In the following section of Sir John French’s despatch he describes the position on Sunday, August 23:—
At 6 a.m. on August 23 I assembled the Commanders of the First and Second Corps and Cavalry Division at a point close to the position, and explained the general situation of the Allies, and what I understood to be General Joffre’s plan. I discussed with them at some length the immediate situation in front of us.
From information I received from French Headquarters I understood that little more than one, or at most two, of the enemy’s Army Corps, with perhaps one Cavalry Division, were in front of my position; and I was aware of no attempted outflanking movement by the enemy. I was confirmed in this opinion by the fact that my patrols encountered no undue opposition in their reconnoitring operations. The observation of my aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate.
About 3 p.m. on Sunday, the 23rd, reports began coming in to the effect that the enemy was commencing an attack on the Mons line, apparently in some strength, but that the right of the position from Mons and Bray was being particularly threatened.
The Commander of the First Corps had pushed his flank back to some high ground south of Bray, and the 5th Cavalry Brigade evacuated Binche, moving slightly south; the enemy thereupon occupied Binche.
The right of the 3rd Division, under General Hamilton, was at Mons, which formed a somewhat dangerous salient; and I directed the Commander of the Second Corps to be careful not to keep the troops on this salient too long, but, if threatened seriously, to draw back the centre behind Mons. This was done before dark. In the meantime, about 5 p.m., I received a most unexpected message from General Joffre by telegraph, telling me that at least three German Corps, viz., a reserve corps, the 4th Corps, and the 9th Corps, were moving on my position in front, and that the Second Corps was engaged in a turning movement from the direction of Tournai. He also informed me that two reserve French divisions and the 5th French Army on my right were retiring, the Germans having on the previous day gained possession of the passages of the Sambre between Charleroi and Namur.
An official statement issued by the Press Bureau announced that the British troops took an active and meritorious part in the great battle which began on Saturday, August 22. Throughout an engagement on Sunday near Mons they held their ground, and they had successfully reached their new position. Fighting had gone on more or less continuously, but the enemy had not harassed our operations and the movement was executed with great skill by the Commanders of the First and Second Army Corps. Casualties could not be estimated exactly, but were not heavy. Our forces were opposed by two German army corps and two cavalry divisions. The enemy suffered very heavily. The position now occupied was well protected. The general position showed that the Allies continued the action in Belgium on Sunday and Monday, August 23 and 24, but in presence of the considerable forces which the Germans had massed the French Commander-in-Chief decided to withdraw his troops to the original line of defence arranged, where they were firmly established. Two French divisions suffered somewhat severely, but the main body was not touched and remained full of enthusiasm. The German losses, particularly in the corps d’armée of the Guards, were considerable. The moral of the Allied troops was excellent.
This statement was supplemented by a statement issued from the French Embassy:—
To the west of the Meuse the British army, which was on our left, was attacked by the Germans. Admirable under fire, it resisted the enemy with its usual coolness.
The French army which was operating in this region advanced to the attack. Two army corps, which were in the first line, spurred on by their dash, were received by a very murderous fire. They did not give way, but, being subjected to a counter-attack by the Prussian Guard, they ultimately had to fall back. They did not do so until they had inflicted enormous losses on their adversaries.
On the east of the Meuse our troops marched forward through a very difficult country. Vigorously attacked on the outskirts of the forest, they had to fall back after a very lively fight to the south of the Semoy River.
On the orders of General Joffre our troops and the British troops took up positions on the covering line, which they would not have left had not the admirable Belgian effort enabled them to enter Belgium. They are intact.
Our cavalry has not suffered at all. Our artillery has affirmed its superiority. Our officers and our soldiers are in the best physical and moral state.
In consequence of the orders given the fighting will change its aspect for some days. The French will remain for a time on the defensive. At the proper time chosen by headquarters it will resume a vigorous offensive.
Our losses are considerable. It would be premature to enumerate them. The same holds good for those of the German army, which has nevertheless suffered so much as to be obliged to arrest its counter-attack movement in order to take up fresh positions.
Although some vigorous fighting had been going on during Sunday morning, August 23, the extreme peril of our troops was not realised until late in the afternoon, when Sir John French received tidings of extreme gravity that large reinforcements of the enemy were advancing towards the British lines. This enormous host of Germans, strengthened no doubt with troops released from Namur, was hurling itself forward furiously, and the British left wing on the west was especially threatened with a dangerous flanking movement from the enemy. On the east towards Charleroi the position was equally perilous, because no support could be expected in that direction, as the French troops had already withdrawn. Sir John French therefore ordered a retirement, which began on Sunday evening and continued till the following morning. But the men fell back unwillingly, while they engaged in a terrific conflict with the oncoming forces of the enemy. Everything possible was done by the Germans to harass the British and to convert their withdrawal into a rout. With the aid of powerful searchlights, which continuously swept towards the country selected for the retirement of our troops, the enemy endeavoured to deprive them of the advantage of the night, and covered them with a murderous hail of shot and shell. But, as we know, the plans of the Germans failed owing to the skill of our Generals and to the splendid nerve of our men: our lines remained intact and their spirit unbroken.
Mr. Alfred J. Rorke, special correspondent of the Central News, sent the following early account of the fighting at Mons:—
Paris, Monday (received per Courier, Tuesday).
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 line, 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 extended 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 Berserkers 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 West Kents were one of the first of the British troops to come under fire at Mons, in which they lost four officers killed, including Major Pach-Beresford, and four officers and seventeen men wounded. A wounded lance-corporal of this regiment says:—
We reached Mons on Saturday afternoon, August 22, the day before the battle. We at once commenced to entrench, and were still engaged on this work when the Germans fired their first shell, which wrecked a house about twenty yards away. Then we got ready for the fight. We made loopholes in a wall near the house, and remained there for fifteen hours under a heavy fire of shrapnel. The Germans came across the valley in front of us in thousands, but their rifle fire was absolutely rotten, and such damage as they did was caused by the big guns which covered their advance. Numerically the Germans were far superior to us, and as soon as one lot was shot down another took its place.
We retired from Mons about four o’clock on Monday morning to a little village on the borders of France. We kept up a rearguard action all the way, and it was in this that I was wounded. A shell dropped close to me, and some fragments penetrated my left leg. I was thrown to the ground, and for a time lay unconscious. When I recovered I found my rifle and ammunition were missing, having, I suppose, been taken by the Germans, who evidently thought I was dead.