ed at Charleville, a town on the western bank of the river.
There a determined stand was made.

On August 24, 1914, the town of Charleville was evacuated, the civilians
were sent away to join multitudes of other homeless refugees, and then
the French also retired, leaving behind them several machine guns hidden
in houses, placed so that they commanded the town and the three bridges
that connected it with Mezieres.

The German advance guards reached the two towns next day, August 25,
1914, which, as we know, witnessed the British retirement toward Le
Cateau. Unmolested, they rode across the three bridges into the quiet,
empty streets. Suddenly, when all had crossed, the bridges were blown
up behind them by contact mines, and the German cavalrymen were raked by
the deadly fire of the machine guns. Nevertheless, finding their foes
were not numerous, they made a courageous stand, waiting for their main
columns to draw nearer. Every French machine gunner was silenced by the
Guards with their Maxims; but when the main invading army swept into
view along the river valley, the French artillery from the hills around
Charleville mowed down the heads of columns with shrapnel. Still the
Teutons advanced with reckless courage. While their artillery was
engaged in a duel with the French, German sappers threw pontoon bridges
across the river, and finally the French had to retire. Between
Charleville and Rethel there was another battle, resulting in the
abandonment of Mezieres by the French.

The retreating army crossed the Semois, a tributary of the Meuse, which
it enters below Mezieres, and advanced toward Neufchateau; but they were
repulsed by the Germans under the Duke of Wuerttemberg. At Nancy on
August 25, 1914, there was another engagement between the garrison of
Toul and the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria; after fierce
onslaughts the garrison was compelled to yield and retire. Finally, on
August 27, 1914, at Longwy, a fortified town near Verdun, the army of
the German crown prince succeeded in bursting into France after a long
siege, and marched toward the Argonne. Thus from the western coast
almost to Verdun there was a general Franco-British retreat.

On August 28, 1914, pressed by the German armies commanded by Von Kluck
on the west, by Von Hausen from Dinant and Givet, by Von Buelow from
Charleroi and Namur, the Allies were pushed back upon a line stretching
roughly from Amiens through Noyon-Le Fere to Mezieres; whi