out of it.
For some minutes the C.O. has been intently watching through his
glasses the corner of a wood about 500 yards in front. He hands the
binoculars to the sergeant.
"What do you make of it? That corner over the little shed."
The sergeant has a look. He returns the glasses and slowly nods.
"It might be a brigade, sir, from the number of them."
"Yes," says the C.O., "I thought it was about time. Get word along
that there is to be no firing till the order's given."
"Very good, sir!" And the sergeant scrambles to his feet, salutes,
ducks hastily as a shell seems to whistle past unnecessarily close, and
dives into the rabbit-burrow in which his men are squatting. The C.O.
returns to his glasses.
The C.O. of a British battery, in position some distance to the rear,
has evidently also spotted that particular target, for puffs of
bursting shrapnel have begun to appear over the wood and round the
edges.
Now there is a distinct movement of troops emerging from behind the
wood. It is a movement only which can be seen, for the men themselves
can scarcely be distinguished against the grey-green country-side.
At the very same moment it seems as though all the guns in the world
have been turned on to those few miles of British front, and to the
batteries behind.
The British gun-fire wavers for a minute or so; but soon it picks up
again though, alas! not so strongly as before.
The Yorks C.O. has lost his enemy infantry for a minute; they are
working forward under the edge of a rise in the ground.
Now the front ranks appear, and the C.O. gives a sharp whistle of
astonishment. Four hundred yards off, and it looks like a great
glacier rolling down a mountain-side.
Nearer still it creeps, and the German guns have raised their range to
give their infantry a chance. "Besides, there will probably be nothing
but empty trenches to take anyway," they say.
Fifty yards nearer, and the temptation is too great.
"Let it go, Yorkshires!" he yells down the trench. (The command is not
in the drill-book, but it serves very well.)
And the Yorkshires "let it go" accordingly.
"Eh, lads," sings out a lad from Halifax, "'tis t' crowd coom oop for
t' Coop Day! And t' lads yonder can't shoot for nuts," he blithely
adds as myriads of rifle bullets whistle high overhead.
And he and the lads from Trent-side proceed very methodically to give
"t' lads" from Spreeside a lesson in how shooting should be done.
Very methodically; but that means something like 16 shots a minute each
man, and you may be sure that very, very few bullets go off the target.
No one dreams of keeping cover. Indeed, the men prop their rifles on
the parapet and pump out lead as hard as their fingers can work bolt
and trigger.
Miss? It's impossible to miss. You can't help hitting the side of a
house--and that's what the target looks like. It is just slaughter.
The oncoming ranks simply melt away.
And now through the unholy din you can hear a cracking noise which is
quite distinct in the uproar. Something like the continuous back-fire
of a mammoth motor-cycle. Machine-guns.
The Dorsets have got a man who is a past-master in the use of these
infernal engines. How he escaped that day no one can tell. But for
many an hour he sat at the gun spraying the enemy attack with his steel
hose. His "bag" must have run into thousands.
The attack still comes on. Though hundreds, thousands of the grey
coats are mown down, as many more crowd forward to refill the ranks.
Nearer still, and with a hoarse yell the Yorkshires, Dorsets, Cornwalls
and others are out of the trenches, officers ahead of them, with
bayonets fixed and heading straight at the enemy. A murderous Maxim
fire meets them but it does not stop them, and in a minute they are
thrusting and bashing with rifles, fists, stones, in amongst the enemy
ranks.
Again the German gunners drop their range and pour their shells
indiscriminately into friend and foe. It is too much for the attacking
regiments and they break up hopelessly, turn and begin to struggle
back. It is impossible to attempt any rally of our men. They must go
on until they are overwhelmed by sheer numbers, or they must straggle
to the lines as best they can in knots of twos and threes, or wander
aimlessly off to the flanks and get lost.
Such was one single attack. But no sooner was it broken than fresh
regiments would march out to begin it all over again. And here is no
Pass of Thermopylae where a handful of men can withstand for indefinite
time an army. What can the British hope to do against such
overwhelming numbers? The end, you will say, must be annihilation.
The cavalry, the only reserves, are working, surely, as no cavalry has
ever worked before. Squadrons are everywhere at once. Wherever a gap
is threatened they are there in support. And wherever they go there
also go the Horse Gunners working hand and glove with them. Charge and
counter-charge upon the flanks of the attacking infantry, dismounting
to cover with their fire a British infantry rally, fierce hand-to-hand
encounters with enemy squadrons. Wherever they are wanted, each man
and horse is doing the work of ten.
But this cannot last for long. Now it is becoming only too evident
that far from there being a reasonable superiority against us the
British are everywhere along the line hopelessly outnumbered in every
arm. And at 5 P.M. there happened one of the most dramatic incidents
of the war, that day or afterwards. You will find the bare recital of
the event set forth in cold official language in the G.O.C.-in-Chief's
dispatch, beginning: "In the meantime, about 5 P.M., I received a most
unexpected message from General Joffre."
It will be remembered that from information received from French G.H.Q.
the previous night, and from his own reconnaissance reports, the
Commander-in-Chief had concluded that his right flank was reasonably
secured by the French armies, that the fortress of Namur was still
being held, and that the enemy strength in front of him was about
134,000 men and 490 field-guns, at an outside estimate.
All the afternoon the enemy had been attacking, and the British right
had had to give ground before it, with the consequence that Mons itself
had to be abandoned.
Now, like a bolt from the blue, came the message from the French.
"Unexpected," one would think, is a very mild term:--
"Namur has fallen. The Germans _yesterday_ won the passages over the
River Sambre between Charleroi and Namur. The French armies are
retiring. You have _at least_ 187,500 men and 690 guns attacking you
in front; another 62,500 men and 230 guns trying to turn your left
flank; and probably another 300,000 men" (the victorious army in
pursuit of the French) "driving in a wedge on your right."
This is what the message would look like:--
[Illustration: Attacking and defending forces]
But we have seen that there were really thirteen German corps attacking
the positions Tournai--Namur--Dinant.
Thus the _real_ figures would probably look like this:--
[Illustration: Attacking and defending forces]
We may, of course, take it that by the end of the day the figures were
somewhat reduced all round, British and German; the German losses being
"out of all proportion to those which we have suffered."
[Illustration: PLAN B. Position as it appeared at 5 pm Aug 23.]
Such then was the situation at 5.0 P.M. on that eventful Sunday. An
average of nearly four times our number of guns against us all along
the position. No wonder that senior officers had guessed from the
first that "something was wrong."
And G.H.Q.? You imagine, perhaps, that the municipal offices where the
General Staff had its abode would now be seething with excitement. You
will picture Staff officers rushing from room to room; orders and
counter-orders being reeled off; the Intelligence and Army Signals
Departments looking like Peter Robinson's in sales week; an army of
motor-cyclist dispatch riders being hurled from the courtyard towards
every point of the compass.
Wrong! G.H.Q. that day, and the next, was less concerned than a little
French provincial mairie would be on France's national fête day. The
casual visitor would have seen less bustle of activity than at the
Liverpool offices of a shipping firm on mail day.
The Postal Department: "Business as usual." Army Censor: Not much
doing. Intelligence: Half a dozen red-tabbed officers looking at big
maps with blue and red chalk-marks on them. Director of Ordnance
Supplies: "Better see about moving rail-head a few miles farther
south." A.G.'s (Adjutant-General) Office: "We shall want orders out
about stragglers, what they are to do." And so on, all through the
list. If this was an instance of that British phlegm which so amuses
the French, then commend me to it! If anybody wanted a tonic against
pessimism these days of the Retreat he only had to drop in at G.H.Q.
He would certainly come out with the conviction that we should indeed
be home by Christmas, with the German Army wiped off the map.
Yes, that week which followed, indeed, welded into one "band of
brothers" all the officers and men in the little Force. In those days
everybody seemed to know everybody else. Regimental jealousy (if it
ever existed) was obliterated completely, and every officer and man,
from the General Officers Commanding Corps down to the bus drivers who
drove the A.S.C. lorries, worked shoulder to shoulder. And so we
pulled through.
Now there were other units in the Force besides those in the
firing-line. There were all those columns which trekked up by road.
Normally, most of these should be something like 15 miles to the rear.
They know very little of what is going on ahead of them, though the
ammunition columns can gauge fairly well by the demands made on them.
So it was that about midnight on that Sunday they began to realise back
there that things were moving by a sudden and insistent demand for
every scrap of rifle and 18-pr. ammunition they carried.
No sooner was that sent than there came more demands, and there was
nothing to send. Wagons and lorries had trundled off at once to
rail-head, but it would be hours before they could get back. Thus, on
the very first day, the overwhelming nature of the situation pulled at
and snapped the slender threads of communication. The threads were
soon mended, but, as will be seen later, they never got properly into
working order until the Marne.
Nor did those columns altogether escape disaster even at the very
outset of the fighting. One, out towards the flank, was attacked and
practically destroyed by raiding cavalry, for they do not work with
escorts.
In one column, about 10.0 P.M., the alarm was given by an imaginative
A.S.C. subaltern. What the men were to fight with is not clear, for
only about 25 per cent. of the detachment had ever handled a rifle, and
no ammunition was issued.
"It's Germans crawling through that field," said the subaltern. "I saw
their electric-torch flashes."
The men stood to, peering into the darkness, and feeling certain that
their last hour had come.
A farmer came slowly out of the field-gate and begged two of the men to
come and help him round up his cows.
So the detachment turned in again, cursing heartily.
But soon the A.S.C. bus drivers were "doing their bit" under fire as
gallantly as everybody else. How and when you shall hear in another
chapter.
6.0 P.M.--The enemy have concentrated their fire upon the town of Mons
and it has become untenable.
Only six hours, six little hours since the Belgian townsfolk had come
peacefully home from Mass to their Sunday _déjeuner_, proud and hopeful
in the presence of their British allies. And now their houses, their
town, a heap of smoking ruins.
In those short hours how many women have seen their children crushed by
falling walls or blown to atoms by bursting shells? How many children
are left helpless and alone in the world, with no mother or father to
take them by the hand and guide them from the hell of destruction?
Is there no thought for them, you who have been following the fortunes
of the day for the British? Many have escaped, with such few household
treasures as they can carry in perambulators and little handcarts.
They, at least, have some hope of life. These may struggle on for a
little while--to faint or die of hunger and exhaustion by the roadside.
The strongest may get through.
For the rest, their lives are sacrificed to make a German holiday.
They die, but in their death the battalions of these innocents have
joined the mighty, mysterious army of souls who shall haunt the German
people until Germany ceases to be.
_C'est l'armée de ceux qui sont morts_
_En maudissant les Allemands,_
_Et dont les invincibles renforts_
_Vengeront le sang innocent._[1]
With such an overwhelming attack working forward in front and on both
flanks the only problem left was how to get the British force away with
the smallest loss. To remain obviously meant certain annihilation
sooner or later. As a matter of course, possible positions in rear had
long since been reconnoitred. They were not particularly good ones,
but the best that were available.
From earlier in the afternoon the Sappers had been at work on all the
bridges crossing the canal, laying mines ready to blow them up in front
of a possible successful enemy advance. By no means a pleasant task
this, for the men were working under heavy fire practically all the
time. But the Sappers are another of those corps of the Service which
are well used to the kicks without the ha'pence, and nothing comes
amiss to them. There is no regiment in the Army whose work merits
recognition more than the R.E.; there is no regiment more surprised and
pleased at receiving it.
As the dusk draws on the enemy fire has slackened a little, and the men
in their trenches are here and there able to snatch mouthfuls of any
food they happen to have handy. Most of them have not tasted anything
since early morning, and they have been fighting hard all day. But
there is no thought of rest.
The darkening night becomes red day as the glare of burning houses and
buildings everywhere mounts to heaven in great shafts of light. It is
such a picture as only a Rembrandt could give us on canvas.
The men sit or crouch wearily in their burrows, rifles always ready,
heads sunk forward over the butts. Now and again there is a momentary
stir as a doctor or stretcher-bearers scramble through the debris to
get at the wounded. The fantastic, twisted shapes of the dead are
reverently composed and laid down on the ground. The belongings of
them are carefully collected, with the little metal identity disc. So
far as possible these will reach the wife, mother, or sweetheart at
home.
Perhaps those evening hours of the first day's fighting were the most
terrible the men were ever to know. The tension had very slightly
relaxed, and the brain began once again something of its functions.
They began to _feel_ things. No one ever gets accustomed to being
under the fire of modern warfare, and this was the first day of it.
The horror of everything began to crush the senses. Soon physical and
mental action became purely mechanical; men ceased to feel, but moved,
fired a rifle, fed themselves, with the grotesque jerks of children's
toys. But this was not yet. Now they were conscious, if but a little.
One man, a bugler in a county regiment, little more than a child in
years, went raving mad as he staggered across a trench and fell,
dragging with him a headless Thing which still kept watch with rifle
against shoulder. His shrieks, as they pulled the two apart, ring even
now in the ears. He died that night, simply from shock after the awful
tension of the day.
Consciousness came to the men, yet with it came also amazing
cheerfulness even in the midst of the horror. But it was the
cheerfulness not of high spirits but of determination, and of pity.
They had fought through the day against an enemy which, even to men who
did not understand, was in overwhelming strength; and yet they had been
able to hold their ground. It was the cheerfulness which, at a word
from their officers, would have taken them straight at the enemy's
throat.
And pity, if it is to be helpful and sincere, must have behind it a
gaiety of heart. No man in the world is more tender to helpless or
dumb creatures than the British soldier or sailor; no man more
cheerful. And no man in the Force but felt his heart wrung by the
infinite pathos of the folk of Mons and round it. History will never
record how many soldiers lost their lives that day in succouring the
people who had put such trust in their presence.
And how many won such a distinction as no king can bestow--the love and
gratitude of little children? One man, at least, I knew (I never
learned his name) who, at the tears of two tiny mites, clambered into
the ruins of a burning outhouse, then being shelled, to fetch something
they wanted, he could not understand what. He found a terror-stricken
cat and brought it out safely. No, not pussy, something else as well.
Back he went again, and after a little search discovered on the floor
in a corner a wicker cage, in it a blackbird. Yes, that was it. And,
oh, the joy of the girl mite at finding it still alive!
"Well, you see, sir," he said afterwards, "I've got two kiddies the
image of them. And it was no trouble, anyway."
About 2 A.M. (the 24th) orders to begin retiring were issued from
G.H.Q. Some four hours before a few of the units--those north of the
canal--had begun to fall back; and so the beginning of the move was
made. As the last of these crossed the bridges the detonator fuses
were fired and the bridges blown up.
For the rest, the men crouched ever in their places, bayonets fixed,
rifles always ready--waiting, waiting.
[1] 'Tis the army of those who in dying
Have cursed the German flood--
And whose growing invincible forces
Will avenge all innocent blood.--EMILE CAMMAERTS.