Britain and France hold empires which Cæsar never knew, and they are thus enabled to draw troops from every continent on the face of the globe. Englishman, Scot, Welshman, Irishman, British and French Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, Frenchman, and Belgian, stand shoulder to shoulder with Pathan, Gurkha, Sikh, Bengali, Baluchi, Senegambian, Arab, Berber, and Moor—Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu, and heathen—all united in a vast army determined to overthrow the nation which aims at nothing less than the mastery of the whole world. Such a remarkable gathering of races in one army has never before been seen.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST CLASH OF ARMS.
I wonder whether you have ever met with the word dinanderie. You will find it in an English dictionary, though it is an old word which has almost gone out of use. Dinanderie means vessels of chased copper or brass used for household purposes. In the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries such vessels were largely made in the little Belgian town of Dinant; hence the name.
You can scarcely imagine a more picturesque town than Dinant. It stands on the right or eastern bank of the broad river Meuse as it sweeps northward from France to join the Sambre at Namur. The main part of the town lies at the foot of lofty limestone rocks, which are honeycombed with grottoes containing stalactites, or limestone "icicles," such as you may see in the caves of Cheddar[8] or Derbyshire. In the Grand'-Place, quite close to the foot of the limestone rocks, is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a very handsome building with finely carved portals. Behind the cathedral there are four hundred and eight steps cut in the rock, by means of which you may ascend to the citadel which crowns the summit.
From this citadel, or from the top of the hill behind it, there is a glorious view of the Meuse valley. If we face the river, we shall see on the opposite bank the houses straggling up a wooded hillside, and to our right "Roche à Bayard," a bold pinnacle of rock with an ancient story. Bayard[9] was the prince of knights in the sixteenth century, a hero of the most noble and unselfish character, "without fear and without reproach." We can pay no greater honour to a soldier than to call him a "Bayard." Like our own King Arthur, he has become a figure of romance, and all sorts of magical deeds have been ascribed to him. It is said that on one occasion he defended a bridge single-handed against two hundred Spaniards. According to an old legend, he was once pursued by Charlemagne, and was only saved from capture by his gallant horse, which sprang right across the gorge of the river, and left a hoofmark on the rock which now bears his name.
I have described Dinant because it was in and around this town that the French first came into contact with the Germans. In Chapter XXX. of our first volume I told you that after the entry of the Germans into Brussels, von Kluck's army (the First Army), which was to form the extreme right of the German line, was rapidly advancing towards the Franco-Belgian border, and that von Buelow's army (the Second Army) was moving in the direction of the strong fortress of Namur. The first clash of arms between the French and Germans took place five days before the occupation of Brussels, when von Kluck's army was fighting its way towards the capital.
At that time the Duke of Würtemberg's army was marching through the wooded hills of the Ardennes towards the Central Meuse, and the Saxon army was advancing farther north towards Dinant and Namur. While these movements were in progress, the French sent a detachment northwards to occupy Dinant, which is only ten miles as the crow flies from their border. On 15th August, at about six in the morning, German cavalry and artillery of the Duke of Würtemberg's army made an attack on the town, which was only held by part of a French infantry regiment. Though the French were greatly outnumbered, they fought gallantly, and held the bridge across the Meuse stubbornly. By ten o'clock, however, the Germans had driven them off, and had hoisted their flag on the citadel. Some of their cavalry then crossed the river into the suburbs on the left or western bank.
About two in the afternoon, in the very nick of time, French reinforcements arrived. A French infantry regiment appeared on the left bank of the river, and drove the cavalry out of the suburbs. Meanwhile two French batteries took up position, and began a brisk cannonade of the citadel. One of their first shots cut the German flag in two. So hot was the fire that the enemy was forced to leave the citadel and retire along the cliffs to the south. A vigorous artillery duel was kept up across the valley; the French dashed across the river by the bridge, retook the town, and flung back the Germans, who retreated east and then south. Thus in the first battle of the war the French were victorious.