George Herbert Perris - The Battle of the Marne

After the reference to Brussels, M. Hanotaux continues: “The rôle reserved to the British Army was to execute a turning movement of the left wing, advancing north of the Sambre toward Mons, in the direction of Soignies–Nivelles; it was thought it would be there before Kluck,” It was there a day before Kluck. “Unfortunately, as the Exposé de Six Mois de Guerre recognises, it did not arrive on the 20th, as the French Command expected.... In fact, it was only in line on the 23rd” (pp. 49–50). M. Hanotaux repeats himself with variations. The Allied Armies suffered, he says, not only from lateness and fatigue, but from lack of co-ordination in the High Command. “It is permissible to-day to say that the Belgian Command, in deciding to withdraw its army into the entrenched camp of Antwerp, obeyed a political and military conception which no longer conformed to the necessities of the moment. Again, the British Army appeared in the region only on the 23rd, although the battle had been engaged for two days and was already compromised between Namur and Charleroi. The rôle of turning wing which the British Army was to fulfil thus failed at the decisive hour” (pp. 53–4). M. Hanotaux mentions (p. 77) the receipt by Sir John French, at 5 p.m. on August 23, of “a telegraphic message qualified as ‘unexpected,’” announcing the weight of Kluck’s force and the French retirement, but omits to say that this message came from the French Generalissimo. He adds that the British commander gave the order to retreat at 5 p.m., Lanrezac only at 9 p.m., omitting to explain that the French retreat was, in fact, in operation at the former hour, while the British retreat only began at dawn on the 24th, after a night of fighting. “By 5 p.m., on Sunday the 23rd, when Joffre’s message was received at British Headquarters”—says Captain Gordon, on the authority of the British War Office ( Mons and the Retreat )—“the French had been retiring for ten or twelve hours. The British Army was isolated. Standing forward a day’s march from the French on its right, faced by three German Corps with a fourth on its left, it seemed marked out for destruction.”

In strong contrast with M. Hanotaux’s comments—repeated, despite public correction, in his article of March 1919 cited above—are M. Engerand’s references to the part played by the British Expeditionary Force. First, to its “calm and tenacious defensive about Mons, a truly admirable defence that has not been made known among us, and that has perhaps not been understood as it should be. It was the first manifestation of the form the war was to take; the English, having nothing to unlearn, and instructed by their experiences in the South African war, had from the outset seized its character.... It shows us Frenchmen, to our grief, how we might have stopped the enemy if we had practised, instead of the infatuated offensive, this British defensive ‘borrowed from Brother Boer.’” Then as to the retreat: “The retreat of the British followed ours, and did not precede it. It is a duty of loyalty to say so, as also to recognise that, in these battles beyond the frontiers, the British Army, put by its chief on the defensive, was the only one, with the 1st French Army, which could contain the enemy.” M. Engerand, who is evidently well informed, and who strongly defends General Lanrezac, says that Sir John French told this officer on August 17, at Rethel, that he could hardly be ready to take part in the battle till August 24.

Lt.-Col. de Thomasson, while regretting that the British did not try to help Lanrezac on the 23rd, admits that an offensive from Mons would have been fruitless and might have been disastrous (pp. 216–8).

M. Hanotaux’ faulty account of the matter appears to be inspired by a desire to redistribute responsibilities, and to prove that, if the British had attacked Bülow’s right flank, the whole battle would have been won. This idea will not bear serious examination. The French Command cannot have entertained this design on August 20, for it must have known that the British force was two days behind the necessary positions. When it came into line before Mons, on the evening of the 22nd, it was certainly too late for so small a body of troops to make an offensive movement north-eastward with any prospect of success. Had it been possible at either date, the manœuvre which M. Hanotaux favours might conceivably have helped Lanrezac against Bülow; but it would have left Kluck free to encircle the Allies on the west, and so prejudiced, at least, the withdrawal and the subsequent successful reaction. It might well have created a second and greater Sedan.

In dealing with these events, M. Hanotaux, by adding the strength of Lanrezac’s Army, d’Amade’s Territorial divisions, the British Army, and the garrisons of Namur (General Michel, 25,000 men), Maubeuge (General Fournier, 35,000 men), and Lille (General Herment, 18,000 men), arrives at the remarkable conclusion that “the Allied armies, between August 22 and 25, opposed to the 545,000 men of the German armies a total figure of 536,000 men.” This figure is deceptive, and useless except to emphasise the elements of Allied weakness other than numbers. So far as the later date is intended, it has no relation to the battle of Charleroi–Mons. At both these dates, and later, when the Allies were in full retreat, and both sides had suffered heavy losses, the Allied units named were so widely scattered and so disparate in quality that it is impossible to regard them as a single force “opposed” to the three compact masses of Kluck, Bülow, and Hausen. The deduction that General Joffre had on the Sambre “Allied forces sufficient to keep the mastery of the operations” is, therefore, most questionable.

The actual opposition of forces on the morning of August 23 was as follows: Lanrezac’s Army and the Namur garrison, amounting to an equivalent of five army corps, or about 200,000 men, had upon their front and flank six corps of Bülow and two corps of Hausen, about 320,000 men. The little British Army, of 2½ corps, had immediately before it three of Kluck’s corps, with two more behind these.

General Lanrezac published in the New York Herald (Paris edition) of May 17 and 18, and in L’Oeuvre of May 18 and 22, 1919, dignified replies to certain statements of Field-Marshal French. To the latter’s remark that the B.E.F. at Mons found itself in “an advanced position,” he answers that the battle shifted from east to west, and “on the evening of the 23rd, the 5th Army had been fighting for forty-eight hours, while the British were scarcely engaged.” Doubtless owing to Lord Kitchener’s original instruction that it would not be reinforced, the B.E.F. kept, during the later part of the retreat, “two days’ march ahead of the 5th Army, and obstinately maintained this distance, stopping only on the Seine.” “It was rather French who uncovered my left than I who uncovered his right.” General Lanrezac disowns any critical intent in saying this: “In my opinion, in the tragic period from August 22 to September 4, 1914, the British did all they could, and showed a magnificent heroism. It was not their fault if the strategic situation forbade our doing more.”

In regard to the original French plan of campaign, General Lanrezac refused to put himself in the position of being both judge and party, but added: “The Commander-in-Chief had a plan; he had elaborated it with the collaboration of officers of his Staff, men incontestibly intelligent and instructed, General Berthelot among others. Nevertheless, this plan, as I came to know it in course of events, appeared to me to present a fundamental error. It counted too much on the French centre, 3rd and 4th Armies, launched into Belgian Luxembourg and Ardennes, scoring a prompt and decisive victory which would make us masters of the situation on the rest of the front.” “So it was that General Berthelot, on August 19, told M. Messimy that, if the Germans went in large numbers west of the Meuse, it was so much the better, as it would be easier to beat them on the east.”