the part of
the Fifth French Army operating in conjunction with the army of General
French. This army, however, found itself in the presence of German
forces of great strength, consisting of the crack corps of the German
army. On the 22d the Germans at the cost of considerable losses
succeeded in passing the Sambre, and General Lanrezac fell back on
Beaumont-Givet, being apprehensive of the danger which threatened his
right. On the 24th the British army retreated, in the face of a German
attack, on to the Maubeuge-Valenciennes line. It appeared at first that
the British had in front of them at most an army corps, with perhaps a
corps of cavalry. They were apprised, however, about five o'clock in the
evening that three army corps were advancing against them, while a
fourth was marching against their left along the road from Tournai in a
turning movement. General French effected his retreat during the night
behind the salient of Mons. Threatened on August 24 by the strength of
the whole German army, he fled backward in the direction of Maubeuge."

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT RETREAT BEGINS

The German hosts now stood at the gates of France. It was a mighty
spectacle. The soldiery of the Kaiser which had swept their way into
Belgium, there to meet the unexpected resistance of the defenders of
King Albert, had reached their goal--the French frontier.

About the middle of August, 1914, General Joffre, assigned to the
British Expeditionary Force, commanded by Sir John French, the task of
holding Mons against the powerful German advance. The British force
formed the left wing of the line of front that stretched for some two
hundred miles close to the Belgian frontier. Extending from Arras
through the colliery towns of Mons and Charleroi, the extreme western
front of the armies was held by General D'Amade at Arras, with about
40,000 reserve territorial troops; by General French, with 80,000
British regulars, at Mons; by the Fifth French Army of 200,000
first-line troops, under General Lanrezac, near Charleroi; and by a
force of 25,000 Belgian troops at Namur. The total Allied troops in this
field of battle were thus about 345,000 men.

Opposed to them, on the north, were about 700,000 German troops, General
von Kluck farthest to the west, Generals von Buelow and von Hausen around
the Belgian fortress of Namur, Grand Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg in the
neighborhood of Maubeuge, and finally, on the extreme left of the Ger