Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War

by Max Hastings

  Bird, desperate for information, checked an agitated staff officer who was galloping by: ‘Hi! Hi! Tell me what’s happened!’ The man cried, ‘5th Division smashed to pieces on our right. 4th Division being driven back on our left. Goodbye.’ This was an extravagant version of the fact that the British were under heavy pressure, but reflected the panic infecting some people who should have known better. Alexander Johnston was much dismayed when his brigadier ordered a withdrawal from Caudry: ‘… I feel that we ought to have stuck onto the town somehow. The German infantry showed no inclination to assault.’ But shellfire had corroded the defenders’ spirits. Wilkinson Bird told the major of the neighbouring battalion that his men must act as rearguard. The officer responded, ‘I’ll do my best, sir, but I must warn you that, after what they have been through, the men may not withstand a strong attack.’ Though some British gunners displayed great gallantry that afternoon, a battery commander whom Bird requested to support his brigade refused, saying that he could not expose his men to German small arms. Bird gave the officer a direct order, but soon learned from an orderly that the battery withdrew the moment Germans began to fire on it from Ligny. This was prudent, but inglorious.

  A mounted orderly at last gave Bird’s brigade the signal to pull back. Hundreds of soldiers rose from where they had lain in the stubble and began running southward towards a bridge beneath a railway line that lay behind the British front. One spectator thought the scene resembled ‘the start of a big cross-country champion foot race’. Bird and the units’ adjutants mounted, to ensure that their men could see them: ‘We sat and watched the panic. First came drivers wildly lashing their teams, which rushed past with guns and carriages covered with infantrymen clinging to them. Then, after an interval, a mob of men now walking because out of breath … Towards the end of the crowd came the officers walking singly or in pairs.’

  Hull, iron-willed CO of the Middlesex, was seen to be the last man of his division to retreat. Some artillery teams headed smartly for the rear without making any attempt to salvage their guns, which prompted young officers of the Irish Rifles to volunteer to fetch in the abandoned pieces. This was obviously impossible, however, in the absence of horses and traces. The Rifles that day lost five officers and sixty men killed or missing – most taken prisoner – and a further twenty-nine wounded. Wilkinson Bird survived unscathed, but lost a leg in another action three weeks later. Lt. Siegener, a German infantryman, described how his men began to advance as they saw the British withdraw: ‘Our losses had been, and continued to be, great, but we wanted to get on. 200 metres to our front was a trench that was still occupied. But already white flags were being displayed over there. The men had their hands up and they surrendered. An officer came up and handed over his sword, but there was still fire coming down on us from further up. I pointed this out and threatened to shoot him immediately. The Briton waved towards the rear and the shooting stopped.’

  On the right, the Yorkshires conducted a sacrificial stand. By 4.30, they were cut off; a German bugler sounded the British ceasefire, seeking to avert further slaughter. The remains of the battalion fought on; one of its officers, forty-two-year-old Maj. Cal Yate, led nineteen survivors in a final bayonet charge, in which he fell badly wounded. It is always disputable whether such actions are heroic or merely foolishly futile; in this case, Yate was given a VC, awarded posthumously since he died as a prisoner in Germany, allegedly attempting to escape. Some Yorkshires were bayoneted when they were finally overrun, but most were spared by the Germans, who also treated the wounded humanely. When the few men who escaped to II Corps’ main body reformed, it was found that seventeen officers including the Yorkshires’ colonel were lost, together with most of their NCOs and men. Bertie Trevor assumed command of what was left.

  In the British centre, the Gordon Highlanders failed to receive the signal to withdraw, which was given around 5 p.m. by a galloper who thought 250 yards close enough to ride towards the embattled unit. Only one subaltern saw him wave; being heavily engaged at the time, he said nothing. Three platoons slipped away on their own initiative, and eventually regained the British lines. The rest continued firing from the Audencourt ridge until nightfall, along with some stragglers from the Royal Scots and Royal Irish. There was then a strange row between the Gordons’ CO and another officer – confusingly named Brevet Colonel W.E. Gordon, a South African war VC. Gordon claimed the right to supersede the commanding officer, and took command of the party, which set off southwards in darkness. In the village of Bertry, some officers entered a bar which they found occupied by Germans, whom they later implausibly claimed to have engaged with their revolvers and killed. Almost all the 750-strong party eventually surrendered. Details of their forlorn odyssey, which obviously included bitter recriminations between senior officers, have been lost with time. A wounded Scottish officer described how a young German lieutenant offered him chocolate and demanded, ‘Why have you English come against us? It is no use. We shall be in Paris in three days.’

  Gen. Sordet’s French cavalry, which had come into action further west, along with their 75mm guns, played an invaluable role in covering the British withdrawal, which continued through the hours of darkness. Gen. Henri de Ferron’s territorial division also attacked German formations deploying towards Le Cateau. Without this support, Kluck’s men could have turned Smith-Dorrien’s left flank during the afternoon, with disastrous consequences. Enemy shells continued to fall upon some of II Corps’ positions for hours after they were abandoned. ‘The British had withdrawn so skilfully that we had not noticed anything,’ wrote cavalryman Capt. Freiherr von der Horst. Smith-Dorrien had concluded a stubborn defensive stand by performing the most difficult of all battlefield manoeuvres – disengagement from close contact with the enemy.

  German gunner captain Fritz Schneider observed that 26 August was a glorious day in his regiment’s history, ‘but the British also fought bravely. That must be recognised. Despite heavy and bloody losses, they held their positions … When, later that evening, we found ourselves on the road in Beauvois a group of forty to fifty prisoners were being led past. They were all tall, well-built men whose bearing and clothing made an outstanding impression. What a contrast to the short, pale and anxious Frenchmen in their grubby uniforms, whom we had captured two days previously in Tournai!’ The most popular booty from the battlefield proved to be scores of discarded British greatcoats, whose quality the victors appreciated.

  German failure to encircle and shatter Smith-Dorrien’s command reflected poorly on Kluck’s competence, as well as showing the strength of the resistance his regiments faced. On 26 August II Corps held a position in which its most likely fate was destruction. Smith-Dorrien kept his nerve, and instead extricated his force in tolerable order. As at Mons, however, this was certainly no British triumph. His men had merely checked their pursuers for a few hours and escaped catastrophe, chiefly because their enemies were slow to concentrate superior strength against them. II Corps had abandoned thirty-eight guns, and officially recorded the loss of 7,812 men at Le Cateau, a serious toll for a small army, though many stragglers reappeared in the days that followed. Around 5,000 seems a realistic British casualty total for the battle, of which perhaps seven hundred were killed, 2,500 taken prisoner and the rest wounded.

  As II Corps continued its withdrawal, staff officers stood by roadsides directing men towards their own units, identification not assisted by the fact that so many had given their cap badges to French or Belgian civilians. Tom Wollocombe of the Middlesex described the spectacle, and his own mingled emotions, as they retreated: ‘the road … was absolutely ghastly – dead and wounded horses and men strewn all the way, and limbers, guns, ambulances, wagons, carts and all kinds of things running away and bumping into one another without drivers. I marched on that evening feeling fit as a fiddle, although I was nearly done when I went into action. An enemy is a wonderful stimulant.’

  Smith-Dorrien’s men had won a twelve-hour start on their enemies, who
made no attempt at close pursuit. Analysis of regimental casualty figures suggests that Kluck’s losses at Le Cateau were about half those of Smith-Dorrien: few Germans became prisoners, as did the British left behind on the battlefield. Kluck’s returns show battle casualties of just over 7,000 for the ten-day period embracing both Mons and Le Cateau. The German First Army during the entire month of August admitted only 2,863 men killed or missing, with a further 7,869 wounded. Such losses had only marginal significance when Kluck’s entire command numbered 217,384. He was at least equally troubled by a sick list of 8,000, mostly men too footsore to march. British official historians argued in the 1920s that the Germans wilfully understated their losses, but there seems no reason to believe this. The BEF fought staunchly in both its significant August battles, but its fire injured the enemy much less grievously than optimists supposed then and romantics have imagined since.

  German soldiers emerged from the two encounters with respect for British determination and musketry, but commanders saw nothing to make them flinch. Moltke expressed satisfaction at the outcome of Le Cateau: Kluck’s formations continued to advance, while the BEF kept on retreating. The British constructed a heroic legend by focusing upon individual acts of courage, and glossing over the stark ‘big picture’. It was probably the case that Smith-Dorrien had no choice save to fight a battle. But he found himself in an unholy mess in the beet and stubble fields that day, from which he was fortunate to escape, with under-acknowledged French assistance.

  That night of the 26th, Haig sent a telegram to GHQ which Edmonds, the official historian, later suggested was prompted by a bad conscience: ‘No news of II Corps except sound of guns from the direction of Le Cateau and Beaumont. Can I Corps be of any assistance?’ No, of course it could not. The day was done, and also one of the less creditable passages in Haig’s military career. Edmonds – whose spleen or even malice should be acknowledged – said that I Corps’ commander always refused to discuss Le Cateau except to express his opinion that Smith-Dorrien was wrong to have fought there. The historian commented with relish: ‘I fancy Haig was none too proud of August 1914.’ The resolve and professionalism of Britain’s soldiers narrowly sufficed to compensate for the follies and inadequacies of their senior officers. The most significant contribution of the two actions at Mons and Le Cateau was to check the momentum of Kluck’s advance: every day the Germans failed to traverse more miles across France represented a gain for Joffre’s redeployment. Time was critical, and Moltke was running short of it.

  7

  The Retreat

  It is a peculiarly British trait to find glory in retreats – to Corunna in 1809, from Kabul in 1842, to Dunkirk in 1940 – and from Mons in 1914. In Belgium and France that August, the BEF suffered the consequences of the Asquith government’s policy, reprising that of many British administrations throughout history, of pursuing gesture strategy. Ministers committed an absurdly small army to the continent, where it became entangled in a clash between major European land powers. Only as a consequence of luck, French mass and German fumbling did the BEF escape a disaster which its inadequate size and the incompetence of its commander-in-chief made likely. It should never be forgotten that the French army’s general withdrawal from eastern France was much more important strategically, being on a far larger scale, than that of the British alongside it from Mons. The experiences of Joffre’s soldiers further east mirrored those of the BEF.

  For eleven days following Le Cateau, in oppressive heat interrupted by sporadic thunderstorms, long columns of men, horses and wagons trudged southward, sometimes dozing as they marched or rode. Gunner Sgt. William Edgington wrote on the 26th: ‘marched to St. Quentin in heavy rain & all feeling very much the want of sleep. No rations … all ranks are very much depressed owing not only to the fact of us continually retiring, but at the total absence of any information; we appear to be simply driven blindly back.’ Some stragglers, no longer able to bear the pain of their feet, the misery of motion, slipped away from the road into nearby woods or fields and fell into blissful sleep, awakening to face captivity or death at German hands. A few such men were hidden by Belgian or French people after becoming separated from the army; some were betrayed, and in a few cases shot, many months later. There were occasional little actions as rearguard units fell behind and found themselves cut off.

  The experience of Le Cateau pushed some British officers and men further than they could endure. Late on the night of 26 August Tom Bridges led his squadron of dragoons clattering along the pavé into the central square of Saint-Quentin, where he was dismayed to find two or three hundred exhausted soldiers lying prostrate, impervious to imprecations or kicks. Bridges was even more shocked to discover that two battalions – the Warwicks and the Dublin Fusiliers – had piled arms at the railway station, after their commanding officers handed to Saint-Quentin’s mayor a written undertaking of surrender, to save the town from bombardment. Bridges retrieved this damning document from the Frenchman. But when he sent a messenger to tell the two colonels that his cavalrymen would cover their battalions’ escape, the troops refused to move unless a train was produced to carry them. Bridges thereupon declared that if they failed to set off within thirty minutes, he would leave no British soldier alive in the town. Under this threat, the men sullenly scrambled to their feet and began to move. The major then turned his mind to the stragglers in the town square. He contemplated their somnolent forms and thought, ‘If only I had a band!’ His eye fell on a toyshop, and he saw means to create one. Equipping himself and his trumpeter with a drum and a tin whistle, the two marched round and round the square, manically playing ‘The British Grenadiers’ and ‘Tipperary’.

  Soldiers began to laugh, then to cheer. Bridges harangued them, shouting that he would take them back to their regiments. One by one they roused themselves and fell in. Darkness had fallen. Bridges and his trumpeter, reinforced by a brace of mouth organs, led his motley column out of Saint-Quentin. Some of them indeed rejoined II Corps’ line of march, but four days later 291 men of the Warwicks were still missing, listed as ‘stragglers’. Both defaulting colonels, John Elkington of the Warwicks and Arthur Mainwaring of the Dublin Fusiliers, were cashiered for their attempted surrender: on 14 September, Army Orders recorded their convictions for ‘behaving in a scandalous manner unbecoming to the character of an officer and a gentleman’. Elkington, though forty-nine years old, responded in a manner worthy of fiction by joining the French Foreign Legion, with which he lost a leg and was awarded the Legion of Honour. King George V later reinstated him in the British Army and gave him a DSO, but the colonel spent the rest of his life as a recluse, declining ever to wear his medals. One of the Warwicks’ young officers was Bernard Montgomery, who in his later memoirs made it plain that he did not think much of Elkington, and recognised a shambles when he saw one, at Le Cateau.

  Another battalion’s CO, by contrast, spoke of the aftermath of the battle with partisan regimental pride: ‘I ran into what appeared to be a disorganised mass of soldiers of all sorts of units, mixed up together. They were leisurely retiring, but in no sort of formation. There was no panic, only disorganisation. [Then] I sighted the Wiltshires, marching along the road all in good order, ready for action wherever required.’ They reached Saint-Quentin, twenty miles south-east of their battlefield, early on the 27th. By dawn the following day, II Corps was at the Somme, thirty-five miles from Le Cateau, having shown that most of its men could march as hard as they could fight.

  If Sir John French’s contribution to the conduct of the British campaign since Mons had been erratic and inglorious, it was his good fortune that the enemy did worse. Kluck, commanding far larger forces, manoeuvred them ineptly, missing repeated opportunities to trap the vulnerable British. On the 27th the German general compounded earlier mistakes by maintaining his army’s southerly line of march, while the British veered south-eastwards on a line towards Paris, untroubled by the enemy. That day, the French divisions on their left received most of Kluck’s a
ttentions.

  One consequence of the C-in-C’s moral collapse – for it is hard to define his conduct as anything less – is that it caused his liaison officer with GQG, Col. Charles Huguet, to report to Joffre in the most despondent and defeatist terms. The Frenchman declared on the 26th: ‘battle lost by the British Army, which seems to have lost all cohesion’. In the days that followed, gloom took hold in the rear areas of the BEF. Huguet sent a further message on the 27th in which he asserted: ‘conditions are such that for the moment the British Army no longer exists. It will not be in a condition to take the field again until it has been thoroughly rested and reconstituted.’ The colonel is often castigated by British writers for his pessimism, but this is unjust. What Huguet said merely reflected the hysterical view prevailing at GHQ in general, and in the mind of its commander-in-chief in particular.

  The muddle of stragglers, and the conspicuous distress of some senior officers, bred a virus of panic which eventually spread to London. Huguet suggested that Sir John French might insist upon withdrawing the BEF to Le Havre. The C-in-C was indeed attracted to a fantastic notion that his army might retire from the campaign for a few weeks, to reorganise and refit, while his senior staff officers did nothing to restore confidence. Henry Wilson sent a message to 4th Division’s commander: ‘Throw overboard all ammunition and impediments not absolutely required, and load up your lame ducks on all transport, horse and mechanical, and hustle along.’ The same order was given to II Corps. Smith-Dorrien immediately countermanded it, only to be rebuked by Sir John French for having done so.

  The despondency at the top was almost entirely unjustified. Haig’s I Corps had scarcely been engaged. Most of II Corps’ units were suffering from nothing worse than exhaustion; their fighting spirit was unimpaired. Men were bewildered that they continued to flee before the enemy. Since they could not see the great grey masses of Kluck’s and Bülow’s armies, they were cockily confident that, on the Germans’ showing thus far, they could lick them. Their commander-in-chief, however, saw only one choice: opposed by overwhelmingly superior numbers, and alongside allies in whom he had lost all confidence, the BEF must continue its flight, if possible as far as the sea. Only the robust good sense of quartermaster-general Sir William Robertson, who organised dumps of ammunition and rations along the army’s line of retreat, enabled the troops to remain fed and capable of fighting.