Battle of Mons

“ Immediately afterwards he was detached with a corps of infantry, two hundred guns, and fifty mortars to commence the siege of Mons, where he was dangerously wounded in the neck and his aide-de-camp killed by his side while the troops were breaking ground. The lieutenancy of the Tower of London was conferred on him in December of the same year. In January 1710 he was present at a conference with the Dutch deputies at the Hague, after which he was again at Brussels. ”

“ Let the long-drawn-out fight that began at Mons give the answer. There our troops, pitted against the choicest bodies of the German army, outnumbered by nearly three to one as I believe, were undefeated and unbroken. When the story of that fight comes to be written, it is my belief that it will form as glorious a page as is to be found in the whole annals of our history. The men will come. ”

“ The time was nevertheless ripe for action on a scale far more decisive than had become orthodox in the British Army in the past. Efforts on that method had been confined to a thrust, limited in point both of distance and of time, and followed by a period of inaction; they had often given the enemy ample leisure to recover, and to reorganize his order of battle.
To maintain an offensive, day after day, indefinitely, would require sufficient resources, particularly in infantry, to allow Divisions to be used alternatingly. ”

“ Mud was flying in all directions; we were nearly across; another twenty yards. With a final roll and screech she bounded off on to the road. I jumped aboard again and up the road we shot towards Mons. If the Hun patrols had been anywhere near they must have thought a battalion of Tanks were on their track, for the noise my old "bus" made getting across that field was positively deafening. On I went through Mons, into the ruins of its houses, still glowing red and, in some places, [273] flames were licking around the poor skeletons of its once prosperous farms. ”

“ Men who came back wounded from Mons and Charleroi, away from the magnificent three weeks’ retreat that was then in progress for the British and French armies, were, in many cases, fully convinced that they had been defeated—that their armies were beaten, and had to retreat to save themselves from destruction. ”

“ Instead of pushing on to attack the allies, as Marlborough and Eugene had expected, to raise the siege of Mons, that able commander employed himself with the utmost skill and vigour in throwing up intrenchments in every part of his position. The nature of the ground singularly favoured his efforts. The heights he occupied, plentifully interspersed with woods and eminences, formed a concave semicircle, the artillery from which enfiladed on all sides the little plain of Malplaquet, so as to render it literally, in Dumont's words, "une trouée d'enfer." ”

“ But the situation south of the Somme gave cause for the gravest anxiety. The north flank of the French was hourly retiring in a south-westerly direction, and the ever widening gap was filled only by a scratch force of odd units supported and assisted by a few elements of the First Cavalry Division. The right flank of our Third Army, therefore, lay exposed to the danger of being turned, if the enemy should succeed in pressing his advantage as far west as Corbie, and in crossing the river at or west of that town. ”

“ These, with 300 old soldiers, the wrecks of the combat at the Cabriel, and three guns, tried [p. 135] to hold the pass. Moncey turned both flanks of this very inadequate defending force, and then broke through its centre. Many of the Spaniards dispersed, 500 were slain or captured, and the rest fled down the pass to Valencia. After riding round the position, Moncey remarked that it was so strong that with 6,000 steady troops he would undertake to hold it against Napoleon himself and the Grand Army [June 24] . ”

“ It was a military crime of the first order to send 13,000 troops of this quality on an important expedition. Moncey’s force was of exactly the same sort—eight battalions of conscripts formed in ‘provisional regiments’ and two ‘provisional regiments’ of dragoons, plus a Westphalian battalion, and two Spanish corps, who deserted en masse when they were informed that they were to march against Valencia in company with the marshal’s French troops. He had not one single company or squadron of men belonging to the old imperial army. ”

“ If the assaulting Brigades had been arranged, from front to rear, in their assembly areas prior to battle, in the same order as that in which they would have to come into action, this would have involved that the individual man, who was to be required to march and fight his way furthest into enemy country, and, therefore, was to be the last to enter the fight, would also be called upon to march furthest from his rearmost position of assembly before even reaching the battle zone. ”

“ I have no hesitation in saying that they fought most bravely, and advanced to the assault most fearlessly; that the leaders, from the Divisional Generals downwards, did the utmost within their powers to ensure success. Nor must the very bad conditions under which the 27th Division had to start be forgotten. Our American Allies are, all things considered, entitled to high credit for a fine effort.
But it is, nevertheless, true that in this battle they demonstrated their inexperience in war, and their ignorance of some of the elementary methods of fighting employed on the French front. ”

“ At this period of the war, large numbers of Americans had already arrived in France, but only few of them were yet ready to take their places in the line of battle. The time had not yet arrived, therefore, when, by taking over large sections of the Western front they could help to shorten the French and British frontages. The British front was, therefore, still so extended that the mobile reserve Divisions at the disposal of the Field Marshal were few. ”

“ It was at Mons in the third week of the Great War. The grey-green German hordes had overwhelmed the greater part of Belgium and were sweeping down into France whose people and military establishment were all unprepared for attack from that quarter. For days the little British army of perhaps 100,000 men, that forlorn hope which the Germans scornfully called "contemptible," but which man for man probably numbered more veteran fighters than any similar unit on either side, had been stoutly holding back the enemy's right wing and fighting for the delay that alone could save Paris. ”

“ It would be bad tactics to drive into the enemy's front a salient with a narrow base, for such a salient would make our situation worse instead of better, affording to the enemy the opportunity of artillery attack upon it from both its flanks as well as from its front. ”

“ I need hardly remark that it is not the number of killed and wounded in a battle that determines its general historical importance. It is not because only a few hundreds fell in the battle by which Joan of Arc captured the Tourelles and raised the siege of Orleans, that the effect of that crisis is to be judged: nor would a full belief in the largest number which Eastern historians state to have been slaughtered in any of the numerous conflicts between Asiatic rulers, make me regard the engagement in which they fell as one of paramount importance to mankind. ”

“ When they found the invaders drawn up in a good defensive position, they invariably refrained from attacking them. There was no object in making the troops a target to be riddled with arrows, when success was almost impossible. Accordingly the French victories of the second quarter of the century will be found to have resulted in most cases from attacking an English army at a moment when it was on the march or in some other position which rendered it impossible for an order of battle to be rapidly formed. ”

“ To this post of honour Sir John French now laid claim. At Mons his army had been on the left of the Allied line; now it was in the centre. This meant that it was far from its base, and could only obtain its supplies by cross-country routes which ran through the lines of communications of the French armies. ”

“ If the enemy is able to develop an immediate counter-attack, or if he has a definite plan, and the troops available in close reserve for the defence of the blue line, it may not be possible to reach the third objective. In this case the second objective (red line) will become the main line of resistance, and will be consolidated and organized in depth accordingly.
(c) Definite plans will be prepared to deal with either case. The Corps must be prepared, as early as possible, to fight a stiff defensive battle on the main line of resistance. ”

“ The actual captures in any engagement depend more upon the state of moral of the enemy and the temperament of the attacking troops than upon the military quality of the battle effort considered as a whole. While large captures necessarily imply great victories, it does not by any means follow that small captures imply the reverse.
Nevertheless, judged by such a purely arbitrary standard, the performances of the Australian Army Corps during the period under review are worthy of being set out in particular detail. ”

“ Owing to the unexpected turn of events at Mons, and the unfortunate delay in the despatch of this division from England, the troops had to be pushed into action without a moment's delay, and before the detrainment of their artillery and other services was practically complete.
On the morning of the 26th they found themselves on the extreme western flank of the Allied forces, and splendidly did General Snow and his gallant men carry out the difficult and dangerous task assigned them.
The conduct of their retirement was no less efficient than their gallant fighting. ”

“ If the enemy can succeed in scoring a success without any special support by artillery or assistance from special troops, we must be in a position to do the same."
Our line in front of Villers-Bretonneux had for months run very close to the eastern outskirts of that town, a circumstance which cramped and embarrassed our defence of it. The enemy could peer into its streets and sweep them with machine guns. ”

“ In 1917 we evolved, and applied for the first time at the battle of Messines, an effective answer to such tactics. Close on the heels of our first line of assaulting troops came a second line, whose rôle was to occupy the captured trench immediately, and to "mop it up." This meant the killing or disarming of all enemy found in hiding, the picketing of the entrances and exits of all dug-outs, and laying siege to them until their occupants surrendered, a course to which they were encouraged by a liberal use of phosphorus bombs or Mills's grenades. ”

“ All of us recognized the impossibility of overrunning, in a single day, so deep and formidable a system of defences, in such tortured country, and in weather which was already becoming unsettled.
The first phase was to be an attempt to capture the Hindenburg outpost line, along the whole Army front. The French and the Third British Armies were to be asked to make a synchronized attack on the same objective. The three Corps of the Fourth Army were to attack upon the frontages and in the sectors on which they then stood. ”

“ The van division posted on the opposite side, under the command of the duke of Bar, the count of Armagnac, and Remonnet de la Guerre, made their attack at the same time; and the princes and leaders urged their men on with such bravery, that in spite of the obstinate resistance of the besieged, the king's forces made an entry by a large breach which had been effected by the engines, and there the combat raged,—for every inch was disputed with lances, battle-axes and swords, hand to hand. ”

“ The prince of Tallemont, the count de Sancerre, the lord de Bussi, the captain Mouy, with a very great number of lords and gentlemen of renown, whose courage had many times been displayed in war, were killed at this battle.
During the engagement, neither baggage nor artillery were in danger of being [Pg 190] taken, for they were excellently well defended by those who ran as much risk as others engaged in the main battle. Many were well mounted, so that, if fortune had been adverse, the poor adventurers might have been able to support their friends, and have renewed the fight. ”

“ During the following night he insisted on doing his tour of duty along with the other officers, and his coolness and cheerfulness set an example which had a great effect on the men. To steady and calm the men of a small detached outpost, he crawled out among the enemy posts to investigate. He remained out about an hour, though enemy machine guns fired continuously on the sector, and the Germans were moving about him. He moved one gun up in support of the Infantry post, and patrolled the communication saps which ran off this post into the German line during the remainder of the night. ”

“ I do not cite this fighting in Mons as something to be particularly proud of, for with the national guard, I had twelve or thirteen hundred men compared to the three hundred of the Prussians. But I thought it worth recording this bizarre encounter to demonstrate the volatility of the masses, which is shown by the fact that all the peasants and coal miners of Borinage, who a month previously had come in a mass to exterminate or at least disarm the few Frenchmen remaining in Mons, had come to join us to oppose the Prussians because they had killed one of their compatriots. ”