The Battle of the Rivers

by Edmund Dane

Now we come to the Battle of Mons and Charleroi, when to the surprise of all non-German tacticians, the attacks in mass formation witnessed at Liége were repeated.

To describe that battle is beyond the scope of this narrative. But it is certain that the estimates so far formed of German losses are below, if not a long way below, the truth.

There is, however, a reliable comparative basis on which to arrive at a computation, and this has a most essential bearing on later events.

At Liége there were three heavy mass attacks against trenches defended by a total force of 20,000 Belgian riflemen with machine guns.[11] We have seen what the losses were. At Mons, against the British forces, there were mass attacks against lines held by five divisions of British infantry, a total roughly of 65,000 riflemen, with machine guns, and backed by over sixty batteries of artillery.

Now, taking them altogether, the British infantry reach, as marksmen, a level quite unknown in the armies of the Continent. Further, these mass attacks were made by the Germans with far greater numbers than at Liége, and there were far more of them. Indeed, they were pressed at frequent intervals during two days and part of the intervening night. The evidence as to the dense formations adopted in these attacks is conclusive.

What, from facts such as these, is the inference to be drawn as to losses incurred? The inference, and it is supported by the failure of any of these attacks to get home, is, and can only be, that the losses must have been proportionally on the same scale as those at Liége, for the attacks were, for the most part, as at Liége, launched frontally against entrenched positions. Though at first sight such figures may appear fantastic, to put the losses at three times the total of the losses at Liége is probably but a very slight exaggeration, even if it be any exaggeration at all.

There is, however, still another ground for such a conclusion. While the British front from Condé past and behind Mons to Binche allowed of the full and effective employment of the whole British force, even when holding in hand necessary reserves, it was obviously not a front wide enough to allow of the full and effective employment on the German side of a force four times as numerous. It must not be forgotten that troops cannot fight at their best without sufficient space to fight in.

But to employ in the same space a force no greater than the British, considering the advantage of position given with modern arms to an army acting on the defensive on well-chosen ground, would have meant the annihilation of the German army section by section.

That in effect, apart from the turning movement undertaken through Tournai, and the attempt at Binche to enfilade the British position by an oblique line of attack, was the problem which General von Kluck had to face. His solution of it, in the belief that his artillery must have completely shaken the British resistance, was to follow up the bombardment by a succession of infantry attacks in close formation, one following immediately the other, so that each attack would, it was thought, start from a point nearer to the British trenches than that preceding it, until finally the rush could not possibly be stopped. In that way the whole weight of the German infantry might, despite the narrow front, be thrown against the British positions, and though the losses incurred must of necessity be severe, nevertheless, the British line would be entirely swept away, and the losses more than amply revenged in the rout that must ensue. Not only so, but the outcome should be the destruction of the British force.

That this is as near the truth as any explanation which can be offered is hardly doubtful. The conclusion is consonant, besides, with what have been considered the newest German views on offensive tactics. To suppose that General von Kluck, or any other commander, would throw away the lives of his officers and men without some seemingly sufficient object is not reasonable.