THE FINAL HACK
From Brussels by road to Mons is less than 40 miles; from Liége to
Charleroi in the valley of the Sambre little more than 50. It is clear
now that while one part of the great invading host took the direct
route from Liége towards the Sambre, the other made a detour by way of
Brussels to meet the Belgian army. The object was to strike towards
the three great international roads running to Paris from Belgium.
The most westerly of these great routes passes from Brussels through
Mons and Valenciennes; the next through Charleroi and the French
frontier fortress of Maubeuge; the third along the valley of the Meuse
through Namur, past Dinant, and away to Laon. These brief facts on the
topography of the country will help to explain the military operations.
Briefly, if we imagine the march by way of Brussels as a bow, and the
march direct from Liége as its string, we shall have a rough but
fairly accurate idea of the movement executed; bearing in mind only
that even the parts of a host of this magnitude, though the rear would
be nearly two days’ march behind the van, would each be pouring at once
along adjacent roads leading in the same direction.
In any event, and quite apart from any opposition offered by the
Belgians, with the delay resulting from it, the detour by way of
Brussels involved an additional two days at least. But the fighting
with the Belgians caused a further three days’ delay. Of those days,
two, certainly, were occupied in the battle, and the third in resting
the troops engaged and in burying the dead. It was not, therefore,
until August 23, five days after the start from Liége, that the forces,
in fact, concentrated at the opposite end of the bow in southern
Belgium.
Only a small part of them, as we have seen, passed through Brussels.
The main body, even of the northern division, marched through Tirlemont
and on to Hal, round the south of the capital. At the same time, the
enormous column of cavalry, acting as a screen, rode round by the north
of the city and then struck south through Enghien.
All the military display at Brussels was relatively but an aside to the
main performance, intended both for moral effect, such as it was, and
to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy.
We have therefore to imagine between August 21 and August 23 these
great, and, from their size, inevitably unwieldy, forces concentrating
towards the southern frontier of Belgium by every road available.
Here another brief note on geography is necessary. Eastern Belgium, or
that part of it between the Meuse and the sea, is nearly all perfectly
flat, and almost purely agricultural, and the invaders had there
marched through a country which, before they laid it waste, was a
habitation of industry and peace rejoicing in the bounties of harvest.
But western Belgium is largely a manufacturing country, though still
marked by rich rural beauty. Even the main Belgian coalfield extending
through the provinces of Hainault and West Flanders presents outwardly
few of those evidences of utilitarian squalor commonly associated with
coal and iron. The centre of the coal and iron industries of Western
Belgium is Mons, a quaint old place built upon a hill rising amid a
country thickly intersected by canals and railways. Looking east from
Mons, we are looking down the valley of the Sambre, on each side low
rolling hills, the sides and crests of which are in part clothed
with woods and plantations. These hills are, so to say, the outworks
of the Ardennes, one of the natural show-places of Europe. Fifteen
miles from Mons, and on the north bank of the Sambre, is the town of
Charleroi. Fifteen miles farther, at the juncture of the Sambre with
the Meuse, rises the rocky mass forming the ancient citadel of Namur.
The Sambre is not a wide stream, but is swift, its course alternating
between rapids and deep pools. It is most passable, in the military
sense, about ten miles west of Namur. Just there the river follows a
succession of sharp bends.
Of the huge land Armada now moving south through this busy and populous
but beautiful country, most people think as being in every sense a
modern European army. But it was not. There were surgeons with it,
but no field hospitals. It had encumbered itself with no tents. There
was all the grim apparatus of modern war, but only the least possible
of modern war’s humane apparatus. It was the intention of those who
could to quarter themselves on the population of the country through
which the host passed; to supplement food supplies by eating up the
country’s resources. The mass of the invaders slept, where other
shelter was not to be had, in the fields. These hardships sharpened
the lust of conquest. At the rear of the host trudged battalions of
gravediggers. But they were to dig the graves of those who would dare
to stand against it. The comparative poverty and the native parsimony
of the Prussians was reflected in these arrangements. Their all had
been invested in artillery and instruments of death because the leaders
of the host were sure of victory. What else they needed when winter
came would be provided from the spoil of the conquered. In appearance
a modern army, it presented essential features in common with the
migrations of Huns and Goths, which form in Europe the history of the
early Middle Ages. Under a modern disguise, it was a similar horde. It
is easy, therefore, to estimate the rage and surprise which thwarted
hopes, wounded pride, and heavy losses had produced in Belgium, and why
there was behind it a land of mourning and blood.
We now come to the military movements. The 5th French army and two
divisions had advanced and had occupied the angle of country between
the Meuse and the Sambre, and held the passages over both rivers; the
British line was taken up behind the canal which runs from Condé on
the west of Mons to Binche on the east. Mons lay somewhat in advance
of the position, and occupied by the British 3rd division commanded by
General Hamilton, formed an outward angle, or, in military terms, a
salient.
The 5th British cavalry division under General Sir Philip Chetwode had
been sent forward to reconnoitre. Part of the force had, on August
22, advanced as far as the forest of Soignies, close to Brussels. In
face of the cavalry covering the German advance they had fallen back.
Similar reconnaissances were made by the French cavalry round Gembloux
to the north of Namur. Hence during the German advance southward from
Brussels and westward of Namur the hostile forces were in touch with
each other.
An interesting episode, characteristic of the scouting tactics of the
Germans, is related by Mr. A. Beaumont, the special correspondent of
the _Daily Telegraph_, who was at the time in Charleroi:--
On my return to Charleroi I learnt that a detachment of twenty
Hussars of the Death’s Head, led by an officer, had entered
the upper town at seven in the morning. They proceeded towards
the Sambre, and quietly said, “Good-morning” to the people at
the doors. “Bon jour, bon jour,” they said to the housewives,
who were looking on in wonder, and who, mistaking their khaki
uniform, took them for English soldiers.
People even enthusiastically raised cheers for England. The
soldiers, also misled, allowed them to pass. An officer finally
saw them from a window, and rushed down to a detachment on
guard in the Rue Pont Neuf, and gave the alarm. A number of
infantry soldiers at once opened fire on them. It was at the
corner of the Rue De Montigny, where the tramway and railway
lines pass.
Three of the intruders were shot down. The rest, with their
officer, took to flight. It was not believed that such a thing
would be possible, but it proved that the Germans are capable
of anything. They did the same thing many a time in 1870.
Apart from cavalry skirmishes, the fighting began on August 22, when
the Germans attacked the passages over the Sambre about 10 miles to the
west of Namur, already alluded to. Here reference may be made to a ruse
on their part which explains the peculiarity of their movement across
Belgium. The southern contingent was hurried into action evidently in
order to lead the Allies to believe that it formed the bulk of the
German force. After the Allies had made their dispositions to resist on
that footing, the northern contingent was unexpectedly to appear, and
to finish and win the battle by the weight of its forces.
While the fighting was going on for the passages of the Sambre,
another part of the southern contingent, which was formed by the army
apparently of General von Bülow, moved on to attack Charleroi, and yet
another part, an army corps and a cavalry division, appeared before
Mons.
The opening attack upon Mons, however, was what, in common parlance,
is called a “blind,” intended to screen the advance behind it of the
northern contingent, the army of General von Kluck, consisting of the
pick of the Prussian troops.
For it is known now that that commander had marched south from Brussels
having in his pocket an Army Order issued by the German Emperor from
headquarters at Aix-la-Chapelle, under date August 19, which contained
the following passage:--
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 to
walk over General French’s contemptible army.
What happened, therefore, on the arrival of these troops on that
Sunday, August 23, was, briefly told, this. While the British troops
holding Mons were resisting the opening attack on that place, an attack
they readily defeated, the onslaught suddenly developed in great weight
and fury. In face of it, the necessity arose of withdrawing the troops
forming the British salient into line with the rest of the army.
This, in the face of such an attack by overwhelming numbers, was a
most difficult and dangerous operation. It was carried out, however,
with remarkable coolness and courage. Though the British suffered
heavy losses, the masses thrown up against them failed to break their
formations.
The attack thereupon developed all along the British line. Throughout
that day, and far into the succeeding night, the German officers and
men did their utmost faithfully to carry out the royal and imperial
orders, and it is not too much to say that German arrogance met with
the sharpest shock it had until then experienced. In the front of
the British positions German dead lay in masses, and, after their
custom, they left their wounded for the most part to perish. The
unerring marksmanship of the British infantry was as unexpected as
it was deadly; unshaken by the terrific artillery fire, the British
troops met the attacks thrown upon then in mass formation with a
withering hail of lead. Where, with an intensity of contempt and hate
the onslaught succeeded momentarily in getting close in, the British
dashed into it with the bayonet, and “the valour of my soldiers” wilted
under the slaughter. Again and again the German rank and file were
led or driven by their officers upon the British positions, again and
again to be ripped into bloody confusion. They had come up against the
unconquerable.
While these events were in progress, word was received of a formidable
German turning movement in the direction of Tournai, held by a body
of French troops of the second line. This made advisable a retirement
of the British to the rear. Thanks alike to the rock-like steadiness
combined with the inbred tenacity of the infantry, the heavy hitting
power of the artillery, and not least the dauntless devotion of the
cavalry, who faced and broke the heavy odds of the German horse, the
movement was successfully accomplished.
It is not the purpose here to tell the story of the British retreat
from Mons. That feat of arms is related in another volume of this
series. All that comes within present scope is to glance briefly over
the other happenings of these eventful days along that line of battle.
Although in the struggle for the passages of the Sambre the Germans on
the night of August 22 had succeeded in throwing troops across, they
were long and heavily punished by the French artillery, which now, for
the first time, clearly demonstrated the superiority destined to have
so marked an effect during the war. The French field gun was a new
type of weapon, better than the German alike in rapidity and accuracy
of fire. Its more perfect rifling gave a higher muzzle velocity and a
flatter trajectory; the melinite shells used were of intense explosive
force, and the French gunners handled their guns with skill. A larger
proportion of the German artillery consisted of guns of, as it proved,
a relatively out-of-date type, retained and “converted,” apparently,
from motives of economy.
Crossing a river in the face of an enemy so supported is a costly
business, as the Germans soon discovered. With their heavy advantage in
numbers, and with at least four points of simultaneous attack strongly
in their favour, they should have been across in very little time. They
were held at bay for many hours, and repeatedly driven back by French
charges. Only at length under cover of darkness were they able to gain
a footing on the south bank.
Meanwhile, the assault was being pressed against Charleroi, and here
was the centre and decisive point. The French held the place against
repeated attacks, until the regiments of the Prussian Guard, always
held in reserve for critical operations, and reputed invincible, were
brought up against it. There are 20 regiments of the guard, each 3,000
strong. The French were driven out. In turn they launched against the
town the infantry of their African Army Corps, the not less famous
Zouaves and Turcos; and that Sunday afternoon witnessed one of the most
terrible bayonet fights in the history of Europe, a fight in which the
little Belgian town and its environs became a hell. Amid a cannonade
too appalling for description men fought through its streets until
the ways were heaped with dying and dead. Charleroi was set on fire
by shells, but the combat, which knew no truce, went on amid blazing
buildings and collapsing walls. It was a combat of men turned devils.
The town was taken and retaken. At the finish it remained in the hands
of the invaders, but thousands of the flower of their army lay amid and
around its ruins.
The battle of Mons and Charleroi was a Pyrrhic victory. One decisive
advantage, however, on that day the invaders had won. They had captured
the fortress of Namur.
After the heroic defence of Liége the rapid fall of Namur formed one
of the surprises of the campaign. The fortress was held by a Belgian
garrison of some 26,000 men, and well provisioned. Though so far as
natural situation goes a strong place, surrounded by a ring of four
larger and five smaller forts, in which the guns were protected by
armoured turrets of a type similar to those at Liége, it had some
serious weak spots.
As secretly as possible and during the night-time the Germans had
transported from Liége batteries of their huge howitzers, and had
planted these on already prepared beds of concrete in positions beyond
the range of the fortress artillery. It had been decided to renew the
ordnance of the forts, and the guns had been ordered, according to
report, though this lacks authority, from Germany. At all events the
newer and heavier ordnance was not there. It may here be explained
that an attack is rarely or never made upon a hostile fortress without
the general in command of the attack and his principal officers being
put into possession of plans of the works. These plans, the result of
espionage, show every detail, and afford every particular; disclose
every trench, entanglement, and obstacle, every building, wireless
instalment, or line of telegraph and telephone wire. The exact range
and power of every gun is stated. Between the field of fire of the guns
there are spaces, known technically as “dead points,” left uncovered,
or at all events, the facts being disclosed, such dispositions for
attack as will create “dead points” are readily made by drawing the
fire of the forts in particular directions.
Now the defence of Liége was successful because the entrenchments and
obstacles in the sectors between the forts were made when their details
could not be disclosed to the enemy. But Namur had been prepared
about the same time, and there was ample opportunity to discover the
particulars.
All the Germans therefore had to do was to wait for the first autumn
mist among the hills to open fire from guns whose position the
defence did not know. To the attack the “laying” of such guns to
hit any desired object in the fortress was, with the plans in their
possession, a mere matter of mathematical calculation. Under cover of
such a mist, the forts being unable to reply, to knock some of them
to pieces by a heavily concentrated fire, and after that to stalk
the place was comparatively easy. The garrison were aware that the
fortress was untenable, or only to be held by meeting the attack by
a counter-attack. Following a terrific two days’ bombardment, during
which two of the forts were demolished, the assault was launched on the
afternoon of August 23. The garrison after a short resistance against
great odds were driven out. The mist which had favoured the attack
equally favoured their escape. They found their way fortunately into
the French lines.[C]