From Brussels by road to Mons is less than 40 miles; from LiÉge to Charleroi in the valley of the Sambre little more than 50. It is clear now that while one part of the great invading host took the direct route from LiÉge towards the Sambre, the other made a detour by way of Brussels to meet the Belgian army. The object was to strike towards the three great international roads running to Paris from Belgium. The most westerly of these great routes passes from Brussels through Mons and Valenciennes; the next through Charleroi and the French frontier fortress of Maubeuge; the third along the valley of the Meuse through Namur, past Dinant, and away to Laon. These brief facts on the topography of the country will help to explain the military operations. Briefly, if we imagine the march by way of Brussels as a bow, and the march direct from LiÉge as its string, we shall have a rough but fairly accurate idea of the movement executed; bearing in mind only that even the parts of a host of this magnitude, though the rear would be nearly two days’ march behind the van, would each be pouring at once along adjacent roads leading in the same direction.

In any event, and quite apart from any opposition offered by the Belgians, with the delay resulting from it, the detour by way of Brussels involved an additional two days at least. But the fighting with the Belgians caused a further three days’ delay. Of those days, two, certainly, were occupied in the battle, and the third in resting the troops engaged and in burying the dead. It was not, therefore, until August 23, five days after the start from LiÉge, that the forces, in fact, concentrated at the opposite end of the bow in southern Belgium.

Only a small part of them, as we have seen, passed through Brussels. The main body, even of the northern division, marched through Tirlemont and on to Hal, round the south of the capital. At the same time, the enormous column of cavalry, acting as a screen, rode round by the north of the city and then struck south through Enghien.

All the military display at Brussels was relatively but an aside to the main performance, intended both for moral effect, such as it was, and to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy.

We have therefore to imagine between August 21 and August 23 these great, and, from their size, inevitably unwieldy, forces concentrating towards the southern frontier of Belgium by every road available.

Here another brief note on geography is necessary. Eastern Belgium, or that part of it between the Meuse and the sea, is nearly all perfectly flat, and almost purely agricultural, and the invaders had there marched through a country which, before they laid it waste, was a habitation of industry and peace rejoicing in the bounties of harvest.

But western Belgium is largely a manufacturing country, though still marked by rich rural beauty. Even the main Belgian coalfield extending through the provinces of Hainault and West Flanders presents outwardly few of those evidences of utilitarian squalor commonly associated with coal and iron. The centre of the coal and iron industries of Western Belgium is Mons, a quaint old place built upon a hill rising amid a country thickly intersected by canals and railways. Looking east from Mons, we are looking down the valley of the Sambre, on each side low rolling hills, the sides and crests of which are in part clothed with woods and plantations. These hills are, so to say, the outworks of the Ardennes, one of the natural show-places of Europe. Fifteen miles from Mons, and on the north bank of the Sambre, is the town of Charleroi. Fifteen miles farther, at the juncture of the Sambre with the Meuse, rises the rocky mass forming the ancient citadel of Namur. The Sambre is not a wide stream, but is swift, its course alternating between rapids and deep pools. It is most passable, in the military sense, about ten miles west of Namur. Just there the river follows a succession of sharp bends.

Of the huge land Armada now moving south through this busy and populous but beautiful country, most people think as being in every sense a modern European army. But it was not. There were surgeons with it, but no field hospitals. It had encumbered itself with no tents. There was all the grim apparatus of modern war, but only the least possible of modern war’s humane apparatus. It was the intention of those who could to quarter themselves on the population of the country through which the host passed; to supplement food supplies by eating up the country’s resources. The mass of the invaders slept, where other shelter was not to be had, in the fields. These hardships sharpened the lust of conquest. At the rear of the host trudged battalions of gravediggers. But they were to dig the graves of those who would dare to stand against it. The comparative poverty and the native parsimony of the Prussians was reflected in these arrangements. Their all had been invested in artillery and instruments of death because the leaders of the host were sure of victory. What else they needed when winter came would be provided from the spoil of the conquered. In appearance a modern army, it presented essential features in common with the migrations of Huns and Goths, which form in Europe the history of the early Middle Ages. Under a modern disguise, it was a similar horde. It is easy, therefore, to estimate the rage and surprise which thwarted hopes, wounded pride, and heavy losses had produced in Belgium, and why there was behind it a land of mourning and blood.

We now come to the military movements. The 5th French army and two divisions had advanced and had occupied the angle of country between the Meuse and the Sambre, and held the passages over both rivers; the British line was taken up behind the canal which runs from CondÉ on the west of Mons to Binche on the east. Mons lay somewhat in advance of the position, and occupied by the British 3rd division commanded by General Hamilton, formed an outward angle, or, in military terms, a salient.

The 5th British cavalry division under General Sir Philip Chetwode had been sent forward to reconnoitre. Part of the force had, on August 22, advanced as far as the forest of Soignies, close to Brussels. In face of the cavalry covering the German advance they had fallen back. Similar reconnaissances were made by the French cavalry round Gembloux to the north of Namur. Hence during the German advance southward from Brussels and westward of Namur the hostile forces were in touch with each other.

An interesting episode, characteristic of the scouting tactics of the Germans, is related by Mr. A. Beaumont, the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who was at the time in Charleroi:—

On my return to Charleroi I learnt that a detachment of twenty Hussars of the Death’s Head, led by an officer, had entered the upper town at seven in the morning. They proceeded towards the Sambre, and quietly said, “Good-morning” to the people at the doors. “Bon jour, bon jour,” they said to the housewives, who were looking on in wonder, and who, mistaking their khaki uniform, took them for English soldiers.

People even enthusiastically raised cheers for England. The soldiers, also misled, allowed them to pass. An officer finally saw them from a window, and rushed down to a detachment on guard in the Rue Pont Neuf, and gave the alarm. A number of infantry soldiers at once opened fire on them. It was at the corner of the Rue De Montigny, where the tramway and railway lines pass.

Three of the intruders were shot down. The rest, with their officer, took to flight. It was not believed that such a thing would be possible, but it proved that the Germans are capable of anything. They did the same thing many a time in 1870.

Apart from cavalry skirmishes, the fighting began on August 22, when the Germans attacked the passages over the Sambre about 10 miles to the west of Namur, already alluded to. Here reference may be made to a ruse on their part which explains the peculiarity of their movement across Belgium. The southern contingent was hurried into action evidently in order to lead the Allies to believe that it formed the bulk of the German force. After the Allies had made their dispositions to resist on that footing, the northern contingent was unexpectedly to appear, and to finish and win the battle by the weight of its forces.

While the fighting was going on for the passages of the Sambre, another part of the southern contingent, which was formed by the army apparently of General von BÜlow, moved on to attack Charleroi, and yet another part, an army corps and a cavalry division, appeared before Mons.

The opening attack upon Mons, however, was what, in common parlance, is called a “blind,” intended to screen the advance behind it of the northern contingent, the army of General von Kluck, consisting of the pick of the Prussian troops.

For it is known now that that commander had marched south from Brussels having in his pocket an Army Order issued by the German Emperor from headquarters at Aix-la-Chapelle, under date August 19, which contained the following passage:—

It is my royal and imperial command that you concentrate your energies for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and to walk over General French’s contemptible army.

What happened, therefore, on the arrival of these troops on that Sunday, August 23, was, briefly told, this. While the British troops holding Mons were resisting the opening attack on that place, an attack they readily defeated, the onslaught suddenly developed in great weight and fury. In face of it, the necessity arose of withdrawing the troops forming the British salient into line with the rest of the army.

This, in the face of such an attack by overwhelming numbers, was a most difficult and dangerous operation. It was carried out, however, with remarkable coolness and courage. Though the British suffered heavy losses, the masses thrown up against them failed to break their formations.

The attack thereupon developed all along the British line. Throughout that day, and far into the succeeding night, the German officers and men did their utmost faithfully to carry out the royal and imperial orders, and it is not too much to say that German arrogance met with the sharpest shock it had until then experienced. In the front of the British positions German dead lay in masses, and, after their custom, they left their wounded for the most part to perish. The unerring marksmanship of the British infantry was as unexpected as it was deadly; unshaken by the terrific artillery fire, the British troops met the attacks thrown upon then in mass formation with a withering hail of lead. Where, with an intensity of contempt and hate the onslaught succeeded momentarily in getting close in, the British dashed into it with the bayonet, and “the valour of my soldiers” wilted under the slaughter. Again and again the German rank and file were led or driven by their officers upon the British positions, again and again to be ripped into bloody confusion. They had come up against the unconquerable.

While these events were in progress, word was received of a formidable German turning movement in the direction of Tournai, held by a body of French troops of the second line. This made advisable a retirement of the British to the rear. Thanks alike to the rock-like steadiness combined with the inbred tenacity of the infantry, the heavy hitting power of the artillery, and not least the dauntless devotion of the cavalry, who faced and broke the heavy odds of the German horse, the movement was successfully accomplished.

It is not the purpose here to tell the story of the British retreat from Mons. That feat of arms is related in another volume of this series. All that comes within present scope is to glance briefly over the other happenings of these eventful days along that line of battle.

Although in the struggle for the passages of the Sambre the Germans on the night of August 22 had succeeded in throwing troops across, they were long and heavily punished by the French artillery, which now, for the first time, clearly demonstrated the superiority destined to have so marked an effect during the war. The French field gun was a new type of weapon, better than the German alike in rapidity and accuracy of fire. Its more perfect rifling gave a higher muzzle velocity and a flatter trajectory; the melinite shells used were of intense explosive force, and the French gunners handled their guns with skill. A larger proportion of the German artillery consisted of guns of, as it proved, a relatively out-of-date type, retained and “converted,” apparently, from motives of economy.

Crossing a river in the face of an enemy so supported is a costly business, as the Germans soon discovered. With their heavy advantage in numbers, and with at least four points of simultaneous attack strongly in their favour, they should have been across in very little time. They were held at bay for many hours, and repeatedly driven back by French charges. Only at length under cover of darkness were they able to gain a footing on the south bank.

Meanwhile, the assault was being pressed against Charleroi, and here was the centre and decisive point. The French held the place against repeated attacks, until the regiments of the Prussian Guard, always held in reserve for critical operations, and reputed invincible, were brought up against it. There are 20 regiments of the guard, each 3,000 strong. The French were driven out. In turn they launched against the town the infantry of their African Army Corps, the not less famous Zouaves and Turcos; and that Sunday afternoon witnessed one of the most terrible bayonet fights in the history of Europe, a fight in which the little Belgian town and its environs became a hell. Amid a cannonade too appalling for description men fought through its streets until the ways were heaped with dying and dead. Charleroi was set on fire by shells, but the combat, which knew no truce, went on amid blazing buildings and collapsing walls. It was a combat of men turned devils.

The town was taken and retaken. At the finish it remained in the hands of the invaders, but thousands of the flower of their army lay amid and around its ruins.

The battle of Mons and Charleroi was a Pyrrhic victory. One decisive advantage, however, on that day the invaders had won. They had captured the fortress of Namur.

After the heroic defence of LiÉge the rapid fall of Namur formed one of the surprises of the campaign. The fortress was held by a Belgian garrison of some 26,000 men, and well provisioned. Though so far as natural situation goes a strong place, surrounded by a ring of four larger and five smaller forts, in which the guns were protected by armoured turrets of a type similar to those at LiÉge, it had some serious weak spots.

As secretly as possible and during the night-time the Germans had transported from LiÉge batteries of their huge howitzers, and had planted these on already prepared beds of concrete in positions beyond the range of the fortress artillery. It had been decided to renew the ordnance of the forts, and the guns had been ordered, according to report, though this lacks authority, from Germany. At all events the newer and heavier ordnance was not there. It may here be explained that an attack is rarely or never made upon a hostile fortress without the general in command of the attack and his principal officers being put into possession of plans of the works. These plans, the result of espionage, show every detail, and afford every particular; disclose every trench, entanglement, and obstacle, every building, wireless instalment, or line of telegraph and telephone wire. The exact range and power of every gun is stated. Between the field of fire of the guns there are spaces, known technically as “dead points,” left uncovered, or at all events, the facts being disclosed, such dispositions for attack as will create “dead points” are readily made by drawing the fire of the forts in particular directions.

Now the defence of LiÉge was successful because the entrenchments and obstacles in the sectors between the forts were made when their details could not be disclosed to the enemy. But Namur had been prepared about the same time, and there was ample opportunity to discover the particulars.

All the Germans therefore had to do was to wait for the first autumn mist among the hills to open fire from guns whose position the defence did not know. To the attack the “laying” of such guns to hit any desired object in the fortress was, with the plans in their possession, a mere matter of mathematical calculation. Under cover of such a mist, the forts being unable to reply, to knock some of them to pieces by a heavily concentrated fire, and after that to stalk the place was comparatively easy. The garrison were aware that the fortress was untenable, or only to be held by meeting the attack by a counter-attack. Following a terrific two days’ bombardment, during which two of the forts were demolished, the assault was launched on the afternoon of August 23. The garrison after a short resistance against great odds were driven out. The mist which had favoured the attack equally favoured their escape. They found their way fortunately into the French lines.C