On August 24, 1914, the town of Charleville was evacuated, the civilians were sent away to join multitudes of other homeless refugees, and then the French also retired, leaving behind them several machine guns hidden in houses, placed so that they commanded the town and the three bridges that connected it with Mézières.
The German advance guards reached the two towns next day, August 25, 1914, which, as we know, witnessed the British retirement toward Le Cateau. Unmolested, they rode across the three bridges into the quiet, empty streets. Suddenly, when all had crossed, the bridges were blown up behind them by contact mines, and the German cavalrymen were raked by the deadly fire of the machine guns. Nevertheless, finding their foes were not numerous, they made a courageous stand, waiting for their main columns to draw nearer. Every French machine gunner was silenced by the Guards with their Maxims; but when the main invading army swept into view along the river valley, the French artillery from the hills around Charleville mowed down the heads of columns with shrapnel. Still the Teutons advanced with reckless courage. While their artillery was engaged in a duel with the French, German sappers threw pontoon bridges across the river, and finally the French had to retire. Between Charleville and Rethel there was another battle, resulting in the abandonment of Mézières by the French.
The retreating army crossed the Semois, a tributary of the Meuse, which it enters below Mézières, and advanced toward Neufchâteau; but they were repulsed by the Germans under the Duke of Württemberg. At Nancy on August 25, 1914, there was another engagement between the garrison of Toul and the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria; after fierce onslaughts the garrison was compelled to yield and retire. Finally, on August 27, 1914, at Longwy, a fortified town near Verdun, the army of the German crown prince succeeded in bursting into France after a long siege, and marched toward the Argonne. Thus from the western coast almost to Verdun there was a general Franco-British retreat.
On August 28, 1914, pressed by the German armies commanded by Von Kluck on the west, by Von Hausen from Dinant and Givet, by Von Bülow from Charleroi and Namur, the Allies were pushed back upon a line stretching roughly from Amiens through Noyon-Le Fère to Mézières; while their forces east of the Meuse between Mézières and Verdun were retreating before Duke Albrecht of Württemberg, and to the southeast of Verdun before the Bavarians. All northern France was thus open to the invaders.
After the battle of Le Cateau, however, the Germans slackened their pursuit for a very brief interval; partly because the terrific strain of marching and fighting was telling upon them no less than upon the Allies, partly because the engineers had blown up the bridges over every river, canal, and stream, behind the retreating armies, and partly because, under directions from the French commander in chief, General Manoury was organizing a new force on the British left, a new Sixth Army, mainly reserve troops, one corps of line troops, and General Sordêt's cavalry. On the right of the British were General Lanrezac's troops; then, between Lanrezac's Fifth Army and the Fourth Army, came a Ninth Army, under General Foch, formed of three corps from the south.
Counterattacks were ordered by the French general in chief, continued during the entire retreat and had frequently brilliant results.
On August 29, 1914, a corps of the Fifth Army and of the divisions of reserve attacked with success in the direction of St. Quentin with the object of withdrawing the pressure on the British army. Two other corps and a division of reserves joined issue with the Prussian Guard and the Tenth Corps of the German army which debouched from Guise. This was a very violent battle, known under the name of the Battle of Guise. At the end of the day, after various fluctuations in the fight, the Germans were thrown completely over the Oise and the entire British front was relieved. The Prussian Guard on that occasion suffered great losses.
August 27, 1914, the Fourth Army under General de Langle de Cary succeeded likewise in throwing the enemy across the Meuse as he endeavored to secure a footing on the left bank. The success continued on the 28th; on that day a division of this army (First Division of Morocco under the orders of General Humbert) inflicted a sanguinary defeat on a Saxon army corps in the region of Signy l'Abbaye.
Thanks to these brilliant successes, the retreat was accomplished in good order and without the French armies being seriously demoralized; as a matter of fact, they were actually put to flight at no point. All the French armies were thus found intact and prepared for the offensive.
The right wing of the German army marched in the direction of Paris at great speed, and the rapidity of the German onslaught obliged the French General Staff to prolong the retreat until they were able to establish a new alignment of forces. The new army established on the left of the French armies, and intrusted to General Manoury, was not able to complete its concentration in the localities first intended. In place of concentrating in the region of Amiens it was obliged to operate more to the south.