Sketch 39Sketch 39.
Sketch 39.
You would have seen something like Sketch 31 where the bodies enclosed under the title A were the operative corner; various garrisons and armies in the field, enclosed under the title B, were the manœuvring mass. But it is only by putting the matter quite clearly in the abstract diagrammatic form that its principle can be grasped.
With this digression I will return and conclude with the main points of debate in the use of the open strategic square.
We have seen that the operative corner is in this scheme deliberately imperilled at the outset.
The following is a sketch map of the actual position, and it will be seen that the topographical features of this countryside are fairly represented by Sketch 39; while this other sketch shows how these troops that were about to take the shock stood to the general mass of the armies.
But to return to the diagram (which I repeat and amplify as Sketch 41), let us see how the Allied force in the operative corner before Namur stood with relation to this angle of natural obstacles, the two rivers Sambre and Meuse, and the fortified zone round the point where they met.
Sketch 40Sketch 40.
Sketch 40.
The situation of that force was as follows:—
Sketch 41Sketch 41.
Sketch 41.
Along and behind βγ stretched the 5th Army of the French, prolonged on its left by the British contingent. I have marked the first in the diagram with the figure 5, the second with the letters Br, and the latter portion I have also shaded. At right angles to the French 5th Army stretched the French 4th Army, which I have marked with the figure 4. It depended upon the obstacle of the Meuse βδ for its defence, just as the French 5th Army depended upon the Sambre, γβ. It must, of course, be understoodthat when one says these forces "lay along" the aforesaid lines, one does not mean that they merely lay behind them. One means that they held the bridges and prepared to dispute the crossing of them.
Now, the French plan was as follows. They said to themselves: "There will come against us an enemy acting along the arrows VWXYZ, and this enemy will certainly be in superior force to our own. He will perhaps be as much as fifty per cent. stronger than we are. But he will suffer under these disadvantages:—
"The one part of his forces, V and W, will find it difficult to act in co-operation with the other part of his forces, Y and Z, because Y and Z (acting as they are on an outside circumference split by the fortified zone SSS) will be separated, or only able to connect in a long and roundabout way. The two lots, V and W, and Y and Z, could only join hands by stretching round an awkward angle—that is, by stretching round the bulge which SSS makes, SSS being the ring of forts round Namur. Part of their forces (that along the arrow X) will further be used up in trying to break down the resistance ofSSS. That will take a good deal of time. If our horizontal line AB holds its own, naturally defended as it is, against the attack from V and W, while our perpendicular line BC holds its own still more firmly (relying on its much better natural obstacle) against YZ, we shall have ample time to break the first and worst shock of the enemy's attack, and to allow, once we have concentrated that attack upon ourselves, the rest of our forces, the masses of manœuvre, or at any rate a sufficient portion of them, to come up and give us a majority inthispart of the field. We shall still be badly outnumbered on the line as a whole; but the resistance of our operative corner, relying on the Sambre and Meuse and the fortress of Namur, will gather much of the enemy unto itself. It will thus make of this part of the field the critical district of the whole campaign. Our masses, arriving while we resist, will give us a local superiority here which will hold up the whole German line. We may even by great good luck so break the shock of the attack as ourselves to begin taking the counter-offensive after a little while, andto roll back either Y and Z or V and W by the advance of our forces across the rivers when the enemy has exhausted himself."
It will be clear that this calculation (whether of the expected and probable least favourable issue—a lengthy defence followed by an orderly and slow retreat designed to allow the rest of the armies to come up—or of the improbable and more favourable issue—the taking of the counter-offensive) depended upon two presumptions which the commander of the Allies had taken for granted: (1) that the German shock would not come in more than a certain admitted maximum, say thirty per cent. superiority at the most over the Allied forces at this particular point; (2) that the ring of forts round Namur would be able to hold out for at least three or four days, and thus absorb the efforts of part of the enemy as well as awkwardly divide his forces, while that enemy's attack was being delivered.
Both these presumptions were erroneous. The enemy, as we shall see in a moment, came on in much larger numbers than had been allowed for. Namur, as we havealready seen, fell, not in three or four days, but instantly—the moment it was attacked. And the result was that, instead of an orderly and slow retirement, sufficiently tardy to permit of the swinging up of the rest of the French "square"—that is, of the arrival of the other armies or manœuvring masses—there came as a fact the necessity for very rapid retirement of the operative corner over more than one hundred miles and the immediate peril for days of total disaster to it.
To appreciate how superior the enemy proved to be in number, and how heavy the miscalculation here was, we must first see what the numbers of this Allied operative corner were.
I have in Sketch 42 indicated the approximate positions and relative sizes of the three parts of the Allied forces.
Beginning from the left, we have barely two army corps actually present of the British contingent in the fighting line: for certain contingents of the outermost army corps had not yet arrived. We may perhaps call the numbers actually present at French's command when contact was taken 70,000 men, but that is probably beyondthe mark. To the east lay the 5th French Army, three army corps amounting, say, to 120,000 men, and immediately south of this along the Meuse lay the 4th French Army, another three army corps amounting to at the most another 120,000 men.
We may then call the whole of the operative corner (if we exclude certain cavalry reserves far back, which never came into play) just over 300,000 men. That there were as many as 310,000 is improbable.
The French calculation was that against these 300,000 men there would arrive at the very most 400,000.
That, of course, meant a heavy superiority in number for the enemy; but, as we have seen, the scheme allowed for such an inconvenience at the first contact.
That more than 400,000 could strike in the region of Namur no one believed, for no one believed that the enemy could provision and organize transport for more than that number.
A very eminent English critic had allowed for seven army corps of first-line men as all that could be brought across the BelgianPlain. The French went so far as to allow for ten, a figure represented by the 400,000 men of the enemy they expected.
We had then the Allied forces expecting an attack in about the superiority indicated upon this diagram, where the British contingent and the two French armies are marked in full, and the supposed enemy in dotted lines.
Sketch 42Sketch 42.
Sketch 42.
Roughly speaking, the Allies were allowing for a thirty per cent. superiority.
Now, lying as they did behind the rivers, and with the ring of forts around Namurto shield their point of junction and to split the enemy's attack, this superiority, though heavy, was not crushing. The hopes of the defensive that it would stand firm, or at least retire slowly so as to give time for the manœuvring masses to come up was, under this presumption, just. It was even thought possible that, if the enemy attacked too blindly and spent himself too much, the counter-offensive might be taken after the first two or three days.
As for the remainder of the German forces, it was believed that they were stretched out very much in even proportion, without any thin places, from the Meuse to Alsace.
Now, as a matter of fact, the German forces were in no such disposition. 1. The Germans had added to every army corps a reserve division. 2. They had brought through the Belgian plains a very much larger number than seven army corps: they had brought nine. 3. They had further brought against Namur yet another four army corps through the Ardennes, the woods of which helped to hide their progress from airreconnaissance. To all this mass of thirteen army corps, each army corps half as large again as the active or first line allowed for, add some imperfectly trained but certainly large bodies of independent cavalry. We cannot accurately say what the total numbers of this vast body were, but we can be perfectly certain that more than 700,000 men were massed in this region of Namur. The enemy was coming on, not four against three, but certainly seven against three, and perhaps eight or even nine against three.
The real situation was that given in the accompanying diagram (Sketch 43).
Five corps, each with its extra division, were massed under von Kluck, and called the 1st German Army. Four more, including the Guards, were present with von Buelow, and stretched up to and against the first defences of Namur. Now, around the corner of that fortress, two Saxon corps, a Wurtemberg corps, a Magdeburg corps, and a corps of reserve under the Duke of Wurtemberg formed the 3rd Army, the right wing of which opposed the forts of Namur, the rest of which stretched along the line of the Meuse.
Even if the forts of Namur had held out, the position of so hopelessly inferior a body as was the Franco-British force, in face of such overwhelming numbers, would have been perilous in the extreme. With the forts of Namur abandoned almost at the first blow, the peril was more than a peril. It had become almost certain disaster.
Sketch 43Sketch 43.
Sketch 43.
With the fall of Namur, the angle between the rivers—that is, the crossings of the rivers at their most difficult part where they were broadest—was in the hands of the enemy, and the wholeFrench body, the 4th and 5th Armies, was at some time on that Saturday falling back.
The exact hour and the details of that movement we do not yet know. We do not know what loss the French sustained, we do not know whether any considerable bodies were cut off. We do not know even at what hour the French General Staff decided that the position was no longer tenable, and ordered the general retreat.
All we know is that, so far from being able to hold out two or three days against a numerical superiority of a third and under the buttress of Namur, the operative corner, with Namur fallen and, not 30 per cent., but something more like 130 per cent. superiority against it, began not the slow retreat that had been envisaged, but a retirement of the most rapid sort.
Such a retirement was essential if the cohesion of the Allied forces was to be maintained at all, and if the combined 4th and 5th French Armies and British contingent were to escape being surrounded or pierced.
By the Saturday night at latest the French retirement was ordered; by Sunday morning it was in full progress, and it was proceeding throughout the triangle of the Thierarche all that day.
But the rate of that retirement, corresponding to the pressure upon the French front, differed very much with varying sections of the line. It was heaviest, of course, in those advanced bodies which had lain just under Namur. It was least at the two ends of the bow, for the general movement was on to the line Maubeuge-Mezières. The farther one went east towards Maubeuge, the slower was the necessary movement, and to this cause of delay must be added the fact that von Kluck, coming round by the extreme German line, had farthest to go, and arrived latest against the line of the Allies.
Therefore the British contingent at the western extreme of the Allied line felt the shock latest of all, and all that Sunday morning the British were still occupied in taking up their positions. They had arrived but just in time for what was to follow.
It was not till the early afternoon ofthe Sunday that contact was first taken seriously between Sir John French and von Kluck. At that moment the British commander believed, both from a general and erroneous judgment which the French command had tendered him and from his own air work, that he had in front of him one and a half or at the most two army corps; and though the force, as we shall see in a moment, was far larger, its magnitude did not appear as the afternoon wore on. Full contact was established perhaps between three and four, by which hour the pressure was beginning to be severely felt, and upon the extreme right of the line it had already been necessary to take up defensive positions a little behind those established in the morning. But by five o'clock, with more than two good hours of daylight before it, the British command, though perhaps already doubtful whether the advancing masses of the enemy did not stand for more men, and especially for more guns than had been expected, was well holding its own, when all its dispositions were abruptly changed by an unexpected piece of news.
It was at this moment in the afternoon—that is, about five o'clock—that the French General Staff communicated to Sir John French information bearing two widely different characteristics: the first that it came late; the second that had it not come when it did, the whole army, French as well as British, would have been turned.
The first piece of information, far too belated, was the news that Namur had fallen, and that the enemy had been in possession of the bridge-heads over the Sambre and the Meuse since the preceding day, Saturday. Consequent upon this, the enemy had been able to effect the passage of the Sambre, not only in Namur itself, but in its immediate neighbourhood, and, such passages once secured, it was but a question of time for the whole line to fall into the enemy's hands. When superior numbers have passed one end of an obstacle it is obvious that the rest of the obstacle gradually becomes useless.[3]At what hourthe French knew that they had to retire, we have not been told. As we have seen, the enemy was right within Namur on the early afternoon of Saturday, the 22nd, and it is to be presumed that the French retirement was in full swing by the Sunday morning, in which case the British contingent, which this retirement left in peril upon the western extreme of the line, ought to have been warned many hours before five o'clock in the afternoon.
To what the delay was due we are againas yet in ignorance, but probably to the confusion into which the unexpected fall of Namur and the equally unexpected strength of the enemy beyond the Sambre and the Meuse had thrown the French General Staff.
At any rate, the news did come thus late, and its lateness was of serious consequence to the British contingent, and might have been disastrous to it.
The second piece of news, on the other hand, was the saving of it; and that second piece of news was the information that Sir John French had in front of him not one German army corps, and possibly part or even the whole of a second, but at least three. As the matter turned out, the British contingent was really dealing first and last with four army corps, and the essential part of the news conveyed was that the extreme western portion of this large German forcewas attempting to turn the flank of the whole army.
It was not only attempting to do so, it was in number sufficient to do so; and unless prompt measures were taken, what was now discovered to be the general German plan would succeed, and thecampaign in the West would be in two days decided adversely to the Allies—the same space of time in which the campaign of 1815 was decided adversely to Napoleon in just these same country-sides.
It is here necessary to describe what this German plan was.
The reader has already seen, when the general principles of the open strategic square were described on a previous page, that everything depends upon the fate of the operative corner. This operative corner in the present campaign had turned out to be the two French armies, the 4th and the 5th, upon the Lower Sambre and the Meuse, and the British contingent lying to the left of the 5th on the Upper Sambre and by Mons.
If the operative corner of a strategic open square is annihilated as a military force, or so seriously defeated that it can offer no effective opposition for some days, then the whole plan of a strategic square breaks to pieces, and the last position of the inferior forces which have adopted it is worse than if they had not relied upon the manœuvre at all, but had simply spread out in line to await defeatin bulk at the hands of their superior enemy.
Now there are two ways in which a military force can be disposed of by its opponent. There are two ways in which it can be—to use the rather exaggerated language of military history—"annihilated."
The first is this: You can break up its cohesion by a smashing blow delivered somewhere along its line, and preferably near its centre. But if you do that, the results will never be quite complete, and may be incomplete in any degree according to the violence and success of your blow.
The second way is to get round the enemy with your superior numbers, to get past his flank, to the back of him, and so envelop him. If that manœuvre is carried out successfully, you bag his forces entire. It is to this second manœuvre that modern Prussian strategy and tactics are particularly attached. It is obvious that its fruits are far more complete than those of the first manœuvre, when, or if, it is wholly successful. For to get round your enemy and bag him whole is a larger result than merely to break him up and leavesomeof him able to re-form and perhaps fightagain. Two things needful to such success are (a) superior numbers, save in case of gross error upon the part of the opponents; (b) great rapidity of action on the part of the outflanking body, coupled, if possible, with surprise. That rapidity of action is necessary is obvious; for the party on the flank has got to go much farther than the rest of the army. It has to go all the length of the arrow (1), and an element of surprise is usually necessary. For if the army AA which BB was trying to outflank learned of the manœuvre in time he only has to retreat upon his left by the shorter arrow (2) to escape from the threatened clutch.
Sketch 45Sketch 45.
Sketch 45.
Now, von Kluck with his five army corps, four of which were in operationagainst Sir John French, was well able to count on all these elements. He had highly superior numbers, his superiority had not been discovered until it was almost too late, and for rapidity of action he had excellent railways and a vast equipment of petrol vehicles.
What he proposed to do was, while engaging the British contingent of less than two army corps with three full army corps of his own, to swing his extreme western army corps right round, west through Tournai, and so turn the British line. If he succeeded in doing that, he had at the same time succeeded in turning the whole of the Franco-British forces on the Sambre and Meuse. In other words, he was in a fair way to accomplishing the destruction of the operative corner of the great square, and consequently, as a last result, the destruction of the whole Allied force in the West.
The thing may be represented on a sketch map in this form.
Of von Kluck's five corps, 1 is operating against the junction of the English and French lines beyond Binche, 2, 3, and 4 are massing against the rather more than oneand a half of Sir John French at AA, and 5, after the capture of Tournai, is going to take a big sweep round in the direction of the arrow towards Cambrai, and so to turn the whole line. Meanwhile, the cavalry, still farther west, acting independently, is to sweep the country right out to Arras and beyond.
Sketch 46Sketch 46.
Sketch 46.
The particular titles of corps are of no great value in following the leading main lines of a military movement; but it may be worth remembering that this "number 5," to which von Kluck had allotted the turning movement, was theSecondGerman Corps. With its cavalry it numbered alone (and apart from all the other forces of von Kluck which were engaging the British line directly) quite three-quarters as manymen as all that British line for the moment mustered.
It was not possible, from local circumstances which the full history of the war, when it is written, will explain, for the British contingent to fall back in the remaining hours of daylight upon that Sunday.
Belated by at the most twelve hours, as the news of the French retirement had been, the British retirement followed it fully twenty hours after. It was not until daylight of Monday, the 24th, that all the organizations for this retirement were completed, the plans drawn up, and the first retrograde movements made.
To permit a retirement before such a great superiority of the enemy to be made without disaster, it was necessary to counter-attack not only at this inception of the movement, but throughout all the terrible strain of the ensuing eight days.
Here it may be necessary to explain why, in any retirement, continual counter-attacks on the pursuing enemy are necessary.
It is obvious that, under equalconditions, the pursuing enemy can advance as fast as can your own troops which are retreating before him. If, therefore, a retreat, once contact has been established, consisted in merely walking away from the enemy, that enemy would be able to maintain a ceaseless activity against one portion of your united force—its rear—which activity would be exercised against bodies on the march, and incapable of defence. To take but one example out of a hundred: his guns would be always unlimbering, shooting at you, then limbering up again to continue the pursuit; unlimbering again, shooting again—and so forth; while your guns would never reply, being occupied in an unbroken retirement, and therefore continually limbered up and useless behind their teams.
A retiring force, therefore, of whatever size—from a company to an army—can only safely effect its retirement by detaching one fraction from its total which shall hold up the pursuit for a time while the main body gets away.
When this detached fraction is wearied or imperilled, another fraction relievesit, taking up the same task in its turn; the first fraction, which had hitherto been checking the pursuit, falls back rapidly on to the main body, under cover of the new rearguard's fire as it turns to face the enemy. And the process is kept up, first one, then another portion of the whole force being devoted to it, until the retirement of the whole body has been successfully effected, and it is well ahead of its pursuers and secure.
Sketch 47Sketch 47.
Sketch 47.
For example: two White army corps, I., II., as in the annexed diagram, each of two divisions, 1, 2, and 3, 4, have to retire before a greatly superior Black force,abcde. They succeed in retiring by the action expressed in the following diagram. White corps No. I. first undertakes to hold up the enemy while No. II. makes off.No. I. detaches one division for the work (Division 2), and for a short time it checks the movement ofa,b, andc, at least, of the enemy. Nowdandepress on. But they cannot press on at any pace they choose, for an army must keep together, and the check toa,b, andcsomewhat retardsdande. They advance, say, to the positions δε.
Sketch 48Sketch 48.
Sketch 48.
Next, White corps No. II. stops, puts out one of its divisions (say 4) to checkdande, while its other division either helps or falls back, according to the severity of the pressure, and White corps No. I. makes off as fast as it can.a,b,c, no longer checked by a White rearguard,are nevertheless retarded from two causes—first, the delay already inflicted on them; secondly, that they must not, if the army is to keep together, get too far ahead of their colleagues,dande, which White corps II. is holding up.
Sketch 49Sketch 49.
Sketch 49.
Thus, on the second or third day the retreat of White is being secured by an increasing gap between pursued and pursuers. The process is continued. Every succeeding day—if that process is successful—should further widen the gap until White can feel free from immediate pressure.
Such is the principle—modified indefinitely in practice by variations of groundand numbers—under which a retirement must be conducted if it is to have any hope of ultimate success in saving the pursued.
But it is clear that the process must always be a perilous one. Unless the most careful co-ordination is maintained between the moving parts of the retreat; unless the rearguard in each action falls back onlyjust uponand not alittle while afterthe precise moment when it can last safely do so; unless the new rearguard comes into play in time, etc., etc.—the pursuers may get right in among the pursued and break their cohesion; or they may get round them, cut them off, and compel them to surrender. In either case the retreating force ceases to exist as an army.
In proportion as the pursuers are numerous (mobility being equal) compared with the pursued, in that proportion is the peril. And with the best luck in the world some units are sure to be cut off, many guns lost, all stragglers and nearly all wounded abandoned in the course of a pressed retreat, and, above all, there will be the increasingdiscouragement and bewilderment of the men as the strain, the losses, and the ceaseless giving way before the enemy continue day after day with cumulative effect.
The accomplishment of such a task, the maintenance of the "operative corner" in being during its ordeal of retreat before vastly superior numbers, and in particular the exceedingly perilous retirement of the British contingent at what was, during the first part of the strain, the extreme of the line, are what we are now about to follow.
The initial counter-attack, then, on this Monday, the first day of the retreat, was undertaken by the 2nd British Division from the region of Harmignies, which advanced as though with the object of retaking Binche. The demonstration was supported by all the artillery of the 1st Army Corps, while the 1st Division, lying near Peissant, supported this action of the 2nd. While that demonstration was in full activity, the 2nd Corps to the west or left (not all of it was yet in the field) retired on to the line Dour-Frameries, passing through Quaregnon. It suffered some loss in this operation from themasses of the enemy, which were pressing forward from Mons. When the 2nd Corps had thus halted on the line Dour-Frameries, the 1st Corps, which had been making the demonstration, took the opportunity to retire in its turn, and fell back before the evening to a line stretching from Bavai to Maubeuge.
Sketch 50Sketch 50.
Sketch 50.
The 2nd Corps had entrenched itself, while the 1st Corps was thus falling back upon its right; and when it came to the turn of the 2nd Corps to play the part of rearguard in these alternate movements, the effort proved to be one of grave peril.
Sketch 51Sketch 51.
Sketch 51.
Since the whole movement of the enemy was an outflanking movement, thepressure upon this left and extreme end of the line was particularly severe. The German advance in such highly superior numbers overlapped the two British corps totheirleft or west, which was at this moment the extreme end of the Allied Franco-British line. They overlapped them as these pursuing Black units overlap the lesser retiring White units. It is evident that in such a case the last unit in the line at A will be suffering the chief burden of the attack. An attempt was made to relieve that burden by sending the and Cavalry Brigade in this direction to ride round the enemy's outlying body; but the move failed, with considerable loss to the 9th Lancers and the 18th Hussars, which came upon wire entanglements five hundred yards from the enemy's position. There did arrive in aid of the imperilled end of the linereinforcement in the shape of a new body. One infantry brigade, the 19th, which had hitherto been upon the line of communications, reached the army on this its central left near Quarouble and a little behind that village before the morning was spent. It was in line before evening. This reinforcement lent some strength to the sorely tried 2nd Corps, but it had against it still double its own strength in front, and half as much again upon its exposed left or western flank, and it suffered heavily.
By the night of that Monday, the 24th of August, however, the whole of the British Army was again in line, and stretched from Maubeuge, which protected its right, through Bavai, on to the fields between the villages of Jenlain and Bry, where the fresh 19th Infantry Brigade had newly arrived before the evening, while beyond this extreme left again was the cavalry.
The whole operation, then, of that perilous Monday, the first day of the retreat, may be planned in general as in Sketch 52. At the beginning, at daybreak, you have the three German armycorps lying as the shaded bodies are given opposite to the unshaded, which represent the British contingent of not quite two full army corps. By nightfall the British contingent, including now the 19th Brigade of infantry, lay in the positions from Maubeuge westward, with the 1st Corps next to Maubeuge, the 2nd Corps beyond Bavai, the 1st being commanded by Sir Douglas Haig, the 2nd by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien; while the Germans lay more or less as the dotted shaded markings are.
The fortress of Maubeuge was, under these circumstances, clearly a lure. An army in the field in danger of envelopment will always be tempted to make for the nearest fortified zone in order to save itself. The British commander was well advised in his judgment to avoid this opportunity, and that for two reasons. First, that the locking up of any considerable portion of the Anglo-French force in its retirement would have jeopardized the chance of that counter-offensive which the French hoped sooner or later to initiate; secondly, that, as will be seen later, the works of Maubeuge were quite insufficientto resist for more than a few days a modern siege train.
Sketch 52Sketch 52.
Sketch 52.
This point of Maubeuge and of its fall must be discussed later; for the moment all we need note is that the fortress afforded for a few hours—that is, during the night of Monday to Tuesday, the 24th-25th August—support to the British line during its first halt upon the rapid and perilous retirement from Mons.
Meanwhile the whole of the French 5thArmy had been falling back with equal rapidity, and upon its right the 4th Army had followed soon; and as this French retirement had preceded the retirement of the British, its general line lay farther south.
On the other hand, from the nature of the topography in this section of the Franco-Belgian border, the units of the French command had to fall back farther and more rapidly in proportion as they stretched eastward. The attack of the enemy in forces of rather more than two to one had come, as we have seen, not only from across the line of the Sambre, but, once Namur had fallen, from across the line of the Meuse at right angles to the line of the Sambre. Therefore the 5th and the 4th Armies, contained within the triangle bounded by the Sambre and Meuse, retiring from blows struck from the direction of the arrows 1-5 over all that hilly and wooded country known as the Thiérache, were, as to the extreme salient of them at A, compelled to a very rapid retirement indeed; and on this Sunday night the French line was deflected southward, not without heavy losses, until either on thatnight or on the Monday morning it joined up with the forces which stretched northward through and from Mézières. An attempt to counter-attack through the precipitous ravines and deep woods on to the valley of the Semois had failed, and the line as a whole ran, upon this night between the Sunday and the Monday, much as is indicated upon the accompanying sketch.
Sketch 53Sketch 53.
Sketch 53.
From this it will be seen that the British contingent away upon the extreme left was in very grave peril, not only because the turning movement was whollydirected round their exposed flank, but also because, their retirement having come late, they stood too far forward in the general scheme at this moment, and therefore more exposed to the enemy's blow than the rest of the line. With this it must be remembered Tournai had already fallen. It was very imperfectly held by a French Territorial brigade, accompanied by one battery of English guns; and the entering German force, in a superiority of anything you like—two, three, or four to one—easily swept away the resistance proffered in this quarter.
These German forces from Tournai had not yet, by the nightfall of Monday, come up eastward against the British, but they were on the way, and they might appear at any moment. The corps next to them, the 4th of von Kluck's five, was already operating upon that flank, and the next day, Wednesday, 26th of August, was to be the chief day of trial for this exposed British wing of the army.
So far the operations of the British Army had not differed greatly from the expected or at least one of the expected developments of the campaign.
The operative corner, if it should not have the luck, through losses or blunders on the part of the enemy, to take the counter-offensive after receiving the third shock, is intended to retire, and to draw upon itself a maximum of the enemy's efforts.
But between what had been intended as the most probable, and in any case perilous, task of this body (which comprised, it will be remembered, six French and ultimately two British army corps) turned out, within twenty-four hours of the retreat, and within forty-eight of the fall of Namur, to be an operation of a difficulty so extreme as to imperil the whole campaign, and in this operation it was the British force upon the outer left edge of the line—the unsupported extremity round which the enemy made every effort to get—which was bound to receive the severest treatment. This peculiar burden laid upon the Expeditionary Force from this country was, of course, gravely increased by the delay in beginning its retreat, which we have seen to be due to the delay in the communication to it by the French of the news of the fall of Namur. On account ofthis delay not only was the extreme of the line which the British held immediately threatened with outflanking, but it still lay somewhat forward of the rest of the force. It was in danger of being turned round its exposed edge C, not only because it lay on the extreme of the line, but also because, instead of occupying its normal position, AB, which it would have occupied had the retreat begun with all the rest, it actually occupied the position CD, which made it far more likely to be surrounded than if it had been a day's march farther back, as it would have been if the French Staff work had suffered no delays.
Sketch 54Sketch 54.
Sketch 54.
There lay in the gap formed by thisuntoward tardiness in the British retirement, at the point M, the fortress of Maubeuge. It was garrisoned by French reserves, or Territorial troops, not of the same quality as the active army, and its defensive power was, even if the old ring of fortress theory had proved sound, of very doubtful order.
The French 5th Army being no longer present to support the British right, but having fallen back behind the alignment of that right, General Sir John French had no support for what should have been his secure flank save this fortress of Maubeuge, and it will be evident from the above diagram that the enemy, should he succeed in outflanking the British line, would compel it to fall back within the ring of forts surrounding Maubeuge. To avoid destruction it would have no alternative but to do that. For, counting the forces in front of it and the forces trying to get round its back, it was fighting odds of two to one.
Maubeuge was a stronghold that had played a great part in the revolutionary war. Its resistance in the month of October 1793 had made possible the Frenchvictory of Wattigines, just outside its walls, and had, perhaps, done more than any other feat of arms in that year to save the French Revolution from the allied governments of Europe. It was, indeed, full of historic memories, from the moment when Cæsar had defeated the Nervii upon the Sambre just to the west of the town (his camp can still be traced in an open field above the river bank) to the invasion of 1815.
But this rôle which it had played throughout French history had not led to any illusion with regard to the rôle it might play in any modern war; and at the best Maubeuge, in common with the other ill-fortified points of the Belgian frontier, suffered from the only error—and that a grave one—which their thorough unnational political system had imposed upon the military plan of the French. This error was the capital error of indecision. No consistent plan had been adopted with regard to the fortification of the Belgian frontier.
The French had begun, after the recuperation following upon the war of 1870, an elaborate and very perfectsystem of fortification along their German frontier—that is, along the new frontier which divided the annexed territory of Alsace-Lorraine from the rest of the country. They had taken it for granted that the next German attempt would be made somewhere between Longwy and Belfort. And they had spent in this scheme of fortification, first and last, the cost of a great campaign. They had spent some three hundred million pounds; and it will be possible for the reader to gauge the magnitude of this effort if he will consider that it was a military operation more costly than was the whole of the South African War to Great Britain, or of the Manchurian War to Russia. The French were wise to have undertaken this expense, because it had hitherto been an unheard-of offence against European morals that one nation in Christendom should violate the declared neutrality of another. And the attack upon Belgium as a means of invading France by Germany had not then crossed the mind of any but a few theorists who had, so to speak, "marched ahead" of the rapid decline in our common religionwhich had marked now three generations.
But when the French had completed this scheme of fortification, Europe heard it proposed by certain authorities in Prussia that, as the cost of invading France through the now fortified zone would be considerable, the German forces should not hesitate to originate yet another step in the breakdown of European morality, and to sacrifice in their attack upon France the neutrality of Belgium, of which Prussia was herself a guarantor.
Men have often talked during this war, especially in England, as though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were normal to warfare; and this error is probably due to the fact that war upon a large scale has never come home to the imagination of the country, and that it is without experience of invasion.
Yet it is of the very first importance to appreciate the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbours have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began to influence the statesof Europe. The violation of the Belgian territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests, and the sinking without warning of unarmed ships with their passengers and crews. To regard these things as something normal to warfare in the past is as monstrous an historical error as it would be to regard the reign of terror during the French Revolution as normal to civil disputes within the State. And to appreciate such a truth is, I repeat, of especial moment to the understanding of the mere military character of the campaign. For if the violation of Belgium in particular had not been the unheard of thing it was, the fortification of the Franco-Belgian frontier with which we are here concerned would have had a very different fortune.
As it was, the French could never quite make up their minds—or rather the French parliamentarians could never make up their minds—upon the amount of money that might wisely be expended in the defence of this neutral border. There were moments when the opinion that Prussiawould be restrained by no fear of Europe prevailed among the professional politicians of Paris. The fortification of the Belgian frontier was undertaken in such moments; a full plan of it was drawn up. But again doubt would succeed, the very large sums involved would appal some new ministry, and the effort would be interrupted. To such uncertainty of aim characteristic of parliamentary government in a military nation was added, unfortunately, the consideration of the line of the Meuse. Liége and Namur were fortresses of peculiar strength, Antwerp was thought the strongest thing in Europe; and that triangle was conceived, even by many who believed that the violation of Belgian territory would take place, as affording a sufficient barrier against the immediate invasion of France from the north-east. Those who made this calculation did not forget that fortresses are nothing without their full complement of men, guns, and stores; but they could neither control, nor had they the elements properly to appreciate, the deficiency of organization in a foreign and not military country.
For all these causes Maubeuge, in common with other points along the Belgian frontier less important than itself, was left imperfect. Even if the ring fortress had remained after 1905 what it had been before that date, and even if modern howitzer fire and modern high explosives had not rendered its tenure one of days rather than months, Maubeuge was not a first-class fortress. As it was, with fortifications unrenewed, and with the ring fortress in any case doomed, Maubeuge was a death-trap.
The rôle assigned to the fortress in the original French plan was no more than the support of the retiring operative corner, as it "retreated, manœuvred, and held the enemy." Maubeuge was considered as part of a line beyond which the operative corner would not have to fall before the rest of the square, the "manœuvring mass," had swung up. Hence it was that the French General Staff and its Chief had put within the ring of its insufficient forts nothing more than a garrison of Territorials—that is, of the older classes of the reserve.
Had the British General accepted thelure of Maubeuge as Bazaine did the lure of Metz in 1870, the Expeditionary Force would have been destroyed. But it would have been destroyed, not after a long delay, as was the army at Metz, but immediately; for Maubeuge was not Metz, and the fortress power of resistance of to-day is not that of a generation ago. Maubeuge, as a fact, fell within a fortnight of the date when this temptation was offered to the sorely pressed British army, and had that temptation been yielded to, the whole force would have been, in a military sense, annihilated before the middle of September.
What preserved it was the immediate decision undertaken upon that Monday night to proceed, in spite of the fatigues that were already felt after the first day's retreat, with a retirement upon the south-west, and to proceed with it as vigorously as possible.
It was not yet daylight upon the morning of Tuesday, August 25th, when the move began. The Field-Marshal counted justly upon some exhaustion in his immensely superior enemy, especially in those troops of his upon the west (the2nd German Corps) which had to perform the heavy marching task of getting round the end of the British line. This element, combined with the considerable distance which the British marched that morning, saved the army; though not until another week of almost intolerable suffering had passed, and not until very heavy losses indeed had been sustained. The great Maubeuge-Bavai road, which is prolonged to Eth, and which was, roughly, the British front of that night, was cleared shortly after sunrise. A couple of brigades of cavalry and the divisional cavalry of the 2nd Corps covered the operation on the centre of the right, in front of the main body of the 2nd Corps, while the rest of the cavalry similarly covered the exposed western edge and corner of the line.
Delays, with the criticism of which this short summary has no concern, had forbidden the whole force which should have been present with the British Army in Flanders at the outset of the campaign to arrive in time, and the contingents that had already come up had taken the shock, as we have already described, in the absence of the 4thDivision. This 4th Division had only begun to detrain from the junction at Le Cateau at the same hour that General Sir John French was reading that Sunday message which prompted his immediate retirement from before Mons. When the full official history of the war comes to be written, few things will prove of more credit to the Expeditionary Force and its command than the way in which this belated division—belated through no fault of the soldiers—was incorporated with the already existing organization, in the very midst of its retreat, and helped to support the army. There are few parallels in history to the successful accomplishment of so delicate and perilous an operation.
At any rate, in less than forty-eight hours after its arrival, the 4th Division—eleven battalions and a brigade of artillery—were incorporated with the British line just as the whole force was falling back upon this Tuesday morning, the 25th; and the newly arrived division of fresh men did singular service in the further covering of the retirement. General Snow, who was in command of this division,was deployed upon a line running from just south of Solesmes, on the right, to a point just south of La Chatrie, upon the road from Cambrai to Le Cateau, upon his left; and, as will be seen by the accompanying sketch map, such a line effectually protected the falling back of the rest of the force. Behind it the 1st and the 2nd British Corps fell back upon the line Cambrai to Landrecies. The small inset map shows how the various points in this two days' retreat stood to one another.