Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent flooding in the main.’
Clough.
The Battle of the Marne—The Race for the Sea—Antwerp, the True Flank—Admiralty Concern about Antwerp—The Neutrality of the Scheldt—Opening of the Siege of Antwerp, September 28—Lord Kitchener’s Plans—Belgian Decision to Evacuate Antwerp—Conference at Lord Kitchener’s House, Midnight, October 2—British Ministers urge further Resistance—My Mission to Antwerp—French Aid Promised—The Situation in Antwerp, October 3—My Proposals to the Belgian and British Governments—Progress of the German Attack—Strange Contrasts—Acceptance of my Proposals by British and Belgian Governments—Chances of Success—Relief Approaching—Fighting of October 5—The Belgian Night Attack Fails—The Front broken in, October 6—Arrival of the British Naval Brigades—Arrival of Sir Henry Rawlinson—Decisions of British and Belgian Council of War, Night of October 6—The Personal Aspect—Five Days Gained.
It is not possible to understand the British attempt to prolong the defence of Antwerp without seeing the episode in its true setting. The following is a simple way of reviewing the military operations in the West up to the point which this account has now reached.
The German armies swept through Belgium intending to turn and drive back the French left and left centre. At the same time after a diversion in Alsace the French centre struck forward on either side of Metz at the German left and left centre. The French hoped that this counter-stroke would rupture the German line and paralyse the turning movement through Belgium. However, after the whole fronts had been in collision for several days of intense battle, it appeared that the French counter-stroke had not ruptured the German line, and that the turning movement through Belgium had succeeded in driving back the French left. Thus by the twentieth day the French right was thrown on to the defensive and their three armies of the left and left centre and the British army were in full retreat southward towards Paris. The Germans therefore were completely successful in the first main shock.
But henceforward the French right stood like a rock in front of Nancy under General de Castelnau, and at the Trouée des Charmes under General Dubail, and the Germans sustained a series of bloody checks. Meanwhile the French left and centre by retreating for five marches extended the pursuing Germans to the utmost while falling back themselves on their own reserves and supplies. And by September 6 (the 37th day) the French armies turned and assumed the offensive on the whole front of 120 miles from Paris to Verdun. In addition a new French army under General Maunoury had come into existence to the north of Paris which attacked the German right, and all the time the resistance of the Nancy army (de Castelnau) and of the army of General Dubail on its right continued unbreakable. Thus from September 6 the whole of the French and German armies and the British Expeditionary Force were locked in general battle on a front of over 180 miles, with practically every division and all their reserves on both sides thrown in.
This battle, which lasted for four days, was the greatest of the war. The Germans aimed not at the capture of Paris or Verdun or Nancy, but at the final destruction of the French military power. Had they succeeded in breaking the French front between Paris and Verdun or in falling upon its rear from the direction of Nancy, nearly half the French Army, certainly more than a million men, would have been cut off in the Verdun angle. The rest, whatever happened in the neighbourhood of Paris, would have had to retreat to the southward and would never again have been numerous enough to form a complete front. Compared with stakes like these, the entry into Paris by the German right flank or the capture of the Channel Ports by a couple of German corps were insignificant and rightly discarded by the German Headquarters. Once the French Army was cut in half and finally beaten, everything would fall into their hands. They therefore directed all their available troops to the battlefield, ignored the Channel Ports, and compelled von Kluck, commanding their right army, to skirt Paris and close in to their main battle front. How near they were to success will long be debated and never decided. But certainly they were within an ace. No military reproach lies upon their disregard of other objectives: but only upon any failure to disregard them. It is not to their neglect to enter Paris or seize Calais that their fatal defeat was due, but rather to the withdrawal of two German army corps to repel the Russian invasion of East Prussia.
The soul of the French nation triumphed in this death struggle, and their armies, defeated on the frontier, turned after the long marches of retreat, and attacked and fought with glorious and desperate tenacity. British attention has naturally been concentrated upon the intense military situation developed before and around Paris, in which our own army played a decisive part; and the various pressures which operated upon von Kluck have now been minutely exposed. Attacked on his right flank and rear by Maunoury’s army while advancing to the main battlefield, he was compelled to counter-march first two of his corps and then his two remaining corps in order to make head against the new danger. Thus a gap of 30 miles was opened in the German line between von Kluck and von Bülow. Into this gap marched the battered but reanimated British army. The tide had turned. But the whole of this great situation about Paris was itself only complementary to the battle as a whole. The gaze of the military student must range along the whole line of the French armies, the defeat of any one of which would have been fatal. Most of all his eye will rest upon the very centre of the Paris-Verdun line, where Foch though driven back maintained his resistance. ‘My centre cedes. My right recoils. Situation excellent. I attack.’ But all the four French armies between Paris and Verdun fought with desperate valour, while Dubail and de Castelnau round the corner maintained their superb defence. And thus, weakened by its rapid advance, the whole German line came to a standstill. And as this condition was reached, the penetration by the British and by the Fifth French army on the British right, of the gap in the German line between von Bülow and von Kluck determined both these commanders in succession to retreat, and thus imposed a retrograde movement upon the whole of the invading hosts. ‘The most formidable avalanche of fire and steel ever let loose upon a nation’ had spent its force.