Varennes itself (the little town where Louis XVI. was arrested in 1791 on his attempted flight from France) is very nearly destroyed. The Americans took it on the first day of their advance, when it was defended by a division of Prussian Guards, and on the next day they captured Montfaucon, the headquarters of the Crown Prince for his Verdun attack. The ground here is high, and the Germans had built themselves an excellent O.P. from the materials of the church. Here also, according to General Maurice, the Crown Prince had directed operations from a "palatial dugout."
Traces of the American occupation of this district were still visible months afterwards in the shape of road notices, "Do your bit! Obey the traffic regulations!" and it was in the familiar accent of a young American officer that we received instructions as to getting our car through the narrow streets of Verdun.
XIII—THE MARNE TO MONS
(PLATES 107 TO 124.)
On a bright and quiet Sunday morning, the 23rd of August, 1914, General Smith-Dorrien's men were aligned along the Mons-Condé Canal ([Plate 107]), west of the town, on the northern edge of a thickly populated industrial district, with the great spoil heaps of the mines ([Plate 108]) like a range of miniature extinct volcanoes lying behind them. They had only just arrived from home, and with the failure of "Intelligence," of which they knew nothing, they were entirely ignorant of the strength and movements of their opponents. The Sabbatic quietude was broken with startling suddenness soon after noon, and very shortly the unexpected action became general along the whole front. The Germans outnumbered us by two to one both in guns and men; they were fresh from their successful outrages in overrunning Belgium, and they were full of contempt for the British "mercenaries." Their advance was excellently well covered by the terrain until they were within fairly short range, and they advanced wave on wave in close formation. They were decimated again and again by our rifle-fire, but again and again advanced in spite of it. Our men were sick of the slaughter, and their fire was so deadly that the German writers have afterwards attributed it to the enormous number of machine-guns which we were using, although we were in fact all too short, at that time, of this particular arm. The defence held out for six hours in face of the overwhelming odds, but at night we were compelled to retire, Mons itself having been entered by the enemy. So commenced the Mons retreat, so far as our men were concerned. The French retreat, unfortunately, their men being equally outnumbered, had commenced twelve hours before. On the next two days the retreat continued, Smith-Dorrien's army on the west of the Mormal Forest towards Le Cateau, and Haig's on the east of the forest towards Landrecies. The great Mormal Forest itself (some ten miles long and from three to five miles wide) has been very much thinned during the war by the Germans for the sake of its timber ([Plate 109]). Even now, although traversed by many woodland roads, it would be an impossible undertaking to take through it a great army in retreat, and this made the separation of the two armies unavoidable. On the 25th of August Haig's men had reached the old fortified town of Landrecies, on the Sambre. Fifty years or so before this, R. L. Stevenson—boating down the river on his "Inland Voyage"—had passed through the old-world fortifications, and wrote of the town, singularly enough:
"It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in the darkness, with the solid troop of men marching, and the startling reverberation of the drum. It reminded you that even this place was a point in the great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future day be ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a name among strong towns."[42]