Here another brief note on geography is necessary. Eastern Belgium, or that part of it between the Meuse and the sea, is nearly all perfectly flat, and almost purely agricultural, and the invaders had there marched through a country which, before they laid it waste, was a habitation of industry and peace rejoicing in the bounties of harvest.
But western Belgium is largely a manufacturing country, though still marked by rich rural beauty. Even the main Belgian coalfield extending through the provinces of Hainault and West Flanders presents outwardly few of those evidences of utilitarian squalor commonly associated with coal and iron. The centre of the coal and iron industries of Western Belgium is Mons, a quaint old place built upon a hill rising amid a country thickly intersected by canals and railways. Looking east from Mons, we are looking down the valley of the Sambre, on each side low rolling hills, the sides and crests of which are in part clothed with woods and plantations. These hills are, so to say, the outworks of the Ardennes, one of the natural show-places of Europe. Fifteen miles from Mons, and on the north bank of the Sambre, is the town of Charleroi. Fifteen miles farther, at the juncture of the Sambre with the Meuse, rises the rocky mass forming the ancient citadel of Namur. The Sambre is not a wide stream, but is swift, its course alternating between rapids and deep pools. It is most passable, in the military sense, about ten miles west of Namur. Just there the river follows a succession of sharp bends.
Of the huge land Armada now moving south through this busy and populous but beautiful country, most people think as being in every sense a modern European army. But it was not. There were surgeons with it, but no field hospitals. It had encumbered itself with no tents. There was all the grim apparatus of modern war, but only the least possible of modern war’s humane apparatus. It was the intention of those who could to quarter themselves on the population of the country through which the host passed; to supplement food supplies by eating up the country’s resources. The mass of the invaders slept, where other shelter was not to be had, in the fields. These hardships sharpened the lust of conquest. At the rear of the host trudged battalions of gravediggers. But they were to dig the graves of those who would dare to stand against it. The comparative poverty and the native parsimony of the Prussians was reflected in these arrangements. Their all had been invested in artillery and instruments of death because the leaders of the host were sure of victory. What else they needed when winter came would be provided from the spoil of the conquered. In appearance a modern army, it presented essential features in common with the migrations of Huns and Goths, which form in Europe the history of the early Middle Ages. Under a modern disguise, it was a similar horde. It is easy, therefore, to estimate the rage and surprise which thwarted hopes, wounded pride, and heavy losses had produced in Belgium, and why there was behind it a land of mourning and blood.
We now come to the military movements. The 5th French army and two divisions had advanced and had occupied the angle of country between the Meuse and the Sambre, and held the passages over both rivers; the British line was taken up behind the canal which runs from Condé on the west of Mons to Binche on the east. Mons lay somewhat in advance of the position, and occupied by the British 3rd division commanded by General Hamilton, formed an outward angle, or, in military terms, a salient.
The 5th British cavalry division under General Sir Philip Chetwode had been sent forward to reconnoitre. Part of the force had, on August 22, advanced as far as the forest of Soignies, close to Brussels. In face of the cavalry covering the German advance they had fallen back. Similar reconnaissances were made by the French cavalry round Gembloux to the north of Namur. Hence during the German advance southward from Brussels and westward of Namur the hostile forces were in touch with each other.
An interesting episode, characteristic of the scouting tactics of the Germans, is related by Mr. A. Beaumont, the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who was at the time in Charleroi:—
On my return to Charleroi I learnt that a detachment of twenty Hussars of the Death’s Head, led by an officer, had entered the upper town at seven in the morning. They proceeded towards the Sambre, and quietly said, “Good-morning” to the people at the doors. “Bon jour, bon jour,” they said to the housewives, who were looking on in wonder, and who, mistaking their khaki uniform, took them for English soldiers.
People even enthusiastically raised cheers for England. The soldiers, also misled, allowed them to pass. An officer finally saw them from a window, and rushed down to a detachment on guard in the Rue Pont Neuf, and gave the alarm. A number of infantry soldiers at once opened fire on them. It was at the corner of the Rue De Montigny, where the tramway and railway lines pass.
Three of the intruders were shot down. The rest, with their officer, took to flight. It was not believed that such a thing would be possible, but it proved that the Germans are capable of anything. They did the same thing many a time in 1870.
Apart from cavalry skirmishes, the fighting began on August 22, when the Germans attacked the passages over the Sambre about 10 miles to the west of Namur, already alluded to. Here reference may be made to a ruse on their part which explains the peculiarity of their movement across Belgium. The southern contingent was hurried into action evidently in order to lead the Allies to believe that it formed the bulk of the German force. After the Allies had made their dispositions to resist on that footing, the northern contingent was unexpectedly to appear, and to finish and win the battle by the weight of its forces.
While the fighting was going on for the passages of the Sambre, another part of the southern contingent, which was formed by the army apparently of General von Bülow, moved on to attack Charleroi, and yet another part, an army corps and a cavalry division, appeared before Mons.
The opening attack upon Mons, however, was what, in common parlance, is called a “blind,” intended to screen the advance behind it of the northern contingent, the army of General von Kluck, consisting of the pick of the Prussian troops.