British Troops in Action—Their "Customary Coolness"—Zeppelin at Antwerp—German Atrocities—Lord Kitchener's Speech
The British Expeditionary Force was engaged in the battle at Mons, and it was subsequently stated that the soldiers had been fighting for thirty-six hours on end. A short statement by the Press Bureau was more usefully expanded into the following account, which was issued by the French Embassy and summed up the situation as it existed on Monday night, August 24th:
On the west of the Meuse the English army, which was on our left, has been attacked by the Germans. Its behaviour under fire was admirable, and it resisted the enemy with its customary coolness.
The French army which operated in this region attacked. Our army corps, with the African troops in the first line, carried forward by their over-eagerness, were received with a very murderous fire. They did not fall back, but later by a counter-attack by the Prussian Guard they were compelled to retire. They did so only after having inflicted enormous loss on the enemy. The flower of the Prussian Guard suffered very severely.
On the east of the Meuse our troops advanced across very difficult ground. They met with a vigorous attack as they left the woods, and were compelled to retire after fierce fighting on the south of the Semoy.
At the order of General Joffre, our troops and the English troops have taken up their position on the covering line, which they would not have quitted had not the splendid courage of the Belgian army permitted us to enter Belgium. The covering line is intact. Our cavalry has not suffered. Our artillery has proved its superiority. Our officers and our soldiers are in splendid physical and moral condition.
As a result of the orders given, the struggle will change its aspect for several days. The French army will for a time remain on the defensive. When the proper moment comes, as chosen by the Commander-in-Chief, it will resume a vigorous offensive.
Our losses are severe. It will be premature to estimate them or to estimate those of the German army, which, however, has suffered so severely as to be compelled to halt in its counter-attack and establish itself in new positions.
The communiqué then proceeds to deal with the situation in regard to Lorraine. It says:
Yesterday we four times counter-attacked from the positions we occupy on the north of Nancy, and we inflicted very severe losses on the Germans.
Generally speaking, we retain full liberty to use our railway system, and every sea is open for our re-provisioning. Our operations have permitted Russia to enter into action and to reach the heart of Eastern Prussia. It is, of course, regrettable that, owing to difficulties in execution which could not have been foreseen, our plan of attack has not achieved its object. Had it done so it would have shortened the war, but in any case our defence remains intact in face of an already weakened enemy.
All Frenchmen will deplore the momentary abandonment of the portions of annexed territory which we had already occupied. On the other hand, certain portions of the national territory must, unfortunately, suffer from the events of which they will be the theatre. The trial is inevitable, but will be temporary.
Thus, some detachments of German cavalry, belonging to an independent division operating on the extreme right, have penetrated into the Roubaix—Tourcoing district, which is defended only by Territorial forces. The courage of our brave people will support this trial with unshaken faith in our final success, which is beyond doubt.
In telling the country the whole truth, the Government and the military authorities afford it the strongest possible proof of their absolute confidence in a victory, which depends only on our tenacity and perseverance.
A thrilling description of the behaviour of the British troops at Mons was given by Mr. A.J. Rorke, the correspondent of the Central News Agency, who wired from Paris on Monday night:
Graphic stories of how the British troops at Mons fought during the two days in which they bore the brunt of the main German advance reached Paris in the early hours of this morning, when officers arriving from the front reported at the War Office, and, in subsequent conversation with their closest personal friends, told of the wonderful coolness and daring of our men. The shooting of our infantry on the firing fine, they said, was wonderful. Every time a German's head showed above the trenches and every time the German infantry attempted to rush a position there came a withering rifle fire from the khaki-clad forms lying in extending formation along a big battle front.
The firing was not the usual firing of nervous men, shooting without aiming and sometimes without rhyme or reason, as is so often the case in warfare. It was rather the calm, calculated riflemanship of the men one sees on the Stickledown range firing with all the artificial aids permitted to the match rifle expert whose one concern is prize money.
When quick action was necessary the firing and the action of the men was only that of prize riflemen firing at a disappearing target. There was no excitement, no nervousness; just cool, methodical efficiency. If the British lost heavily heaven only knows what the Germans must have lost, because, as one of their wounded officers (whom the British took prisoner) remarked, "We had never expected anything like it; it was staggering."
The British troops went to their positions silently but happily. There was no singing, because that was forbidden, but as the khaki-clad columns deployed and began to crawl to the trenches there were various sallies of humour in the different dialects of English, Irish, and Scottish counties. The Yorkshireman, for instance, would draw a comparison between the men they were going to fight and certain dogs that won't fight which the Yorkshire collier has not time to waste upon at the pit-head; the Cockney soldier was there with his sallies about "Uncle Bill," and every Irishman who went into the firing line wished he had the money to buy a little Irish horse, so that he could have a slap at the Uhlans.
And the cavalry! Officers coming from the front declare that our cavalrymen charged the much-vaunted German horsemen as Berserks might have done. When they got into action with tunics open, and sometimes without tunics at all, they flung themselves at the German horsemen in a manner which surprised even their own officers, who had themselves expected great things of them. The Uhlans, whose name and fearful fame had spread terror among the Belgian peasants and the frontier villages of France, were just the sort of men the British troopers were waiting for. The Britishers, mostly Londoners, who, as Wellington said, make the best cavalry soldiers in the world, were dying to have a cut at them; and when they got into clinches the Uhlans had the surprise of their lives.
From the scene of battle, the point of interest in the European war drama, as far as England is concerned, shifted in the small hours of this morning to the railway station at X, where officers and men of the Army Service Corps awaited the arrival of the wounded—the British wounded from the firing line. Everything was perfectly organised; there was no theatrical display; the officers and men of the British army waited silently and calmly for the toll of war, which they had been advised was on its way.
The station at the time was crowded with Americans coming to England from Paris after their release from Switzerland, and cheer after cheer, in which the French in the station joined, echoed under the arched roof. Britishers who were there felt very proud of their Empire and their soldiers at that moment. The men who were waiting for the wounded had not been in the first line of battle it was true—that was not their job—but their work was probably the greatest of all. It was for them to watch and wait, while every fibre of their inmost being thrilled to the note of war; and yet to restrain their desires while they practised that which the Iron Duke called the wonderful "two o'clock in the morning" courage. So they waited in a draughty station for their comrades, thrown back temporarily from the scene of action, to fit them to return, if possible, immediately.
While the crowd waited for the wounded, train after train rolled slowly through carrying more of "our boys" to the active front. They were sleeping in horse trucks alongside their equine friends; they were sleeping in cattle wagons; yet they stood up when the cheering reached their ears, looking fresh, fit, clean, and healthily British from their service caps to their puttee straps. All young, all full-blooded, all British; happy and eager to get at grips in what is to them a holy war. And then, at the end, as the boat-train was creeping out in the early morning, the wounded arrived.
It was my privilege to witness, on the road between Boulogne and Paris last Saturday, a scene as picturesque and deeply inspiring as a page from Froissart. The two English Cardinals, Cardinal-Archbishop Bourne and the Cardinal Abbot Gasquet, famed as an historian, had left London to journey to the Conclave at Rome. On the line the train in which they travelled was stopped, and by a curious chance a train in which a regiment including in its ranks a large number of Irish Catholics—these men, like the Plantagenets of old, wearing a sprig of green in their head-dress—was drawn up for a moment alongside.
The Cardinals, who, under their cassocks, wore the red of their rank, stepped into the corridor, and, leaning out of a window, said together, "May God bless you, my children."
In an instant every Catholic soldier in the open trucks of the troop train dropped to his knees to receive the Cardinals' blessing. It appears, maybe, a simple affair, but in its spontaneity and sincerity, its mingling of the spiritual with the grimly material, it was eloquent and moving beyond the comprehension of those who only read what others saw.
On August 25th the Germans made a raid by Zeppelin airship on Antwerp and dropped several bombs on the palace, the St. Elizabeth Hospital, and other public buildings. Twelve persons were blown to pieces in different parts of the city, and shots aimed at the airship proved ineffectual. The same evening the Belgian Government gave out the following official statement regarding the shocking atrocities committed by the invading forces in various parts of the occupied territory:
In spite of solemn assurances of goodwill and long-standing treaty obligations, Germany has made a sudden savage and utterly unwarranted attack on Belgium.
However sorely pressed she may be, Belgium will never fight unfairly and never stoop to infringe the laws and customs of legitimate warfare. She is putting up a brave fight against overwhelming odds, she may be beaten, she may be crushed, but, to quote our noble King's words, "she will never be enslaved."
When German troops invaded our country, the Belgian Government issued public statements which were placarded in every town, village, and hamlet, warning all civilians to abstain scrupulously from hostile acts against the enemy's troops. The Belgian Press daily published similar notices broadcast through the land. Nevertheless, the German authorities have issued lately statements containing grave imputations against the attitude of the Belgian civilian population, threatening us at the same time with dire reprisals. These imputations are contrary to the real facts of the case, and as to threats of further vengeance, no menace of odious reprisals on the part of the German troops will deter the Belgian Government from protesting before the civilised world against the fearful and atrocious crimes committed wilfully and deliberately by the invading hosts against helpless non-combatants, old men, women, and children.
Long is the list of outrages committed by the German troops, and appalling the details of atrocities, as vouched for by the Committee of Inquiry recently formed by the Belgian Minister of Justice and presided over by him. This committee comprises the highest judicial and university authorities of Belgium, such as Chief Justice Van Iseghem, Judge Nys, Professors Cottier, Wodon, etc.