For educational purposes
The small British Expeditionary Force, moving up into Belgium on the left flank of the French 5th Army, met with the full weight of the German 1st Army advancing towards Paris under the Schlieffen Plan.
A short but intense fire fight where the British caused heavy casualties to the thick masses of the enemy infantry was followed by a British withdrawal out of the canal salient.
This manoeuvre was made more urgent by news that the French Army on the right flank was in retreat.
The small British Expeditionary Force, moving up into Belgium on the left flank of the French 5th Army, met with the full weight of the German 1st Army advancing towards Paris under the Schlieffen Plan.
A short but intense fire fight where the British caused heavy casualties to the thick masses of the enemy infantry was followed by a British withdrawal out of the canal salient.
This manoeuvre was made more urgent by news that the French Army on the right flank was in retreat.
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LearningTranscript
00:00These trenches in northern France are poignant symbols of the bloody stalemate on the Western
00:11Front during the Great War. Although both sides repeatedly tried and failed to make
00:19a breakthrough, they were sucked into a long, grinding war of attrition from which there
00:25seemed no escape.
00:33The early weeks of the First World War, however, were very different. In the late summer and
00:38autumn of 1914, the Western Front was the scene of dramatic military movement. For just
00:45days after the British Expeditionary Force arrived in France, it found itself face to
00:51face with the Germans at the Battle of Mons. Vastly outnumbered, the British Tommies fought
01:03bravely, but were eventually forced to fall back. What followed was one of the most remarkable
01:10fighting retreats in the history of warfare.
01:16In just 13 days, the BEF marched some 200 miles, battling all the way against overwhelming
01:24odds, but somehow survived as an effective fighting force.
01:46After
02:15weeks of political manoeuvring, Great Britain finally declared war on Germany on 4th August
02:211914. Across the British Isles, thousands of patriotic young men flocked to recruiting
02:28offices eager to do their bit to serve their king and country.
02:40Five days after the declaration of war, the first British troops began to arrive in France.
02:46This though, was no amateur force of enthusiastic citizens. It was the British Expeditionary
02:52Force, the country's army of hardened, professional soldiers.
02:59The BEF's orders were to assist and help the French army in its fight against the Germans,
03:06but certainly to retain and regain Belgian neutrality.
03:13Their job was to stop the Germans from advancing towards Paris, a very important job that the
03:19British government had actually planned for in collusion with the French a number of years
03:24before the war actually broke out.
03:26When the British actually make contact with the high command, one of the French officers
03:32who greets members of Sir John French's staff, says,
03:35Well, it's about time you've come. If we are defeated, it's all because of you.
03:42The British force comprised four infantry divisions, one cavalry division, and the men
03:47and aircraft of the fledgling Royal Flying Corps.
03:52It was divided into two units, one corps commanded by Lieutenant General Haig, and two corps
04:00under General Smith Dorian, who had only recently taken command after the sudden death of Lieutenant
04:06General Grierson. In overall command of the army was Field Marshal Sir John French.
04:15Here on the outskirts of Montberge, the area where the British Expeditionary Force first
04:20assembled, having been brought out from England, beginning on the 11th August 1914, and most
04:27of them here by the 17th. This the assembly area then, before moving forward about 15
04:33km into the line on the Mons-Corn Canal that we were tasked with defending.
04:42On the 22nd August, the BEF began to arrive in the Belgian mining town of Mons, to take
04:48its place on the left flank of the French 5th Army under General L'Henri-Zac. It seemed
04:55that it had arrived not a moment too soon.
05:01The war was already going Germany's way, and her aim became quickly apparent. For the second
05:08time in living memory, Germany's plan was to conquer Paris, and with it, France.
05:17The strategy was to use Belgium as the starting point for a huge invasion, before sweeping
05:23down towards Paris in a giant outflanking manoeuvre. Named after its architect, this
05:29was called the Schlieffen Plan.
05:34Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the German Chief of the General Staff at the turn of the century,
05:38had developed a plan in order to confront two potential enemies, Russia in the east,
05:45France in the west. It was his decision to knock the French out first, in just six weeks,
05:50by attacking through the Low Countries, specifically Belgium, and to try and swing a strong right
05:56arm around Paris, come up behind the French army, and to crush them in the jaws of a vice,
06:03to destroy the French army, and therefore leave the French to capitulate.
06:11In early August 1914, three huge German armies totalling a quarter of a million men crossed
06:18the Belgian frontier, and despite brave Belgian resistance, Brussels was captured in only
06:24five days.
06:29In overall charge of the invading forces was General Helmut von Moltke, the nephew of the
06:35great von Moltke, who had masterminded victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War just
06:4143 years previously. Sadly for his country, the younger von Moltke was not quite of the
06:48same calibre as his illustrious uncle.
06:53The four remaining German Western armies were deployed in a defensive role, and dealt easily
06:59with Plan 17, the French strategy that called for an all-out assault on Alsace and Lorraine.
07:07It was class march to the Rhine, en masse, in one long line of five armies, going due
07:15east and take back Alsace and Lorraine. The French did a remarkable job. However, their
07:23mistake was, absolutely, not to make any more heavy artillery. The artillery is the queen
07:30of the battlefield. It wins all wars. 70% of all casualties are caused by artillery.
07:37Germans knew very well about this, and they had a whole family of artillery, from small
07:42ones to gigantic howitzers.
07:47Despite the failure of Plan 17, the overall French commander, General Joseph Joffre, ordered
07:53his left flank to advance towards Belgium, with the newly deployed BEF in support to
08:00the north-east.
08:04Joffre soon found that the Germans were pushing through very quickly into Belgium, and had
08:09to make a decision quickly. Do I continue with Plan 17, or do I use the British and
08:13the French army in the area of Belgium to meet and defeat the German advance?
08:20He took the decision that Plan 17 had to actually be whittled down to virtually nothing, just
08:26a pinning force down there, and put his main emphasis in stopping the Schlieffen plan.
08:34By the 22nd of August, the BEF had advanced to form a 20-mile-wide front along the line
08:40of the Mons-Conde Canal.
08:48As part of our intelligence-gathering operations north of the canal line, elements of C-Squadron,
08:58the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, are patrolling in this area.
09:04Looking to find the location of the main German army, they come across some units of German
09:09cavalry. Being in position, they note that the German cavalry are looking very nervously
09:15around them, and the German cavalry, when they decide to ride to the rear, are brought
09:21under fire by Corporal Thomas. Corporal Thomas probably firing the very first shot fired
09:27by the BEF in anger here in Europe.
09:35The French army commander, L'Henri-Zac, had planned to continue the advance, but by the
09:45afternoon it became clear to Sir John French that the Frenchman had changed his plan, and
09:52that the French army to his east was, in fact, in full-scale retreat.
09:58The uncomfortable truth was that Von Kluck's German 1st Army was now heading straight for
10:04the British line.
10:06By the time that General French actually deployed troops around Mons, it was quite clear that
10:14L'Henri-Zac was already in retreat. Although some of his skirmishers were still engaging
10:19the Germans to try and hold them up, it was increasingly clear that he had absolutely
10:23no option but to try and withdraw to maintain the security of his own forces. The trouble
10:30is that Sir John French had already managed to deploy and to dig some scraped trenches
10:36in order to try and slow the Germans up.
10:40French decided that given the number of German forces coming towards him, he could not possibly
10:46afford to attack. But he did agree, he gave the French an assurance, that he would go
10:51firm in his present positions and he would hold them for at least 24 hours.
11:03Mons today is a busy, peaceful city, but visitors do not have to travel far to find reminders
11:09of the battle that raged here on Sunday 23rd August 1914.
11:17The landscape has changed radically in the decades since the battle. What is now a motorway
11:23was then a canal around which the fiercest fighting took place, particularly at the salient
11:29around Nimi. This was a protrusion from an otherwise straight front line formed by the
11:35canal and British commanders knew that it was a vulnerable position.
11:43Situated just to the north of Mons, the line of the canal which should become our defensive
11:49line during this action. The canal itself in this area is shaped very much like a shepherd's
11:54crook with the long arm going back beyond the bridge out to Tocon and here in this area
11:59the crook itself. The bridge behind me, Nimi Bridge, the bridge defended by the 4th Battalion,
12:07the Royal Fusiliers, and the one to their right, the Auberge Railway Bridge, defended
12:14by the 4th Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment. The pit heads and slag heaps of the coal industry
12:22obscured the line of fire of the bigger British guns, making it clear that it was upon the
12:28courage and tenacity of the infantry that British success depended.
12:37The BEF found the terrain around Mons extremely difficult to come to terms with. They didn't
12:43know exactly where the Germans were. They didn't know their strengths. They didn't know
12:47where the German centre of gravity was. They didn't know where the German focus of their
12:51attack would be. And they moved into Mons and found all of a sudden that this was far
12:56from an ideal battlefield, hardly the Salisbury Plain type environment that they'd been used
13:01to.
13:02The British official history describes it as a rather bleak and unpleasant mining district.
13:08Small, mean miners' cottages all running into each other, narrow cobbled lanes.
13:15Mons was packed with equipment. It was packed with civilians. They were on holiday. On Saturday
13:21bells were ringing. They were going to the seaside on holiday. It was atmosphere. Ah,
13:26the British are here now. Don't worry. The Belgians are fighting very well in Belgium.
13:30It'll be OK.
13:34On the morning of August 23rd, the British Expeditionary Force was ready to do battle.
13:40To the east, the line from Mons to Bray was held by Haig's I Corps, but it was Smith-Dorian's
13:47II Corps that took the brunt of the German attack that began that morning.
13:52We're going to see a series of actions on this day at Mons, very much out of the control
13:59of both field marshals. French himself away from the area for several hours of this first
14:05contact. The German commander, von Klook, away from control of his troops and his army
14:12stumbling into the battlefront itself.
14:16At nine o'clock, the first bursts of German artillery fire began to rain down on the British
14:24positions along the canal. An hour later, the German infantry began its advance.
14:38The men of the Royal Fusiliers and the Middlesex Regiment responded to the attack with withering
14:46rapid infantry fire, and the Germans, advancing in close column, were mown down in their hundreds.
14:58The Germans advancing in close order really has a psychological impact over the enemy.
15:05They knew that they outnumbered the enemy, and by advancing in a solid block, it actually
15:10puts the fear of God into the defenders.
15:12The rifle brigade men were absolutely amazed to see Germans walking into the battle, great
15:19ranks of German infantry, 150 men at a time, walking over the fields.
15:26We were the finest rifle shots in the world, and at that time we had the finest rifle in
15:34the world, the SMLE, accurate, eight pounds, and a good rifle.
15:41And this is why the Germans lost so many men. They thought they were faced with a bunch
15:46of machine guns. In fact, they weren't. A battalion perhaps only had two machine guns.
15:54So great was the hail of fire that the Germans were forced to temporarily halt their attack,
16:00which resumed half an hour later over a wider front, and with artillery support.
16:07By 12 o'clock, despite the fierce resistance of the British troops, German infantry crossed
16:12the bridge at Uberg station, capturing the two bridges to the west shortly afterwards.
16:18Success, though, came at a price. The Germans had sustained very heavy casualties.
16:26What we see is something that actually is a chronic problem for the attacker throughout
16:30the First World War, how to deal with quick-firing guns, machine guns and rifles, in defensive
16:36deployments against the relatively primitive tactics that were being used by both sides
16:42during the First World War, literally mass ranks walking slowly towards the enemy guns.
16:48The offensive really is a much weaker form of warfare throughout much of the First World
16:54War, and as a result of it, huge casualties are sustained by either side that attacks.
16:58In the Battle of the Mons, it was the Germans.
17:03To the west of the Middlesex Regiment's position, the men of the Royal Fusiliers stubbornly
17:08defended the Nimi railway bridge for five long hours, despite being heavily outnumbered
17:14and receiving no artillery support. It was here that one of the battle's great heroic
17:21actions took place.
17:25Lieutenant Maurice Dease, the machine gun officer of the Royal Fusiliers, stayed at
17:30his post, holding off two battalions of German infantry and thwarting their attempt to capture
17:36the bridge. Dease was wounded several times, but refused to leave his gun until he was
17:42eventually killed. Dease's position was immediately taken by Private Sidney Godley.
17:50Godley defends the bridge, and when the Royal Fusiliers are given the order to withdraw,
17:55he's asked to stay behind on the bridge and cover the withdrawal of his men. He agrees
18:01to do so, and again is wounded on several occasions. He's still alert enough, though,
18:08to destroy the gun. He throws the gun into the canal and manages to crawl back from the
18:13bridge, at which time he's lifted by two civilians who take him into town to the local
18:18hospital, and it's there later on in the afternoon that he goes into captivity. The
18:23Germans taking the town, and they take Godley into captivity.
18:31Maurice Dease, posthumously, and Sidney Godley both received the Victoria Cross for their
18:37heroism that day, the first to be awarded during the Great War.
18:44Elsewhere along the line of the canal, it was at the bridges that the fiercest fighting
18:51took place. East of St Gislaine, the men of the 1st West Kents and the 2nd Scottish Borderers
18:58held the attackers at bay. Not even the famous Brandenburg Grenadiers could make headway
19:04against the rifle fire of the West Kents, supported by the artillery of the 120th Battery.
19:14So rapid and so accurate was the infantry fire that the Grenadiers were convinced they
19:23were facing a wall of British machine gun.
19:30When the battle ended, the Brandenburgs had lost 500 men. The West Kent losses amounted
19:36to just 100.
19:43There was a similar situation further east, at Les Herbières, where the German attack
19:48began at 1 o'clock. Here, the men of the East Surreys and the 2nd King's Own Scottish
19:54Borderers held on throughout the afternoon. By the end of the day, though, the British
19:59positions were under the most extreme pressure.
20:04What the Germans were trying to do with Von Kluck's strong right-arm thrust is actually
20:09to turn the Allied flank. And of course, the British were now detached from the French.
20:14They could very easily be outflanked and destroyed piecemeal. So John French had no option but
20:19to withdraw.
20:22The British withdrawal was executed not as one movement, but as a series of independent
20:28actions. As early as 2pm, the Royal Fusiliers had begun to retire, followed one hour later
20:35by the Scots Fusiliers.
20:40The Scottish Borderers and East Surreys then began their withdrawal, at which point the
20:47Royal Engineers stepped in to destroy the bridges they had spent the day defending.
20:56This was the signal for more displays of courage and valour. At Mariette, an unsuccessful but
21:03gallant attempt to blow the bridge under heavy fire won a Victoria Cross for Captain Theodore
21:09Wright.
21:13In the late afternoon at Bois-le-Ros, on the road from Armigny to Mons, the Germans made
21:18one last assault on the positions held by the 1st Gordons and 2nd Royal Scots. The attack
21:25was a disaster. The expert fire of the British troops accounted for five German officers
21:31and almost 400 infantrymen in only a few minutes.
21:36The time had come to call a halt to the attacks.
21:43Mons was not a slaughter for the British. For the Germans it was much more of a slaughter.
21:48We don't have accurate casualty figures for the Germans, but at least 5,000 were killed
21:53and wounded. And for the Germans, it's the first time that they've actually encountered
21:58the British Army in the field, and it actually gives them pause for thought. It comes as
22:04a nasty shock that this contemptible little army may not be quite so contemptible after all.
22:12The Germans found that they weren't just going to rush the Allies and destroy them in one
22:18engagement. They found that the strength of the defence was stronger and they were going
22:22to suffer lots of casualties. The British, meanwhile, of course, found that for the first
22:29time they could quite easily be annihilated, and the Battle of Mons showed them how difficult
22:33it was to retreat in the face of enemy action.
22:40Early in the morning of the 24th of August, the exhausted British forces began to dig
22:45in, three miles to the south of Mons. But the previous evening, Sir John French had
22:51heard the unexpected news that the French Fifth Army was retiring to the south-west.
22:58The night after the battle, the British were in no mood to retreat at all. They actually
23:06believed that they'd stopped the Germans dead. Yes, they'd had to withdraw from some of their
23:10lines, but they'd formed a nice secondary defensive line. But it was late in the evening
23:15that more information began to arrive. First, Lieutenant Speers, the liaison officer, arrived
23:21with news that the French Fifth Army was going to withdraw. And this meant that Sir
23:27John French would have to begin the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force, because
23:32there was a real danger that the BEF would actually find itself encircled by the Germans.
23:39So it was that on the 24th of August 1914, the BEF's famous retreat from Mons began,
23:47with von Kluck's First Army in hot pursuit.
23:56On that day, as before, it was the men of Smith Dorian's II Corps who bore the brunt
24:02of the fighting. On the British left, the 15th Brigade found itself under especially
24:09heavy pressure, and to the north-east of the village of Ellouges, the 1st Cheshires lost
24:15all but 200 officers and men from a complement of over 1,000, despite strong support from
24:22the gunners of the 119th Battalion.
24:29In every position, the British rearguard found itself exposed and outnumbered.
24:36Monday 24th August also saw fierce engagement at Ouage, at Patourage, and especially at
24:47Framier, which was the scene of a strong German attack upon the 9th Brigade, who had fought
24:53so heroically the previous day at the Mons Salient.
24:57In total, the British lost more men on the first day of the retreat than they had done
25:07during the entire Battle of Mons.
25:17Sir John French now found himself in the dilemma. Should he order his troops to head for the
25:22fortress town of Mauberge? The idea must have been tempting for the commander of a
25:28weary and outnumbered force, but French decided to continue with the retreat. It was to prove
25:35a wise decision.
25:40Mauberge was an obvious place to go to. It was a fortified town, built in the 1800s.
25:50It was walled. It was full of people, water, food, billets, everything undefendable.
25:56But Bonclocq hoped he would go into Mauberge, because if he'd taken his B.F. into Mauberge,
26:04of course, they wouldn't all have got into the damn city, but they'd have got to it,
26:08then they were in the bag.
26:11If he goes to Mauberge, very quickly he's going to be surrounded. He's destroyed piecemeal,
26:16he's out of the action, he's no longer a relevant force for the Germans to reckon with.
26:20Sir John French makes the right decision. He decides to actually continue the withdrawal
26:26in cooperation with the French, not to be tempted by the fortress town, and to continue
26:33the retreat so that Paris can be saved.
26:38On the evening of the 24th, the weary men of the B.E.F. reached the town of Bervet.
26:45The intention now was to withdraw still further to the area surrounding Le Cateau.
26:51But now the force was split in two.
26:54The withdrawal of one corps continued to the east of the forest of Maumalle,
26:59while two corps headed along the Roman road to the west.
27:05Now, what French could have done was kept the British expeditionary force concentrated
27:09on one route. But if he were to do that, he would double, perhaps triple the length of time
27:15it would actually take, because they'd be piled onto a single road.
27:19And so, although he knew he was taking an enormous risk to divide his forces,
27:23he felt that there was simply no alternative.
27:30On the 25th, the split retreat continued, with one corps becoming involved in action
27:36at Landressy and Marois.
27:39Meanwhile, two corps continued its move towards Le Cateau,
27:43but it was bolstered by the arrival of the 10th, 11th and 12th Infantry Brigades
27:48of the 3rd Division, along with the 19th Infantry Brigade.
27:55On the 25th of August, Sir John French also moved his general headquarters
28:00from Le Cateau to Saint-Quentin in the south-east.
28:07French now issued a fresh order for the retreat to be continued towards this new position.
28:14But that night, with continuing German pressure on his left flank,
28:19General Smith-Dorian decided to make a stand here at Le Cateau.
28:26It was a brave, controversial and risky decision.
28:31Despite the reinforcements, two corps was battle-weary and exhausted.
28:36And yet now, it was being asked to stand and fight an enemy who outnumbered and outgunned them.
28:47Smith-Dorian believes that Haig is going to join him here at Le Cateau,
28:52and here he decides to turn and try and take some of the impetus out of the German movements.
28:59He believes that General French agrees with this blocking movement here,
29:03although French has indicated that he wishes the withdrawal to continue as soon as possible.
29:11The Germans are literally on his back.
29:13If Smith-Dorian tries to withdraw at that time, rather than stand and fight,
29:18he's going to be caught in the open, he's going to be very vulnerable.
29:21Now, it's still a historical moot point as to whether he should have done that,
29:25but I think that history actually bears out that he was correct to do so.
29:29The battalions that were called to stand had had little fighting at Mons.
29:34He wasn't daft.
29:36The battered battalions, the Middlesex and the Royal Infirmary and others, were allowed to continue.
29:41Keep going south.
29:45The position chosen for the stand of two corps at the Battle of Le Cateau was hardly ideal.
29:50It was open and exposed, with only the occasional unharvested field to provide any kind of cover,
29:56since there'd been insufficient time for the troops to dig in properly.
30:00Much of the line was exposed to the partly wooded high ground to the north,
30:05which provided an almost perfect position for the German infantry.
30:11The British line stretched from the west of Le Cateau towards the village of Haucourt.
30:17Ranged against them were four German infantry divisions,
30:21three cavalry divisions with supporting artillery on its way.
30:40At 6 o'clock on a misty morning, the Germans opened fire from the northeast of Le Cateau,
30:46with the 5th Division on the east flank subjected to the worst of the onslaught.
30:54On the extreme right, the 14th Brigade suffered especially heavily as German forces swept round to the north and south,
31:02exposing the men of the 2nd Suffolk's and 2nd Manchester's to devastating fire.
31:17The British artillery supported as best they could.
31:21The 18-pounder guns of the 28th Artillery Brigade hit their enemy hard,
31:26and the 122nd Battery rained down shells on the advancing German infantry.
31:36In 1914, the major difference between German and British artillery is that the Germans just had more.
31:43They brought up something like 550 guns versus 228 British guns.
31:48So the Battle of Le Cateau, at least the first part of it, develops into what is essentially an artillery duel.
31:57To the west of Le Cateau, the British were able to maintain their line throughout the morning,
32:03with the 7th Brigade seeing off a powerful German attack at Cordray.
32:09Further west still, the new 4th Division angled itself backwards to protect the British flank,
32:15with the 11th Brigade holding its position in the teeth of incessant infantry and artillery fire,
32:22although at a grim cost in casualties.
32:26But the real damage to the British position was on the right,
32:30where the superiority of German artillery proved impossible to resist.
32:35By a quarter to two in the afternoon, the situation had become untenable.
32:40The 14th Brigade had no alternative but to fall back,
32:45but this was already far too late for the unfortunate men of the 14th Brigade.
32:51But this was already far too late for the unfortunate men of the 2nd Manchesters,
32:56and especially the 2nd Suffolks.
32:59By 2.30, these gallant troops were completely surrounded,
33:03but displaying immense courage, fought on until the bitter end.
33:12The extreme British right flank was now destroyed, and the inevitable order came to withdraw.
33:19To the east of the forest of Maumalle, the men of one corps
33:23could hear the terrible battle taking place just seven miles away from them,
33:28but they were unable to help the Suffolks in their desperate plight.
33:39Haig's 1st Corps couldn't assist Smith Dorian and Lecateau for a couple of important reasons.
33:46The first reason is that Haig himself was coming under pressure from German attacks.
33:51There's also some politics to play here.
33:54Haig had a very frictional relationship with Smith Dorian,
33:59and didn't really just want to run to that corps' aid at the drop of a hat.
34:05He thought, as did Sir John French, that his corps was under the greatest pressure.
34:10And also, of course, we've got to remember that it's very difficult to move a corps
34:14from the west to the east in just a few hours.
34:25As the battle raged, Lecateau became the scene of many individual acts of courage and heroism.
34:33Major Yate won a Victoria Cross for leading a desperate charge at the advancing German lines.
34:40Captain Reynolds of the 8th Howitzer Brigade and two of his comrades
34:45also won Britain's highest military honour when they completed the daring recovery
34:51of an abandoned Howitzer from under the noses of the German troops.
34:57Sadly for the BEF, the raw courage of men like Captain Reynolds was not enough at Lecateau.
35:06As the afternoon passed, II Corps did its best to extricate itself from the battle and retreat south,
35:13while the bravery of the Yorkshire infantrymen enabled what was left of the 5th Division to withdraw.
35:20They were followed by the 3rd Division in the centre,
35:24and lastly the 4th Division, who were assisted by a detachment of French cavalry.
35:36As evening fell, the withdrawal from the battlefield was complete.
35:42The German advance had been held up for a day, but at a terrible cost.
35:49There were 8,000 dead or wounded British troops.
35:57Smith Dorian was trapped. He had to stop the Germans that were advancing towards him
36:04to allow the majority of II Corps to get away.
36:08As it was, he was able to put in a stopping blow. He bought himself a few vital hours.
36:19The following morning, after yet another all-night march, the weary men of II Corps arrived in St. Quentin.
36:26But there was more bad news for the British.
36:292,000 men of the 4th Division had not received their order to withdraw,
36:34and only half of these were eventually able to find a way to rejoin their corps.
36:41Although the troops of the BEF were completely exhausted,
36:45the retreat had to continue and, crucially, discipline had to be maintained.
36:55Given the circumstances, it's remarkable, perhaps,
36:58that on only one occasion was good military order threatened.
37:02On the evening of 27 August, here in the centre of St. Quentin,
37:06men from the ravaged 4th Division decided among themselves that they would march no more.
37:13Thanks to the efforts of just one guardsman, however,
37:16the situation was resolved and discipline in the ranks was restored.
37:21When Tom Bridges arrived at St. Quentin, he found, in the square of this small town,
37:28some hundreds of men, dispirited, tired, laid out.
37:35Their two commanders, two colonels, were going to surrender.
37:40Bridges, seeing this debacle in the square,
37:46walked into a toy shop with his trumpeter,
37:49and there was a toy drum and a tin whistle,
37:52and he came out to these men, dispirited, who were going to be prisoners,
37:57and spoke to them.
37:58Come on, he said, come with me, we're not surrendering.
38:02And he blew his tin whistle and the trumpeter banged the drum,
38:05and these tired, absolutely tired out men, who had come all the way from Mars,
38:10stood up and followed him.
38:14Tom Bridges' efforts enabled 2 Corps to get out of St. Quentin
38:18during the early hours of the 28th of August,
38:21and the march south continued.
38:41Compared with what had gone before,
38:43the next phase of the retreat was almost peaceful,
38:46with engagements with the Germans few and far between.
38:522 Corps managed to reach the Oise at Noyon on the 28th of August,
38:57and by the 31st they had crossed the river and were heading towards Betz,
39:02where they were at last able to rejoin their comrades in 1 Corps.
39:11Though the only fighting to affect 2 Corps during this period
39:14involved the cavalry, for the humble infantrymen,
39:17these were tough summer days.
39:20This was a time when mental as much as physical strength was called for.
39:27The British soldiers were hot, thirsty and tired
39:31as they marched towards Paris, mile after mile,
39:34weighed down with pack and weapons.
39:38There were only limited opportunities for rest,
39:41and with every step, the weary men of the BEF knew
39:45that they were retreating from a German army that looked invincible.
39:51The Germans were falling on them, this great grey machine
39:54that was causing the British troops so many casualties,
39:58and they were literally, they felt, running away from the Germans.
40:02They didn't exactly know where the French were,
40:04they didn't know where the enemy were,
40:06they didn't know when they were going to next eat or next sleep.
40:10They were wearing very heavy uniforms in very hot conditions.
40:14This was one of the finest summers of the 20th century.
40:17They were getting, if they were lucky, four hours sleep a night,
40:20and exhaustion, fatigue, just takes over your life.
40:28As 2 Corps continued its march southward, so too did Haig's 1 Corps,
40:33despite a tragic incident on the 27th of August,
40:37when two companies of Royal Munster Fusiliers from the 1st Division
40:41were lost during a fierce battle at Etreux.
40:45By the end of the month, the 4th Division and the 19th Infantry Brigade
40:49had reached Verbery.
40:54In the late evening of the 31st of August,
40:57the 1st Cavalry Brigade arrived at nearby Nery,
41:01accompanied by L Battery of the Royal Horse Artillery.
41:05Unknown to them, the German 4th Cavalry Division
41:09had also arrived in the area,
41:11and the following morning, September 1st,
41:14the two forces met in a brief but momentous battle
41:18that saw three more Victoria Crosses won.
41:24The British field gunners immediately engaged the Germans as they closed,
41:29and one gun particularly, commanded by Major Bradbury,
41:33kept up such a punishing fire on the Germans
41:36that it completely disorganised and smashed up their attack.
41:40Bradbury was mortally wounded, but he stood by his gun
41:43with two companions.
41:45All three were awarded the Victoria Cross.
41:48The British lose only 135 men.
41:51The Germans, in effect, lose an entire division.
41:59September 1st was the last day of the retreat
42:02to see substantial engagements between the two sides.
42:08At Crepy-en-Vallois and at Villecôtre,
42:11two corps and one corps saw off attacks on their rear,
42:15and they were once again heavy British and German casualties.
42:30The late evening of September 1st
42:33also saw the two components of the BEF
42:36finally reunited at Betz,
42:39and the end of the BEF's great fighting retreat was now in sight.
42:52On 3rd September, in cruelly hot late summer weather,
42:57the battered army crossed the Marne,
43:00and the following day they forged the two Morin Rivers.
43:07On 3rd September, the Allies also received remarkable news
43:11concerning the German right flank.
43:14It had been heading menacingly towards the west of Paris,
43:18but that day, British air reconnaissance confirmed
43:21that the 1st Army of Von Kluge had cut in to the east.
43:27The German 1st Army moved to the southeast of Paris
43:30in order to produce the great Vernichtungsschlag,
43:34the great battle of annihilation,
43:36in which the French army and this tiny,
43:38this pathetic British expeditionary force will be destroyed.
43:42Unfortunately for Von Kluge,
43:44the British are retreating in good order
43:47and actually make it to the River Marne,
43:49still holding their line.
43:51However, for Von Kluge,
43:53and he's not entirely sure of the French deployments at this time,
43:57the French are actually massing a new army
44:00on the outskirts of Paris to the east,
44:02and because he's now advanced to the east of Paris
44:05rather than to the west, his flank is wide open,
44:08and the battle of the Marne sees that flank,
44:11the right flank of Von Kluge, exploited.
44:16General Gallieni, the military governor of Paris,
44:19was determined to seize the opportunity
44:21provided by this German change of strategy
44:24and persuaded Joffre that the 6th Army,
44:27along with the BEF, should mount a counterattack.
44:34When Joffre begins his counterattack on the Marne,
44:37the Paris garrison also sorties out,
44:40and this causes German 1st Army to have to suddenly swing
44:44and face westward to deal with a threat to its right flank.
44:52On 5th September, the Great Retreat from Marne
44:56finally came to an end, far away from the Belgian city
45:00where British and German forces had first met 13 days before.
45:06The BEF had retreated in excess of 200 miles,
45:10fighting a numerically superior force all along the way.
45:16Despite a total loss,
45:19despite a total loss of some 15,000 men,
45:23the British expeditionary force remained a unified
45:26and effective fighting force that was,
45:29within a matter of hours, engaging the enemy once more
45:33as the Battle of the Marne announced the beginning
45:36of the Allied counterattack.
45:39The retreat from Marne was conducted
45:42in constant contact with the enemy.
45:45It is almost without parallel in the annals of war.
45:49There has never been such sustained contact with the enemy
45:52and such a long withdrawal,
45:54in which the army which is withdrawing
45:57actually manages to withdraw virtually intact.
46:00The military value of the retreat is quite clear.
46:03Had the British and the French decided to fight at Mons
46:07and at Charlevoix, and to fight and continue to fight,
46:11there's very little doubt that the Germans would have
46:14overwhelmed them through their sheer superiority of numbers
46:18and eventually have taken Paris.
46:20The retreat from Mons gave birth to one of military history's
46:24most enduring legends, a wonderful, colourful myth
46:28that no doubt confirmed to those who heard it
46:31that God was on the side of the Allies.
46:35The retreat from Mons had been a bitter pill to swallow
46:38for the British and the French,
46:40and it was a bitter pill to swallow
46:42for the British and the French,
46:44and it was a bitter pill to swallow
46:47The retreat from Mons had been a bitter pill to swallow
46:50for the BEF, for the government,
46:53for the politicians, for the people at home.
46:55We'd even gone to the extent of arranging a legend
46:58of the angels from heaven coming down over Mons
47:02and helping us to hold off this German advance.
47:05The sky is red with flame from the burning Mons,
47:17and of course the journalists painted this picture
47:21of archers in clouds firing down onto the battlefield
47:25and suddenly the battle stopped
47:27because the Germans were already blowing their bugles
47:30half past eight, nine o'clock, they'd had enough,
47:32and all round the front, bugles were blowing.
47:35Tired out men later,
47:37I read the story, ah yes, I remember that,
47:41and so the myth continued.
47:50Even now, more than 80 years later,
47:53the beautiful French and Belgian countryside
47:55is full of reminders of a truly momentous fortnight
47:59in the history of British warfare.
48:29.