September 5, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
were wouuded as the operation proceeded. It Avill be found, \vhen the detailed hlstoiy of tlic war is 
writt-en, that cei-tain units must liave covered not less than 15 miles a day during the whole of that 
terrible business. And the English contingent thus falling back from Mons to the line Cambrai-Le 
Cateau accomplished with success as difficult a task as is ever set to men in the prosecution of a war. 
They accomplished it successfully. 
The pressm-e of the Gennaus upon the retreating force was kept up through the astonishingly rapid 
advance made by those enemies — a rapidity upon which I shall comment later in this article in a different 
connection. 
The Cambrai-Le Cateau-Mezieres line was reached, and the Allied troops re-formed thercon, 
upon Tuesday night, August 2jth. 
Upon the Wednesday, August 26th, the superior Gorman forces to the north which had pursued 
thus heavily during the retreat, attacked with the bulk of their forces (and the best of their forces) to 
the west ; that is, they attacked the Cambrai-Le Cateau section, the left section, of the Allied line, 
with peculiar vigour and in numbers drawn thither for the pui-pose of an immediate and decisive blow, 
comparable to that unsuccessfully delivered three days before at Charleroi. 
They did this because it was now their object, not to break through the line, but to outflank it, imd 
to get round it by the west : to bend back and come round on to the rear of its left extreme. It war. 
on this account that they attacked the western extreme of the line. The double an-ow means that in 
the fii-st engagement, that on August 22nd 
and 23rd, the matu German assault was hurled 
at the centre of the line : that in the second 
engagement, on the 2Gth, it was hui'led at the 
western extreme in the hope of turning the 
whole line. At this western extreme were the 
English. 
This project the English contingent which 
held that left extreme defeated. They were 
not outflanked : they were not pierced ; but 
they fell back still further to a line repre- 
senting about one more day's march behind, 
that is to the south and west of the line 
Cambrai-Le Cateau. 
CAMKRAI 
DIAGRIU 8H0WIX0 THI DIBECTION OF TUB >IAIN ATTACK (a) 
ON TBB EATCBDAT AND SUNOAT, AUGUST 22ltD AKO 23rI>, ON 
THB CXXTBB OF THB ALLIED LINK AT CBABLEBOt, IN AN ATTKJIPT 
TO PIXBCB IT ; (b) ON TUB WEDKKSDAT, AtJOUST 2GTH, ON THB 
EXTBZXITT OF THB ALLIBD LINB (WUEBB THB ENQLIEU COK- 
TIXGENT stood) IN AN ATTEMPT TO ENVELOP IT. 
Upon the Thursday, the 27th of August 
the Allied hne as a whole ran from Mezi^res 
westward, but no longer through Le Cateau to 
Cambrai with some slight prolongation towards 
AiTas. It was bent back and ran from 
ileziures, south of Hii-son, south of Guise, just north of St. Quentin, to strike the Upper Somme 
above and to the east of Amiens. 
At that moment — a moment not exactly identical all along the line, but coiTCsponding rouglily to 
the afternoon of last Thursday, August 27th — there begins a two-fold development of the campaign 
which would, had the Allied line failed, have made of the following few days the critical days in the 
fii'st phase of the western war. 
This two-fold development was as follows : — 
First, the rapid Gei-man advance was checked for the moment, and with it (for the moment) the 
everlasting German routine of advancing to outflank with their superior numbers towards the west, or 
left, of the Allied line. 
Secondly, in the checking of this, in the taking of the shock, the Allied line fluctuated in a cm-ious 
and even dangerous manner. It was so bent that no one could at fii-st tell, from the fragmentary 
reports reaching us, either whether it would probably break, or whether there was a breaking point 
in the enemy's line, or where in either case the strain would come. But though the twisting of 
the line did not yet afford any ground for judging the future, we could, by putting together the 
reports that had so far reached us, see what the curve of flexion had been, and what the serpentine 
front then held would appear to be. We could also judge the peril. 
Remember that no connected news of the whole operations had been communicated for three 
days, either by the French or the English censorship, and that therefore the conjectm-es remained 
only conjectures ; but they were based upon the reports of eye-witnesses in the Press, and upon the 
putting together of those reports. 
What would seem to have happened by that day, Saturday last, the 2i)th, was something 
like tliLs, going from light to left, from east to west, along the line : 
From Verdun to Mezi^res, along all the upper valley of the Meuse, attempts to cross that river 
undei-taken by the army commanded by the Prassian Crown Prince and the troops from Wurtemburg 
had been resisted. The line appears to have been held between Verdun and MeziSres. 
So much for Section I. 
In the section just to the left, or west, of this — Section II. — you had a strong pressure of the 
enemy making for Rethel and the line of the Aisne. I take it to be certain that the enemy was south 
of Mczieres, and we know from ofiicial despatches that he was pressing in all the neighbourhood of 
Soigny. 
Immediately to the left (or west) again, in Section III., there was a successful counter-offensive of 
the French. Tliat counter-offensive may quite possibly not have been maintained. It may have got 
" 'fore-side," and have had to retire. But there are such definite accounts of the pushing of the 
Hanoverian 10th Anny Coi-ps and the Prussian Guards towards Guise, that they cannot be neglected. 
Z* 
