Mr. W. Maxwell, writing from Beauvais, on Wednesday, September 2, supplied the following able article on the retirement of the British Expeditionary Forces:—
I have just returned from the direction of Rheims, and have met some of the men who have been fighting in the north. The last time I saw them was on Saturday, August 22, when they were marching on Mons. Their lines stretched east toward Charleroi and west toward Tournai through Valenciennes, and army headquarters were at Le Cateau, about sixty miles to the south.
Since then they have fought a great battle and fallen back fighting over a distance of nearly 100 miles. Yet it is just the same confident and cheerful army it was ten days ago.
The retirement must have been a fearful ordeal. Everybody is aware of the tremendous efforts the enemy have been making to strike at the capital of France. They have been content with demonstrations on the east and with masking the fortress positions along that border; they have descended in hordes from the north; they have poured out their blood like water from the Meuse to the Somme; but they have reserved their greatest efforts and sacrifices for the north-west.
It is this turning movement on the left flank of the British that has forced the allied armies to retire. Never was attack made with more reckless courage nor pressed with such relentless ferocity. And never was defence conducted with greater heroism. Every mile has been contested with stubborn gallantry, British and French retiring with their faces to the foe.
Their numbers were overwhelming. They gave us no rest. Night and day they hammered away, coming on like great waves. The gaps we made were filled instantly. Their artillery, which is well handled, played upon us incessantly. Their cavalry swept down upon us with amazing recklessness. If we have heavy losses the enemy have even greater.
Officers tell me that our men fought with cool gallantry. They never wavered an instant. But the pressure was irresistible. Column after column, squadron after squadron, mass after mass, the enemy came on like a battering ram crushing everything in its way. Shattered to fragments by shot and shell, the hordes of the enemy seemed instantly to renew themselves; they swarmed on all sides. Nothing but the sheer pluck, the steadfast courage and the unflinching determination of our soldiers saved the army from annihilation.
The losses inflicted on the enemy must have been enormous. They attacked in solid formation, and whole brigades of infantry were decimated by the fire of our rifles and guns. No army of civilised men can endure such devastation as was wrought among the Germans in this long battle over scores of miles.
The retirement was effected with admirable coolness and skill. The positions of the covering troops were well chosen, and our guns shelled the advancing columns until the dead lay in heaps along the roads and in the fields.
“The enemy hung on to us like grim death,” said a wounded soldier, who insisted on remaining in the ranks. “They wanted us to retire in a direction they had determined upon. But we were not taking our marching orders from them. We went our own way, and at our own pace. We were retiring—not retreating.”
Remembering the tremendous difficulties of carrying out a retirement under such conditions, it is amazing how well the men held together. Their losses were great, but not nearly so great as the circumstances seemed to exact. Many of the missing men found their way back to their regiments, from which they were separated in the desperate rush of the fighting.
The attack on the French army on our right seems to have been heaviest in the neighbourhood of St. Quentin. But the French met it with courage and coolness, sweeping the ranks with their artillery, and advancing with the bayonet under covering fire. For a time they were able to resume the offensive, and drove thousands of the enemy across the river.
But here, as on the left wing, the story was the same. The numbers of the enemy seemed inexhaustible. No sooner was one column wiped out than another was there to take its place. There was nothing for it but to retire fighting.
In continuation of the deeply interesting despatch of Sir John French of September 17, the first portion of which is quoted at the beginning of this chapter, he says:—
On the 1st September, when retiring from the thickly-wooded country to the south of Compiègne, the 1st Cavalry Brigade was overtaken by some German cavalry. They momentarily lost a Horse Artillery battery, and several officers and men were killed and wounded. With the help, however, of some detachments from the 3rd Corps operating on their left, they not only recovered their own guns but succeeded in capturing 12 of the enemy’s.
Similarly, to the eastward, the 1st Corps, retiring south, also got into some very difficult forest country, and a somewhat severe rearguard action ensued at Villers-Cotterets, in which the 4th Guards Brigade suffered considerably.
On September 3rd the British Forces were in position south of the Marne between Lagny and Signy-Signets. Up to this time I had been requested by General Joffre to defend the passages of the river as long as possible, and to blow up the bridges in my front. After I had made the necessary dispositions, and the destruction of the bridges had been effected, I was asked by the French Commander-in-Chief to continue my retirement to a point some 12 miles in rear of the position I then occupied, with a view to taking up a second position behind the Seine. This retirement was duly carried out. In the meantime the enemy had thrown bridges and crossed the Marne in considerable force, and was threatening the Allies all along the line of the British Forces and the 5th and 9th French Armies. Consequently several small outpost actions took place.
On Saturday, September 5, I met the French Commander-in-Chief at his request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive forthwith, as he considered conditions were very favourable to success.
General Joffre announced to me his intention of wheeling up the left flank of the 6th Army, pivoting on the Marne and directing it to move on the Ourcq; cross and attack the flank of the 1st German Army, which was then moving in a south-easterly direction east of that river.
He requested me to effect a change of front to my right—my left resting on the Marne and my right on the 5th Army—to fill the gap between that army and the 6th. I was then to advance against the enemy in my front and join in the general offensive movement.
These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, September 6th, at sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle opened on a front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in front of the left flank of the 6th French Army, through Lizy on the Marne, Mauperthuis, which was about the British centre, Courtaçon, which was the left of the 5th French Army, to Esternay and Charleville, the left of the 9th Army under General Foch, and so along the front of the 9th, 4th, and 3rd French Armies to a point north of the fortress of Verdun.
This battle, in so far as the 6th French Army, the British Army, the 5th French Army, and the 9th French Army were concerned, may be said to have concluded on the evening of September 10, by which time the Germans had been driven back to the line Soissons-Reims, with a loss of thousands of prisoners, many guns, and enormous masses of transport.
About the 3rd September the enemy appears to have changed his plans and to have determined to stop his advance south direct upon Paris, for on the 4th September air reconnaissances showed that his main columns were moving in a south-easterly direction generally east of a line drawn through Nanteuil and Lizy on the Ourcq.
On the 5th September several of these columns were observed to have crossed the Marne, whilst German troops, which were observed moving south-east up the left flank of the Ourcq on the 4th, were now reported to be halted and facing that river. Heads of the enemy’s columns were seen crossing at Changis, La Ferté, Nogent, Château Thierry, and Mezy.
Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on Montmirail, whilst before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located in the neighbourhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La Ferté-Gaucher, and Dagny.
I should conceive it to have been about noon on the 6th September, after the British Forces had changed their front to the right and occupied the line Jouy—Le Chatel—Faremoutiers—Villeneuve Le Comte, and the advance of the 6th French Army north of the Marne towards the Ourcq became apparent, that the enemy realised the powerful threat that was being made against the flank of his columns moving south-east, and began the great retreat which opened the battle above referred to.
On the evening of the 6th September, therefore, the fronts and positions of the opposing armies were roughly as follows:—
Allies.
6th French Army.—Right on the Marne at Meux, left towards Betz.
British Forces.—On the line Dagny—Coulommiers—Maison.
5th French Army.—At Courtagon, right on Esternay.
Conneau’s Cavalry Corps.—Between the right of the British and the left of the French 5th Army.
Germans.
4th Reserve and 2nd Corps.—East of the Ourcq and facing that river.
9th Cavalry Division.—West of Crecy.
2nd Cavalry Division.—North of Coulommiers.
4th Corps.—Rebais.
3rd and 7th Corps.—South-west of Montmirail.
All these troops constituted the 1st German Army, which was directed against the French 6th Army on the Ourcq, and the British Forces, and the left of the 5th French Army south of the Marne.
The 2nd German Army (IX., X., X.R., and Guard) was moving against the centre and right of the 5th French Army and the 9th French Army.
On the 7th September both the 5th and 6th French Armies were heavily engaged on our flank. The 2nd and 4th Reserve German Corps on the Ourcq vigorously opposed the advance of the French towards that river, but did not prevent the 6th Army from gaining some headway, the Germans themselves suffering serious losses. The French 5th Army threw the enemy back to the line of the Petit Morin River after inflicting severe losses upon them, especially about Montçeaux, which was carried at the point of the bayonet.
The enemy retreated before our advance, covered by his 2nd and 9th and Guard Cavalry Divisions, which suffered severely.
Our Cavalry acted with great vigour, especially General De Lisle’s Brigade with the 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars.
On the 8th September the enemy continued his retreat northward, and our Army was successfully engaged during the day with strong rearguards of all arms on the Petit Morin River, thereby materially assisting the progress of the French Armies on our right and left, against whom the enemy was making his greatest efforts. On both sides the enemy was thrown back with very heavy loss. The 1st Army Corps encountered stubborn resistance at La Trétoire (north of Rebais). The enemy occupied a strong position with infantry and guns on the northern bank of the Petit Morin River; they were dislodged with considerable loss. Several machine guns and many prisoners were captured, and upwards of two hundred German dead were left on the ground.
The forcing of the Petit Morin at this point was much assisted by the Cavalry and the 1st Division, which crossed higher up the stream.
Later in the day a counter-attack by the enemy was well repulsed by the 1st Army Corps, a great many prisoners and some guns again falling into our hands.
On this day (8th September) the 2nd Army Corps encountered considerable opposition, but drove back the enemy at all points with great loss, making considerable captures.
The 3rd Army Corps also drove back considerable bodies of the enemy’s infantry and made some captures.
On the 9th September the 1st and 2nd Army Corps forced the passage of the Marne and advanced some miles to the north of it. The 3rd Corps encountered considerable opposition, as the bridge at La Ferté was destroyed and the enemy held the town on the opposite bank in some strength, and thence persistently obstructed the construction of a bridge; so the passage was not effected until after nightfall.
During the day’s pursuit the enemy suffered heavy loss in killed and wounded, some hundreds of prisoners fell into our hands and a battery of eight machine guns was captured by the 2nd Division.
On this day the 6th French Army was heavily engaged west of the River Ourcq. The enemy had largely increased his force opposing them; and very heavy fighting ensued, in which the French were successful throughout.
The left of the 5th French Army reached the neighbourhood of Château Thierry after the most severe fighting, having driven the enemy completely north of the river with great loss.
The fighting of this army in the neighbourhood of Montmirail was very severe.
The advance was resumed at daybreak on the 10th up to the line of the Ourcq, opposed by strong rearguards of all arms. The 1st and 2nd Corps, assisted by the Cavalry Division on the right, the 3rd and 5th Cavalry Brigades on the left, drove the enemy northwards. Thirteen guns, seven machine guns, about 2,000 prisoners, and quantities of transport fell into our hands. The enemy left many dead on the field. On this day the French 5th and 6th Armies had little opposition.
As the 1st and 2nd German Armies were now in full retreat, this evening marks the end of the battle which practically commenced on the morning of the 6th instant; and it is at this point in the operations that I am concluding the present despatch.
Although I deeply regret to have had to report heavy losses in killed and wounded throughout these operations, I do not think they have been excessive in view of the magnitude of the great fight, the outlines of which I have only been able very briefly to describe, and the demoralisation and loss in killed and wounded which are known to have been caused to the enemy by the vigour and severity of the pursuit.
In concluding this despatch I must call your Lordship’s special attention to the fact that from Sunday, August 23rd, up to the present date (September 17th), from Mons back almost to the Seine, and from the Seine to the Aisne, the Army under my command has been ceaselessly engaged without one single day’s halt or rest of any kind.