How the Guards held Landrecies on the night of August 25, 1914.
A description of this incident is given on pp. [93] and [94]. As a result of this magnificent defence the German vanguard was checked. "It had miscalculated the strength of British valour and endurance."
CHAPTER XIV.
STORIES OF THE RETREAT FROM MONS TO ST. QUENTIN.
From what you have read in the two previous chapters you will gather that, during the four days' battle which was fought between Mons and St. Quentin, incident crowded upon incident. You may be sure that our soldiers had much to say of their experiences when they wrote home, or when they arrived on this side of the Channel to nurse their honourable wounds. Before, however, I tell you some of their stories, let us learn what happened at Tournai. You will remember that while our men were holding the Condé-Mons-Binche line a French Territorial battalion was defending Tournai. It was by way of this town that von Kluck was trying to turn the British left. In order to help the French in Tournai, the British Commander-in-chief sent them twenty-two pieces of field artillery, two heavy guns, and a force which only numbered seven hundred all told.
Tournai[57] is one of the most ancient cities of Belgium. It is as old as Cæsar, and its history is very warlike. Few towns have borne the brunt of so many sieges, and have changed hands so often. The Duke of Marlborough captured it in 1709. It contains one of the noblest cathedrals in Europe; a fine Cloth Hall, which is now a museum and picture gallery; a belfry with a set of chimes; and other interesting buildings. In 1653, near one of the old churches, a tomb was discovered containing the sword and other relics of Childeric I.,[58] one of the early kings of the Franks, a group of tribes which settled in the Lower Rhine valley about 250 A.D., and afterwards gave its name to France. Amongst the relics in the tomb were three hundred small figures in gold, resembling bees. When Napoleon ordered the robe in which he was crowned, he had it embroidered with gold bees instead of the usual French lilies. Tournai is one of the cleanest and pleasantest of Belgian industrial towns. The quays on the Scheldt are planted with trees, and the old walls have been turned into promenades.
A civilian who witnessed the fighting at Tournai tells us that the French Territorials, who were only one thousand strong, had barely arrived, after an eleven miles' march, when they were fired on by German guns. The firing began at 8 a.m. on Monday, 24th August, and shortly afterwards the Germans entered the town. He saw them in the garden of the station square taking cover under the bushes and behind the statues, and firing along all the streets that radiate from it. Then he heard the quick, continuous reports of the machine guns, which, he says, sounded like the noise of a very loud motor-cycle engine. The French made their last stand before the bridges of the Scheldt. They were mainly men of forty, but they held their ground the whole morning against a deadly fire, and only gave way when they were surrounded by the Germans.
Our seven hundred British with their guns were posted to the south-west of the town. An artillery duel began at 11, and continued fiercely until 2.30. Shrapnel continually burst over the trenches and batteries; but there was no flinching, and the gunners took a fearful toll of the advancing foe. Reinforcements had been promised, but they failed to arrive. Swarms of German cavalry, not less than five thousand of them, now swooped upon the little band of British, who fought desperately, and used the bayonet with deadly effect. After an agonizing struggle of an hour and a half, during which the Germans rode right up to the muzzles of the guns, "all that was left of them," some three hundred men, fought their way from the field, and escaped by the Cambrai road. "The last I saw of one of our officers," said a survivor, "was that he had a revolver in his hand, and was firing away, screened by his gun. He alone must have accounted for a dozen Uhlans. They were falling on all sides of him." The British guns were captured.
Such was the fine feat of arms performed by a handful of Britons at Tournai. They were assailed by a force that outnumbered them ten to one; but they stood their ground, and made a defence worthy to rank with that of Rorke's Drift.[59] The British soldier is never so great as when facing "fearful odds."
