III. Defence and Recapture of Mondemont
The grand manœuvre of envelopment had failed. The alternative plan remained: to smash the French centre and roll up the lines on either side. On the morning of September 7, this effort began with a fierce onslaught across the ravine of the Petit Morin against the Sezanne plateau from Mondemont to Villeneuve.
On Foch’s extreme left, nothing was gained. The 42nd Division was now receiving perceptible support from the 10th Corps of the 5th Army, which during the day, as we have seen, completed the clearance of the Forest of Gault, to the west of Villeneuve. Toward Mondemont, however, the X Active Corps made some progress, throwing the defenders back to the western borders of Soisy, again taking Villeneuve, and reaching through the St. Gond Wood nearly to the hamlet of Chapton. The bare crest called the Signal du Poirier gave the German gunners an excellent platform, with views over a large part of the French lines. One of their chief targets was the château of Mondemont, a two-story mansion, dating from the sixteenth century, with pepper-pot corner towers, enclosing a large square courtyard. General Humbert had set up here his Staff quarters; but by noon the bombardment had become so severe that he had to leave it to advanced posts of the Moroccan Division, first, however, insisting on taking a proper lunch in the salle-à-manger with the trembling family. These were sent to the rear, and Humbert moved to the neighbouring château of Broyes. In a later stage of the war, Humbert struck me rather as the thinker, a quiet, keen intelligence, and a fine gentleman. At this earlier time, one of the youngest generals in the French Army, he appears rather as the man of spirited action. Beaming with gay confidence, he abounded in the gestes that the French soldier so loves. Once several members of his escort were killed by a shell exploding in their midst; like Grossetti, afterwards to be known as “the Bull of the Yser,” danger only stimulated him. “The Germans are bottled up,” he said; “Mondemont is the cork. It must be held at any price.” At 5 p.m., a combined attack, by parts of the 42nd and Moroccan Divisions, with the 77th regiment of the 9th Corps, was made with the object of freeing the Mondemont position. Little ground was gained, and the losses were very heavy; it was a momentary relief, no more.
At length the German Command recognised that the French defence was weakest toward and beyond Fère Champènoise, and that a simultaneous attack by both their wings, with most strength on the east, might shatter it. First, however, the flank of the Guard Corps along the marshes must be cleared. This preliminary occupied the whole of September 7. On the west, Oyes was taken during the morning in the advance on Mondemont. On the east, the French companies outlying at Morains and Aulnay had to abandon these villages at 8 a.m., under threat of being taken in reverse along the railway. Morains is only four miles by highroad from Fère Champènoise; and here the picked infantry of the Guard were striking at the junction of the 9th and 11th Corps, with solid Saxon regiments closing in upon the latter to the south-east. Seeing their danger, Radiguet and Moussy concerted a movement by which, during the afternoon, Aulnizeux was taken and the German advance checked. In the evening, at the third attempt, the enemy recovered the village; and in the last hours of the night his general offensive along the Sezanne and Fère roads began. It will be convenient to follow first the western arm of the attack.
At 3 a.m. on September 8, after a sharp cannonade, the French machine-gunners on Mondemont Hill observed spectral forms approaching in open order—these were advanced parties belonging to the X Corps, with some elements of the Guard. They were easily repulsed; and, immediately afterwards, the much-thinned ranks of the 42nd and Moroccan Divisions, with the 77th regiment of the 9th Corps, were launched anew towards St. Prix. Although Bülow had received reinforcements, and had placed more batteries between Congy and Baye, the Moroccans occupied Oyes and its hill and the Signal du Poirier by 8 a.m., while the left of the 42nd carried Soisy at the point of the bayonet. Unfortunately, the debacle that was happening coincidentally on Foch’s right put any exploitation of this success out of the question. A fresh defensive front had to be created south of the marshes, facing east; the 77th regiment was recalled to St. Loup in the middle of the afternoon for this purpose. The 42nd Division seems to have been shaken by this removal of a sorely-needed support; and Bülow, promptly advised of it, ordered his columns forward once more.
On an islet in the west end of the marshes, between the villages of Villevenard and Oyes, stand a Renaissance gateway and other remnants of the ancient Priory of St. Gond, and in their midst the humble dwelling of “the last hermit of St. Gond,” as M. le Goffic calls him, the Abbé Millard, corresponding member of the French Antiquarian and Archæological Societies. A victim of dropsy, the Abbé was laid up when the approach of the Germans was announced. “So, then,” he calmly remarked, “I shall renew my acquaintance with Attila.” His housekeeper, a typically vigorous Frenchwoman, would have no such morbid curiosity. “You have no parishioners but the frogs, Monsieur le Curé; and they can take care of themselves against your Attila. Come along”—and, bundling some valuables into a wheelbarrow, and giving Father Millard a stick, she carried him off into safety. As they left, a body of Senegalese sharpshooters came up, and began to build across the highway an old-fashioned barricade of tree-trunks, carts, and blocks of stone. “Some barbed wire and a continuous trench, such as the Germans use, would have been better,” remarks M. le Goffic; “but we remained faithful to our old errors, and, nearly everywhere, our men fought in the open or behind sheaves and tree trunks.”
After hours of an ebb-and-flow of bayonet charges and hand to hand combats, the French lost in succession Broussy-le-Petit, Mesnil-Broussy, Reuves, and Oyes—all the morning’s gain had vanished by nightfall. With the Germans entrenched a mile away, and only a single Zouave battalion in reserve, Humbert insisted that Mondemont must be held; and his corps commander, Dubois, desperately seeking to cover the void on his right with the 77th Regiment, told the officers that retreat was not to be thought of. Heavy rain fell during the evening, obstructing the movements of all the armies. On both sides, that night, the chiefs knew that the issue was a matter of hours, of very few hours. We saw in the first section of this chapter that, on the evening of September 8, the left of the 5th French Army had passed, and its centre reached, the Petit Morin, while the 10th Corps immediately threatened Bülow’s flank at Bannay, only 2 miles west of Baye. The “effect of suction” was working wonderfully. An order found during the day on a wounded officer, directing that the regimental trains should be drawn up facing north, showed the preoccupations of the German Staff. If the Guard and the Saxons could complete the rout of Foch’s right-centre, they might yet win through; but there was no longer a moment to spare, for Bülow had no force capable of long withstanding d’Espérey’s north-eastward thrust.
Against Foch’s left, Bülow played his last stake at daybreak on September 9. A whole brigade, marching from Oyes under cover of mist, brushed aside the two battalions of sharpshooters, mounted Mondemont hill, and seized the château and village, which were rapidly provided with a garrison and machine-guns. The 42nd Division was in course of withdrawal at this time, its place being taken by the 51st Division of the neighbouring army. Humbert still would not take defeat: borrowing two battalions of chasseurs from Grossetti, he sent them to the assault of the promontory. They failed. At about 10.30 a.m., the 9th Corps lost Mont Août, the stronghold of Foch’s centre, and fell back upon the lower hills between Allemant and Linthes. If the whole left and centre of the 9th Army were not to be swept, after its right, into the plain, the last footing on the Sezanne plateau must be held at any price. But how? Many companies of the Moroccan Division had lost all their officers and most of their men. The breakdown of his right had driven Foch to an extreme expedient which we will presently follow more closely—the transfer thither of the 42nd Division; all Grossetti could do for Humbert after his early morning failure, therefore, was to lend him his artillery for a couple of hours. From Dubois and his own corps, Humbert was able again to borrow the 77th Regiment. After a massed fire of preparation on the woods and slopes around the château of Mondemont by nine batteries, the hungry, haggard survivors of the 77th, divided into two bodies under Colonels Lestoquoi and Eon, approached the hill from the west and east, while four companies gathered to the south of the château as a storming force under Major de Beaufort.
We have already seen this only too chivalric officer defying the prime conditions of modern warfare in the capture of Coizard; here is a yet more pathetic exhibition of the ancient style of heroism. It was 2.30 of a bright afternoon, the air oppressive with heat, smoke, and dust. The commandant called a priest-soldier from the ranks, and asked him to give supreme absolution to the men who wished to receive it. They knelt, and rose. The major, putting on his white gloves, then gave the order to charge. Bugles sounded; the men ran forward “in deep, close masses,” shouting and singing. Many fell before reaching the garden of the château. De Beaufort, standing for a moment under a tree to consider the next step, was shot dead. A few men got through a breach in the garden wall, only to meet a rain of bullets from loopholes in the house. A score of officers (including Captain de Secondat-Montesquieu, a descendant of the great French writer) were lost, with a third of the effectives. At 3.30, Colonel Eon withdrew the remainder of the storming party.
For a breathing space only. The château was, in fact, besieged. Three field-guns were brought within 400 yards of it; and at 6 p.m. three companies advanced upon the quadrangle of buildings, four others upon the village, at the foot of the hill. Forty minutes later, Colonel Lestoquoi led his last remaining company forward, crying: “Come on, boys; another tussle, and we are there.” This time, château, park, farm, and churchyard, and finally the village, were carried. “I hold the village and the château of Mondemont,” Lestoquoi reported to General Humbert; “I am installing myself for the night.”
The battle of Mondemont was over; one wild ebb-wave, and the peace of nature’s fruitfulness fell for all our time upon the riven fields, the multitude of graves, the desolate marshes.