On Monday, August 24, the town of Charleville was evacuated, most of its civilians were sent away to join the wanderers who had had to leave their homes, and the French troops took up magnificent positions commanding the town and the three bridges dividing it from Mézières. Mitrailleuses were hidden in the abandoned houses, and as a disagreeable shock to any German who might escape their fire was a number of the enemy's guns—no fewer than ninety-five of them—which had been captured and disabled by the French troops in the series of battles down the river from Namur. The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday, August 25. They were allowed to ride quietly across the bridges into the apparently deserted town. Then suddenly their line of retreat was cut off. The three bridges were blown up by contact mines, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were played on to the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a frightful slaughter. It was for a little while a sheer massacre in that town of white houses with pretty gardens where flowers were blooming under the brilliant sunshine of a glorious summer day.
But the Germans fought with extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of their comrades, and utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers across the bridges and, taking cover behind some of the houses, trained their guns upon those from which the French gunners were firing their last shots. There was no way of escape for those heroic men who voluntarily sacrificed themselves in the service of their country, and it is probable that every man died, because at such a time the Germans are not in the habit of giving quarter. When the main German advance came down the valley the French artillery on the heights raked them with a terrific fire in which they suffered heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But under this storm of fire they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the banks they succeeded in their endeavour while their guns searched the hills with shells and forced the French gunners to retire from their positions. The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but it was also a German graveyard.
After this historic episode in what had been an unending battle, the main body of the French troops withdrew before the Germans, who were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.
5
Meanwhile, on the western side of the battle line, the French army was holding a crescent from Abbeville, round the south of Amiens, and the situation was not a happy one in view of the rapid advance of the enemy under General Von Kluck, before whom the British troops were already in continual battle.
I shall not soon forget a dreadful night near Amiens, when I saw beaten and broken men coming back from the firing lines, and the death-carts passing down the roads. The whole day had been exciting and unnerving. The roads along which I had passed were filled with soldiers marching towards an enemy which was rapidly drawing close upon them, for whom they seemed but ill-prepared— and by civilians stampeding with wild rumours that the Uhlans were close upon them.
They were not very far wrong. At Picquigny, they were less than four miles distant—a small patrol of outposts belonging to the squadrons which were sweeping out in a fan through the northern towns and villages of France.
As I passed, French Territorials were hastily digging trenches close to the railway line. Reports came from stations further along that the line might be cut at any moment. A train crowded with French and Belgian fugitives had come to a dead halt. The children were playing on the banks—with that divine carelessness and innocence which made one's heart ache for them in this beastly business of war—and their fathers and mothers, whose worldly goods had been packed into baskets and brown paper parcels—the poor relics of all that had been theirs—wondered whether after all their sufferings and struggles they would reach the town of Amiens and find safety there.
It was obvious to me that there was a thrill of uneasiness in the military machine operating in the district. Troops were being hurried up in a north-westerly direction. A regiment of Algerians came swinging along the road. The sight of the Turcos put some heart into the fugitives. Those brown faces were laughing like children at the prospect of a fight. They waved their hands with the curious Arab gesture of salute, and shuffled along merrily with their rifles slung behind their backs. Military motor-cars carrying little parties of French officers swept down the roads, and then there were no more battalions but only stragglers, and hurrying fugitives driving along in farmers' carts, packed with household goods, in two-wheeled gigs, overburdened with women and children, riding on bicycles, with parcels tied to the saddles, or trudging wearily and anxiously along, away from the fear where the blood-red sun was setting over France. It was pitiful to see the children clinging to the women's skirts along that road of panic, and pitiful but fine, to see the courage of those women. Then night fell and darkness came across the fields of France, and through the darkness many grim shadows of war, looming up against one's soul.
There was une affaire des patrouilles—what the British soldier calls a "scrap"—along the road at Albert, between Amiens and Cambrai. A party of German Uhlans, spreading out from a strong force at Cambrai itself, had been engaged by the French Territorials, and after some sharp fighting had retired, leaving several dead horses in the dust and a few huddled forms from which the French soldiers had taken burnished helmets and trophies to their women folk.