“They were in solid square blocks, standing out sharply against the skyline, and you couldn’t help hitting them.  It was like butting your head against a stone wall....  They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word.  A sheet of flame flickered along the line of trenches and a stream of bullets tore through the advancing mass of Germans.  They seemed to stagger like a drunken man hit between the eyes, after which they made a run for us....  Halfway across the open another volley tore through their ranks, and by this time our artillery began dropping shells around them.  Then an officer gave an order and they broke into open formation, rushing like mad toward the trenches on our left.  Some of our men continued the volley firing, but a few of our crack shots were told off for independent firing....  They fell back in confusion, and then lay down wherever cover was available.  We gave them no rest, and soon they were on the move again in flight....  This sort of thing went on through the whole day.”

From another view we gather that “We were in the trenches waiting for them, but we didn’t expect anything like the smashing blow that struck us.  All at once, so it seemed, the sky began to rain down bullets and shells.  At first they went wide... but after a time... they got our range and then they fairly mopped us up....  I saw many a good comrade go out.”

During the early part of the battle Von Kluck directed his main attack upon the British right, with a furious artillery bombardment of Binche and Bray.  This was coincident with the crumpling of the French right at Charleroi by the army of Von Buelow, and its threatened retreat by that of Von Hausen.  The retirement of the French Fifth Army, therefore, left General Haig exposed to a strong flank attack by Von Kluck.  Confronted with this danger, General Haig was compelled to withdraw his right to a rise of ground southward of Bray.  This movement left Mons the salient of an angle between the First and Second British Army Corps.  Shortly after this movement was performed, General Hamilton, in command of Mons, found himself in peril of converging German front and flank attacks.  If the Germans succeeded in breaking through the British line beyond Mons, he would be cut off and surrounded.  General Hamilton informed his superior, General French, of this danger, and was advised in return “to be careful not to keep the troops in the salient too long, but, if threatened seriously to draw back the center behind Mons.”

[Illustration:  German hosts invade and conquer Belgium.

Siege gun.  Fortresses of liege, Namur, malines.  Valiant resistance
by the Belgians

One of the great siege guns that destroyed the fortresses in Belgium and northern France and made possible the first great drive of the German armies]