Septem1)er 5, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
■were wountlcd as the operation proceeded. It ■v\-ill be found, -when the detailed history of the war is 
written, that cei-tain units must have covered not less than 1 5 miles a day diu-ing the whole of that 
ten-ible business. And the English contingent thus falling back from Mons to the line Cambrai-Le 
Cateau accomplished with success as difhcult a task as is ever set to men in the prosecution of a war. 
They accomplished it successfully. 
The pressui-e of the Geraians upon the retreating foi-ce 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 AUied troops re-fonned thereon, 
upon Tuesday night, August 25th. 
Upon the Wednesday, August 20th, the superior German forces to the north which had pui-sucd 
thus heavily during the retreat, attacked v ith 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 lino, 
■s\ ith peculiar vigour and in numbers dra\\Ti thither for the pui'pose of an immediate and decisive blow, 
comparable to that unsuccessfully delivered three days before at Charleroi. 
Tlicy did this because it was now their object, not to break through the line, but to outflank it, and 
to get round it by the west : to bend back and come round on to the rear of its left extreme. It 'W'as 
on this account that they attacked the western extreme of the line. The double arrow means that in 
the first engagement, that on August 22 nd 
and 23i-d, the main German assault was hurled 
at the centre of the Hue : that m the second 
engagement, on the 2Gth, it was huiIed at the 
Avestern 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 Avest of the line 
Cambrai-Le Cateau. 
Upon the Tliursday, the 27th of August 
the Allied hne as a whole ran from Meziferes 
westward, but no longer through Le Cateau to 
Cambrai with some sUght prolongation towards 
An-as. It was bent back and ran fi'om 
of St. Qucntin, to strike the Upper Somme 
CA»/BRAI 
Mt2iE:RE.S 
DUGSAX 8HO-WTirO THlt DIBECTIOM OF TH» MAIN ATTACK (a) 
ON THI 6ATUBDAT AMD SITNSAT, ATTGUST 22lID AKD 23BD, 0:T 
TRZ CZSTBB or THB ALLIED LIXS AT CRASLESOI, IN AN ATTEUFT 
TO PIBBCa IT ; (b) on THI WEDXESDAT, AUGUST 20tII, ON THB 
XXTBEKITT Of THB ALLEBO LIN> (WHESa TEX ENGLISH CON- 
TINGENT BTOOD) in an ATTEMPT TO ENVELOP IT. 
]\[ezi^res, south of Hii-son, south of Guise, just north 
above and to the east of Amiens. 
At that moment— a moment not exactly identical all along the line, but con*esponding roughly to 
the afternoon of last Thursday, August 27th — there begins a two-fold development of the campaign 
which would, had the Allied fine failed, have made of the following few days the critical days in the 
first phase of the western war. 
Tliis two-fold development was as follows : — 
Fii-st, the rapid Grcrraan advance was checked for the moment, and with it (for the moment) the 
everlasting Gorman 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 curious 
and oven dangerous manner. It was so bent that no one could at first 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 i-eached 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 perU. 
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 conjectures 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 29th, was something 
like tills, going from right to left, from east to west, along the line : 
From Vei-dun to Mezi^res, along all the upper valley of the Meuse, attempts to cross that river 
undertaken by the army commanded by the Pnissian Crown Prince and the troops from Wurtemburg 
had been resisted. The line appears to have been held between Verdun and Mezieres. 
So much for Section I. 
In the section just to the left, or west, of this — Section II. — j'ou had a strong pressure of the 
enemy making for Rcthel and the line of the Aisne. I take it to be certain that the enemy was south 
of Mezieres, and we know from official despatches that he was pressing in all the neighbourhood of 
boigny. 
Immediately to the left (or west) again, in Section III., there was a successful counter-offensive of 
the French. That 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 Army Coi-ps and the Pnissian Guards towai-ds Guise, that tiiey cannot be neglected. 
8* 
