Very few English people who had not actually been there were familiar with the name of Mons, and yet the town which gave its name to the first big battle of this war, is not only the centre of the French “Black Country,” but it has had a long and romantic history, and was founded by Julius Cæsar.
A certain King of Spain, to whom Mons once belonged, must have been very like the Kaiser. The latter, as we know, has with magnificent lavishness, bestowed the Prussian V.C., the great decoration of the Iron Cross, on some fifty thousand of his men. This King of Spain was once so pleased with the inhabitants of Mons that he conferred a peerage on every member of the Town Council!
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT RETREAT
No thought was there of dastard flight
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly, and well.
Scott.
You will remember that the Battle of Mons was fought on the 23rd of August, a Sunday.
On the Monday the whole world, with the exception of Germany and Austria, heard with dismay that the famous Belgian fort of Namur had fallen, after holding out as long as it could against the great German guns.