THE FALL OF NAMUR.
Now let us look more closely at the position which the British were to hold.[14] Find the town of Mons, which stands to the west of Charleroi,[15] on the highroad running northward to Brussels. Mons is the old capital of Hainault, and its history goes back to the days of Cæsar. Those of our soldiers who came from colliery districts must have been strongly reminded of home when they arrived in the neighbourhood of Mons, for it is a place of busy factories, surrounded by a coalfield. Tall chimneys, the headgear of pits, huge mounds of refuse, railway lines running along embankments, and miners' cottages are the chief features of the landscape. Many of the rubbish heaps have been planted with little forests of dwarf firs, and look like ranges of low wooded hills. The country is, however, flat and much cut up with deep dykes filled with muddy water.
The British headquarters was at Mons, and the line which our soldiers were to hold extended to the west and to the east of that town. On the west it stretched along the banks of a canal which runs west for fifteen miles, from Mons to the village of Condé. Still farther to the west, a French Territorial battalion held the town of Tournai. Eastward of Mons the line ran for another ten miles to the village of Binche, which lies south-east of Mons. The British position, you will observe, was not quite straight, but in the form of a very flat triangle, with the apex at Mons. By the evening of Friday, 21st August, two army corps and one cavalry division of the British were in position awaiting the German attack. The 3rd Army Corps had not yet arrived.
The Town of Mons. Photo, Exclusive News Agency.
The Commander-in-Chief was Sir John French, of whom we have already heard. The 1st Army Corps, which was posted to the east of Mons, was commanded by Sir Douglas Haig, a cavalryman like Sir John French, and one of the youngest of British generals. He had seen service in the Sudan and in South Africa, and had held high military positions at home and in India. The 2nd Army Corps, which was posted along the line of the canal west of Mons, was commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, also a brilliant soldier, who did fine work in South Africa. The cavalry division was under Major-General Allenby, one of the most famous cavalry scouts in the British army, and the 5th Cavalry Brigade was commanded by Sir Philip Chetwode.
During the 22nd and 23rd of August the 5th Cavalry Brigade and some other cavalry squadrons pushed far to the north, and did some excellent scouting work. They also met the advanced patrols of the enemy, and there were several small fights, in which our troops showed to great advantage. One of these fights took place at the corner of a village street, where a party of our hussars rode down a strong detachment of German cavalry. The two forces met front to front, and there were wild hurrahs as our men charged the enemy with flashing sabres. It was all over in a few minutes, and the Germans were driven back in confusion. "Men and horses were heavier than we were," wrote one of the British hussars who was wounded in the skirmish, "but our men were smarter and handier."
Map showing British and French Positions at the Battles of Mons and Charleroi.
You know that von Kluck's army entered Brussels on 20th August. An American writer who fell in with an advance division tells us that the Germans marched at a very rapid pace towards the Franco-Belgian frontier to meet the Allies. To keep up with the column he was forced to move at a steady trot. The men did not bend the knees, but keeping the legs straight, shot them forward with a quick, sliding movement as though they were skating or ski-ing.[16] Many of them fell by the wayside, but they were not permitted to lie there, but were lifted to their feet and flung back into the ranks. The halts were frequent, and so exhausted were the poor fellows that, instead of standing at ease, they dropped to the road as though they had been struck with a club. It was these forced marches which brought von Kluck's army so rapidly to the right wing of the Allies.
While our soldiers from Condé to Binche were busy digging trenches and gun-pits, and clearing their front of cover, they could hear away to the right the dull roar of cannon. Fighting was going on not only at Namur but along the Sambre. You know that von Buelow's army was marching along the north bank of the Meuse towards Namur, and that the Saxon army was moving towards the same place along the southern bank. On the evening of the day on which the Germans entered Brussels the first shots were fired at the fortress. It was a sultry evening, and behind the screen of haze the great howitzers were placed in position. They began to fire on the Belgian trenches to the north-east of the city, and all night continued to bombard them with great accuracy. Any man who lifted his head was immediately hit. The guns were three miles away, so the Belgians had no chance of rushing on the foe with the bayonet as they had done at Liége. They were forced to wait and suffer. After enduring ten hours of bursting shrapnel, which killed large numbers of them, they were obliged to withdraw, and the Germans pushed within the ring of forts and took up a position on the ridge of St. Marc north of the city.[17]
Meanwhile two of the eastern forts had fallen. Upon the fort just to the south of the Meuse the Germans guns rained shells at the rate of twenty a minute, and it was only able to fire ten shots in reply. The shells wrecked concrete and turrets alike, and nothing could resist them. The fort directly to the north of the river held out longer; but when seventy-five of its garrison had been slain, it too was forced to yield. At the same time the southern line of forts was fiercely bombarded, and after an attack of two hours three of them were silenced, and a German force was pushed across the Meuse into the southern part of the angle between that river and the Sambre. All day long an infantry battle raged, and the Belgians hoped against hope that the French would come to their assistance.
Next morning, 22nd August, five thousand French troops, mostly Turcos, arrived from the west, but they were too late and too few to save the fortress. It was a black, dread day for the Allies. The skies were darkened by an eclipse of the sun, and the people of Namur were in a state of panic. German aeroplanes flew over the place and dropped bombs, which killed many of the inhabitants and fired their houses. The heavens thundered, the great guns roared, and Namur fell.
When the commander, General Michel, saw that he could no longer hold out, he tried to call in the troops from the forts and march them westward, in the hope that they might join their comrades beneath the shelter of the forts at Antwerp. Traitors or spies, however, cut his telephone wires, and he was only able to rally a portion of them for the retreat. Two Belgian regiments hacked a way through the Germans who blocked their road, and managed to join the French and reach Rouen; where they took ship to Ostend, and then joined the main Belgian army at Antwerp.
On Sunday afternoon, 23rd August, the Germans marched into Namur singing their national songs and shouting in triumph. Next day von Buelow entered, and with him was the new Governor of Belgium, Field-Marshal von der Goltz, who was described by one of the townsfolk as "an elderly gentleman covered with orders, buttoned in an overcoat up to his nose, above which gleamed a pair of enormous glasses."
The Belgians made their last stand between the forts to the north-west of the city. They held out until the morning of Tuesday, 25th August, when they left their trenches and moved into the woods on the north bank of the Sambre. Here they were surrounded, and were obliged to surrender. Only about 12,000 out of the 26,000 men who attempted to hold the fortress escaped. Large quantities of guns and stores had to be abandoned, and these fell into the hands of the Germans.
I have already told you that Namur was considered so strong that it could defy attack for a long time. It fell, as we have seen, very rapidly. The first shot was fired on the evening of 20th August; by the next night five or six forts had fallen; on the 23rd the Germans entered the city, and two days later every fort was in ruins.
Now we are able to understand the terrible peril of the Allies. The French line along the Meuse and Sambre could only be held so long as Namur was able to resist. Now that it had fallen the line was broken, and a million men were on the verge of disaster.
The Siege of Namur.
While the German howitzers were battering down the forts at Namur a fierce battle was raging round about Charleroi, on the Sambre, some fifteen miles to the east. Those who remember the story of the battle of Waterloo will recollect that Napoleon's armies crossed the Sambre at Charleroi on their way to the famous battlefield. Like Mons, Charleroi is a place of coal mines, iron foundries, and glassworks.
Less than ten miles to the north-east of Charleroi is the village of Ligny,[18] where Napoleon beat the Germans under Blücher on June 16, 1815, and forced them to retreat. On the same day Wellington beat Marshal Ney at Quatre Bras,[19] which lies a few miles to the north-west of Ligny; but because Blücher had retreated he was obliged to fall back to the field of Waterloo, where, as you know, he was joined by the Prussians, and an end was made of Napoleon. It was over this historic ground that von Buelow's army advanced towards Charleroi.
Charge of the Turcos near Charleroi. From the picture by Dudley Tennant.
Not until late in March 1915 did the French lift the veil and give us a glimpse of what happened. We are told that General Joffre's plan was, in the first place, to hold and dispose of the enemy's centre, and afterwards to throw all his available forces on the left flank of the Germans. On Friday, 21st August, the French centre attacked with ten army corps. On the next day it failed, and the French suffered a severe defeat. They frankly confess that their officers and troops were unequal to the task imposed on them, that they were imprudent under fire, that the divisions were ill engaged, that they deployed rashly and fled hastily, and that the lives of the men were thrown away too early in the struggle. During the fighting the Zouaves and Turcos behaved most gallantly. Twice they cleared the town of Charleroi at the point of the bayonet, but all their efforts were unavailing. Five times the town was captured and recaptured, and every time it changed hands it was fiercely shelled. By Saturday evening it was in the hands of the Germans, who, after suffering great losses, crossed the Sambre.
Meanwhile another fierce fight was going on farther east along the line of the Meuse. On Saturday morning a German army, which had advanced through the Northern Ardennes, crossed the Meuse into the angle between that river and the Sambre, where, you will remember, the Germans had already gained a footing. This new force attacked the right flank of the French, and began to work round to their rear, so as to threaten the line of retreat. With von Buelow pressing hard on the front, and the Saxon army pressing on the right and rear, the French in the angle between the rivers were forced to give way, and in order to save themselves from destruction were obliged to retire to the south. So rapid and confused was this retreat that the French staff neglected to send news of the disaster to Sir John French until the afternoon of next day. He thought that the French line was still holding out on his right; but as a matter of fact he was without any support in that direction, and was left, as the soldiers say, "in the air." Further, von Buelow was now able to spare some of his right-wing troops and send them to help von Kluck, who was about to swoop down on the British line.