Sketch 45.
Now, von Kluck with his five army corps, four of which were in operation against Sir John French, was well able to count on all these elements. He had highly superior numbers, his superiority had not been discovered until it was almost too late, and for rapidity of action he had excellent railways and a vast equipment of petrol vehicles.
What he proposed to do was, while engaging the British contingent of less than two army corps with three full army corps of his own, to swing his extreme western army corps right round, west through Tournai, and so turn the British line. If he succeeded in doing that, he had at the same time succeeded in turning the whole of the Franco-British forces on the Sambre and Meuse. In other words, he was in a fair way to accomplishing the destruction of the operative corner of the great square, and consequently, as a last result, the destruction of the whole Allied force in the West.
The thing may be represented on a sketch map in this form.
Of von Kluck's five corps, 1 is operating against the junction of the English and French lines beyond Binche, 2, 3, and 4 are massing against the rather more than one and a half of Sir John French at AA, and 5, after the capture of Tournai, is going to take a big sweep round in the direction of the arrow towards Cambrai, and so to turn the whole line. Meanwhile, the cavalry, still farther west, acting independently, is to sweep the country right out to Arras and beyond.
Sketch 46.
The particular titles of corps are of no great value in following the leading main lines of a military movement; but it may be worth remembering that this "number 5," to which von Kluck had allotted the turning movement, was the Second German Corps. With its cavalry it numbered alone (and apart from all the other forces of von Kluck which were engaging the British line directly) quite three-quarters as many men as all that British line for the moment mustered.
It was not possible, from local circumstances which the full history of the war, when it is written, will explain, for the British contingent to fall back in the remaining hours of daylight upon that Sunday.
Belated by at the most twelve hours, as the news of the French retirement had been, the British retirement followed it fully twenty hours after. It was not until daylight of Monday, the 24th, that all the organizations for this retirement were completed, the plans drawn up, and the first retrograde movements made.