CHAPTER VII

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:--

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:--

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."

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.