Compiled by Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds

Edited by Macmillan & Co, 1933

(Sketches 4 & 5 ; Maps 2, 3, 5 & 6)

At dawn on the 22nd August C Squadron of the 4th Dragoon Guards (2nd Cavalry Brigade) pushed out two officer's patrols from Obourg, on the canal, north towards Soignies ; one of these found a German piquet on the road, fired on it, and drove it off. This was apparently the first shot of the war fired by the British on the continent. Later a troop of the same squadron advanced to meet a body of German cavalry which was moving south along the road from Soignies towards Mons, turned it back near Casteau, and pursued it until checked by fire.(German accounts also record this as the first contact. "Mons," p. 17.) The 4th killed three or four of the enemy and captured three more, who proved to belong to the 4th Cuirassiers of the 9th Cavalry Division. Further to the east, the 3rd Cavalry Brigade found all clear for two miles north of the canal within the triangle Gottignies-Roeulx-Houdeng; but here again the peasants reported the enemy to be in strength to the north, at Soignies and north of La Louvière (eleven miles east of Mons). Still further east patrols of the 5th Cavalry Brigade early found contact with the enemy in the direction of La Louvière and reported German troops of all arms to be advancing from the north, and the French to be retiring across the Sambre. General Sordet's 3rd Cavalry Division passed through the British 5th Cavalry Brigade soon after, on its march westward; but it was not until nearly 10 A.M. that a German detachment of all arms (Of the 13th Division.) came in contact with two squadrons of the Scots Greys (5th Cavalry Brigade), which were holding the bridges over the Samme at Binche and Péronnes, facing east. The enemy made little effort to force the passage, though he shelled the Greys heavily but ineffectively, and kept up a fairly accurate rifle fire. The 3rd Cavalry Brigade, in support of the 5th, remained about Bray, two miles in rear, whence D and E Batteries R.H.A. fired a few shells. At 2 P.M. the Greys slowly drew off, having apparently, by sheer superiority of marksmanship, inflicted some thirty or forty casualties at the cost of one officer wounded. A troop of the 16th Lancers, which had been sent to their support, gave chase to a hostile patrol on the way, and came suddenly upon a party of Jäger on the hill immediately to the west of Péronnes. The troop rode straight over the Jäger, charged through them again on the return journey, at a cost of only one man wounded and three horses killed, and then left them to E Battery R.H.A., which had unlimbered to cover its return. Altogether, the cavalry was heartened by its work on this day, being satisfied that it was superior to the German horsemen, both mounted and dismounted, alike with rifle and with sword.

The cumulative effect of the encounters during the day on the British cavalry commanders was the conviction that German infantry in great force was in close support of the German cavalry. They had made reports in that sense on the previous day, and they were now more than ever confirmed in their opinion. Aerial reconnaissance during the forenoon did not tend to shake this view. One aviator landing at Beaumont (about 12 miles east of Maubeuge) to take in petrol, learned from General de Mas-Latrie, the commander of the French XVIII. Corps, that General Sordet, on his march westwards to the left flank of the Allied Armies, had on the 21st encountered German infantry north of the Sambre canal, and had been compelled to fall back. This accounted for his movement southward to Binche. Later, another British aeroplane (which returned to the aerodrome at 1.10 P.M.) reported the northern part of Charleroi and many other towns and villages near it to be in flames, and on its return westward was fired at by an infantry brigade between Ath and Enghien. A third aeroplane had a similar experience, the observer being wounded. The sum total of these observations was to the effect that brigades of German infantry, probably amounting to a corps in all, filled the roads south of Grammont, that a cavalry division was at Soignies, and that the general front of this corps and cavalry division extended, facing south-west, from Lessines to Soignies, (The troops in question were, commencing on the west : IV. Corps, III. Corps and 9th Cavalry Division.) no part of them being west of the Dendre canal, excepting a party of mounted troops which had been seen at Peruwelz, immediately to the north of Condé. Their further advance, if the direction were maintained, would bring their left (east) flank to Mons.

Meantime, the British I. and II. Corps were advancing. In view of the situation, both corps started an hour and a half before the time which had been originally ordered. The 1st Division, moving at 4 A.M. reached its selected halting places, north and south-west of Maubeuge, at Bettignies, St. Rémi Mal Bâti, Limont Fontaine, between 3 and 5 P.M. But shortly before 3.30 P.M. Sir Douglas Haig received orders for the I. Corps to continue its advance. The result of the morning's reconnaissances had shown GHQ. that if the Cavalry Division were withdrawn, as already ordered, to the left of the line, the 5th Cavalry Brigade would be too weak to cover the large gap between the right of the II. Corps and the left of the French XVIII. Corps on the Sambre, and that consequently the I. Corps must be hurried up to its support. Accordingly, between 5 and 7 P.M. the 1st Division resumed its march, but did not reach its billets until far into the night, the 2nd and 3rd Brigades entering Villers Sire Nicole and Croix lez Rouveroy, some eight to ten miles south-west of Binche, between 9 and 10 P.M. whilst the 1st (Guards) Brigade on the right did not arrive at Grand Reng until 2 to 3 A.M. on the 23rd. This was a long march, which tried the troops severely.

About noon the 2nd Division, which had started at 5 A.M., halted in depth at La Longueville, Hargnies, and Pont sur Sambre, which lie on a north and south road passing west of Maubeuge. Its head was thus some six miles south-west of the rear of the 1st Division. The 2nd Division also received orders to resume its march; but they were subsequently cancelled, since the German advance had apparently ended for the day, and there was no immediate necessity to make such a call on the troops.

The whole movement of the I. Corps was covered on the west by a flank guard of the divisional cavalry, which traversed the Forest of Mormal.

In the II. Corps, the 3rd Division moved off at 7 AM, and the 5th, in three columns, at 6 AM. ; the former reached its billets around Mons, in the area Nimy-Ghilin-Frameries-Spiennes, at about 1 P.M., and the latter, on its left, the line of the Mons canal from Jemappes westward to Bois de Boussu, one or two hours later. The troops again suffered much from the cobbled roads, and the march, though not long, was extremely trying. The first outpost line taken up by the 3rd Division, consequent upon the reports of the engagement of the 5th Cavalry Brigade, was from Givry (6 miles south-east of Mons) to the edge of Mons. Later in the afternoon, however, the line was thrown forward in a wide sweep eastwards, through Villers St. Ghislain, St. Symphorien, the bridge at Obourg, and the bridge at Lock 5, to Nimy. The. 8th Brigade took the right of this line, the 9th the left, and the 7th was in reserve some five miles in rear at Frameries and Ciply-the village around which Marlborough's army had bivouacked on the night before the battle of Malplaquet. On the left of the 3rd Division, the 13th Brigade of the 5th Division occupied the line of the canal from Mariette to Les Herbières, and the 14th Brigade from Les Herbières to Pommeroeul. The total front round Mons held by the II. Corps was over twenty miles.

Thus the two corps were approximately in the positions. assigned to them in GHQ. orders of the 20th August. The I. Corps was only a short distance from its intended position ; but the cavalry was now about to move due west, and a wheel of the II. Corps to the north-east up to Lens had still to take place. For the moment the line of the Mons canal, now held by the outposts of the II. Corps, was the left of the British front ; with the I. Corps'front it formed a salient angle, not a straight line.

A broad belt of woodland extended along the whole length of the front north of the canal, capable of screening the approach of the enemy to within two miles, or even less, of the British piquet line. Around Mons itself the canal forms a pronounced salient (the " Mons Salient " as it will be called), which was ill-adapted to prolonged and serious defence. On appreciating the situation, 3rd Division headquarters, which had been warned of the possibility of an attack by German advanced guards, decided that in this quarter the outposts should not be reinforced in case of attack, and ordered the preparation of a second line position in rear, which will presently be described. Meanwhile, as the II. Corps came up, it became possible gradually to collect the Cavalry Division. Originally it had been intended that the division should move westward at noon ; but this, in view of the German menace about Binche, had been considered inadvisable. At 4 P.M., however, General Allenby gave the order to withdraw westward. The main body of the 5th Cavalry Brigade remained near Estinne au Mont (south-west of Binche) leaving the Scots Greys in position at Estinne au Val a couple of miles to the north-west. At 6.30 P.M. this brigade, having first put the bridges over the Samme into a state of defence, went into billets between Binche and Merbes Ste. Marie. As the Cavalry Division drew off, it was followed by a German airship. After a most painful march westward behind the II. Corps, along some fourteen miles of cobbled street through the dreary squalor of an interminable mining village, it reached its billets at Elouges, Quiévrain and Baisieux, on the left of the Army, between midnight and 3 AM of the 23rd.

In the course of the afternoon the Flying Corps made further reconnaissances towards Charleroi, and ascertained that at least two German army corps, one of them the Guard Corps-and the Guard Cavalry Division, were attacking the French Fifth Army on the line of the Sambre. (The attack was made by the Guard, X., X. Reserve and VII. Corps (east to west). The advance on the previous day up to the Sambre had been led by the Guard Cavalry Division and the Guard and X. Corps.) In the evening, the observers returned with very grave news, which was confirmed in detail, later, by Lieut. E. L. Spears, the British liaison officer with General Lanrezac, and by an officer of the Fifth Army Headquarters sent by that general. The French centre had been driven back, and the X. Corps had retired to the line St. Gérard (13 miles E.S.E. of Charleroi)-Biesme-Gerpinnes, from five to ten miles south of the river; the III. Corps had likewise fallen back nearly the same distance, to a line from Gerpinnes westward to Jamioulx; the XVIII. Corps on the left, however, remained in its original position, still echeloned to the rear, between Marbaix and Thuin. (A good account of these events will be found in " Le 10e Corps A la bataille de Charleroi,'' by Colonel Lucas.) General Sordet had moved southward from Binche, and was halting his cavalry corps for the night at Bersillies l'Abbaye (9 miles south of Binche), striking well to the rear of the British Army before moving west. General Valabrègue's two Reserve divisions were near Avesnes, twenty-five miles south of Mons, preparing to march north-east towards Beaumont-Cousolre, in rear of the gap between the Allied Armies. The British on the Mons canal, therefore, were some nine miles northward of the main French line ; moreover, the 1st Division, when it came up to its destination about Grand Reng, would be fully nine miles from the left flank of the French XVIII. Corps. To fill the gap there were no troops available, except the 5th Cavalry Brigade and Valabrègue's two Reserve divisions ; unless we include Sordet's cavalry, which was still in the neighbourhood, though moving fast away from it. Further, nine miles of the British line from the Mons Salient to Rouveroy (9 miles south-east of Mons), was held by no more than one infantry brigade, the 8th.

The enemy's main bodies were now reported at various points in dangerous proximity. Twenty thousand men of all arms, presumed to be part of the German VII. Corps, were known to be moving southward from Luttre, about eight miles north of Charleroi. Thirty thousand more (supposed to be the IV. or the III. Corps, but actually the VII. Reserve) were reported about Nivelles, and the IX. Corps was bivouacking for the night south-east of Soignies. (The III. and IV. Corps were to the west of the VII. Reserve and IX., near Soignies and south-west of Enghien, respectively.) Yet another large body of all arms, reckoned to be another corps, the II., was moving west through Ladeuse, about five miles south of Ath. Further, the German 9th Cavalry Division had been identified, with its head at Peruwelz, and other cavalry, probably divisional, was known to be north of Mons. (On the night of 22nd/23rd Marwitz's three cavalry divisions were concentrated around Ath, preparatory to moving, north-westwards towards Courtrai and the coast. The extreme left of the 9th Cavalry Division, not its head, had approached Peruwelz during the 22nd. Marwitz was looking for a British advance from the coast, that is the west, not from the south. Poseck, p. 31.) The inhabitants of Les Herbières informed the Scottish Borderers that twelve Uhlans had ridden into their village on the 21st, and that some two hundred Germans were close at hand. Finally an air report was brought into Maubeuge, and at once taken personally to GHQ. by Br-General Sir David Henderson, that a long column, estimated at a corps, was moving westward on the Brussels-Ninove road, and at the latter town had turned south-west towards Grammont. This was later identified as the German II. Corps of the First Army. There were also signs of a strong force (III. Corps) moving down the great chaussée on Soignies ; it was endeavouring to hide itself from observation by keeping under the trees which bordered the road.

As the situation disclosed itself, the British Commander-in-Chief, whilst still hoping that offensive action might be possible, began to realise, in view of the isolated position of his force, the necessity of being prepared for any kind of move, either in advance or retreat. The air report that a corps was moving on the road Brussels-Ninove-Grammont seemed to give warning of a very ambitious enveloping movement to the south-west. In any case Klucks advance made it impossible to expect that the British would be able to reach Soignies without opposition. Taking all these facts into consideration, Sir John French, after consultation with Major-General Sir A. Murray, his Chief of the General Staff, announced about 10 P.M. to the senior General Staff officers of the two corps and the Cavalry Division (Br.-Generals J. Gough, G. T. Forestier-Walker and Colonel J. Vaughan), who had been summoned to Le Cateau to receive orders for the next day's operations, that, owing to the retreat of the French Fifth Army, the British offensive would not take place. To a request of General Lanrezac, brought by a staff officer about 11 P.M., that the English should attack the flank of the German columns which were pressing him back from the Sambre, Sir John French felt that it was impossible to accede, for it would mean exposing his own left flank to an enemy at least twice his strength ; but he agreed to remain in his position on the canal for twenty-four hours. At the suggestion of the II. Corps, he ordered the I. Corps to take over by 6 AM on the 23rd the portion of the outpost line of the II. Corps which lay east of Mons. Accordingly the 2nd Division which, as we have seen, had remained in its original billets, moved forward at 3 AM. on the 23rd, but it was too late to relieve the II. Corps before fighting commenced.