While the troopers attempted to find and mount their horses, Captain E. K. Bradbury of 'L' Battery succeeded in manhandling three of his guns into position and opening fire on the enemy. One gun, commanded by Lieutenant Giffard, was hit almost at once, a shell striking the muzzle and killing the entire crew except Lieutenant Giffard, who carried on firing the gun single-handed until all the ammunition in the limber had been used up; only then, wounded in three places, did Giffard seek safety. Scratch crews of officers and men manned the other guns and returned the enemy fire while the troopers from the cavalry regiments, the Bays and the 11th Hussars, took up position on the eastern edge of the village and prepared to beat off an infantry attack; surprised the cavalry may have been, dismayed they were not. As the battle got under way it became clear that the enemy was present in considerable force; in fact the 1st Cavalry Brigade and 'L' Battery were engaging the German 4th Cavalry Division - and holding it off.
Captain Edward Bradbury, Battery Sergeant-Major Dorrell and Sergeant Nelson were now manning the sole surviving gun of 'L' Battery and continued to do so until Captain Bradbury was hit and mortally wounded, after which the others kept up the fire until they ran out of ammunition. That was long enough for 'I' Battery, RHA, and the 4th Cavalry Brigade to come over from St Vaast and reinforce them, joined shortly afterwards by units of the 10th Infantry Division. The 11th Hussars, backed by infantry from the 1st Middlesex, charged the German guns and chased the enemy for more than a mile before they were recalled, bringing back seventy-eight prisoners from the 4th Cavalry Division. Losses were severe; theIst Cavalry Brigade lost 135 men, including five officers and forty-nine men belonging to 'L' Battery, but, once again, discipline, professionalism and a willingness to stand and fight had paid dividends for an outnumbered British unit. Captain Bradbury, Battery Sergeant-Major Dorrell and Sergeant Nelson subsequently received the Victoria Cross for their action with the guns at Nery. Lieutenant J. Giffard received the Legion of Honour.
Nor was this all. On the same day, farther to the east, the 1st Guards Brigade of I Corps became hotly engaged at Villers Cotterets, where the Guards were covering the withdrawal of the 2nd Division. The action here involved the 2nd and 3rd Coldstream, the rst Irish Guards and the 2nd Grenadiers, and took place largely in the thick woods of the Foret de Villers Cotterets when the brigade were engaged by elements of the German III Corps and the 2nd and 9th Cavalry Divisions. (12) The action here began at about 1000 hours and went on until 1800- hours, when the Guards withdrew, having held off the enemy for most of the day, fighting against great odds and inflicting considerable casualties. The 4th Guards Brigade lost over 300 officers and men and the 6th Infantry Brigade, which covered the Guards' withdrawal, around 100 men. Two platoons of the 1st Grenadier Guards were surrounded at the Rond de la Reine in the middle of the forest and fought to the last man - Field Marshal French was quite wrong in assuming that his men were no longer able to fight.
French was taking council of his fears and had reached the decision that the Anglo-French situation on the Western Front was now critical. To be fair, there is some evidence to support this view; French attacks along the German frontier ordered under Plan XVII had been thrown back with losses and the German right wing had succeeded in forcing the French left wing and the BEF into full retreat. The German armies were now sweeping south, and in spite of the victory at Guise there seemed no way of stopping them in their headlong march towards Paris. Those who wanted to look on the dark side at this time could see more prob lems looming in the immediate future.
On the other hand, this was only one view; there were also some hopeful signs. The Allied soldiers falling back towards the Aisne, the Oise and the Marne were clearly exhausted and short of supplies, but then so were their adversaries. In spite of frantic efforts to repair the torn-up Belgian and French railway lines and link them with those of Germany, the German armies were outmarching their supplies and forced to live off the land- and all too often off the wine; many BEF accounts relate how any village retaken from the enemy was littered with empty bottles. German losses had been considerable and the troops were now bone weary, but German atrocities did not cease.
The German Army occupied St Quentin on the afternoon of 29 August, and within hours posted notices requiring all men aged between eighteen and forty-eight to register with the occupying authorities. A curfew was announced from 1900 hours to dawn each day, all movement from the city was stopped, and coal, factory equipment, wine and mattresses had to be handed in. These actions may have been excusable but the punishments for failure to comply were harsh. Two British soldiers found sheltering with French families were shot; the families were sent to labour camps. Three French soldiers found behind the German lines were also shot, and a French pensioner of the Franco-Prussian War was executed for the possession of an 1870 model rifle. The male population was then obliged to undertake forced labour, constructing defences, those who declined to do so being imprisoned or shot. None of this did any good to the reputation of the German Army, which was gradually running out of men.
Replacements were clearly needed, but where were they to come from? German reverses in the east had obliged von Moltke to send two corps from the west, and this was only one reduction among several. More forces had been detached to invest the port of Antwerp and others to besiege Maubeuge. Maubeuge, though battered by heavy guns, held out until 6 September, but every town, village, railway bridge or river crossing that had fallen into German hands since the war began required a guard or a garrison. And so, slowly, the strength of the German thrust leaked away, with every mile of their advance.
Plans are one thing, the reality of war quite another. It was now obvious, not least to von Moltke, that the Schlieffen Plan had been too ambitious. Von Schlieffen had arrived at his plan through a logical assessment of Germany's strategic position and the need, in view of the Franco-Russian Pact, to avoid a two-front war. But the plan was based on nineteenth-century logistical and transport arrangements that were simply not up to the burden the plan laid upon them. Basically, the German soldiers charged with marching and fighting their way into France and defeating the French armies in six weeks ran out of food and energy before they arrived on the Marne.
The other problem is that war is unpredictable. Campaigns rarely - perhaps never- go as planned. The Russians had mobilized far more quickly and put up a much better fight than von Schlieffen had anticipated, but there were also tactical errors on the German side, most notably the eagerness of the German commanders in Lorraine to counter-attack against the oncoming French and drive them back - an action that threw the 'revolving door' part of the Schlieffen Plan out of gear. And finally there were the setbacks caused by the resistance of the Belgians on the Meuse and at Antwerp, the appearance of the BEF at Mons, the stopping blow at Le Cateau, and the reverse at Guise. Taken singly, none of these actions presented a real reverse to German arms, but the effect was cumulative and paved the way for the major reverse on the Marne.
The Fifth Army's victory at Guise on 29 August jarred the Germans considerably. It also enabled the BEF to make good its escape unhindered, to the River Aisne, which it reached on 30 August, a day notable as that on which von Hindenburg shattered the Russian Army at Tannenberg. News of this setback in the east had not arrived by 31 August, when Field Marshal French took a decision that threatened to destroy the fragile fabric of the Anglo French military alliance.
For the past week, ever since the full extent of the German threat had dawned upon him, General Joffre had been intent on reinforcing his left wing, protecting Paris and protecting his armies against the German attempt to roll them up from the west. He recognized the left flank as the weakest part of the entire French front- and the extreme end of that flank was occupied by the BEF, a force to which Joffre could not give direct commands. Any commander would have been concerned that the spot vital for national survival was in the keeping of an Allied army, but Field Marshal French's volatile conduct since his arrival in Fran
ce had not added to Joffre's confidence.
Joffre naturally wanted to have French troops on this critical flank, commanded by reliable officers who were directly under his orders. He was therefore weakening his right flank in Lorraine and his centre in the Ardennes to find units for a new army, the Sixth Army, which was now being formed under General Maunoury and moving to a position on the extreme left flank of the line, beyond the BEF. The Sixth Army began to take up positions north of Paris even as the BEF retreated across the Aisne and south, into a position between the Fifth Army and the Sixth Army.
There is no need to give a blow-by-blow account of the remaining days of the BEF retreat. This finally ended on 5 September when the Sixth Army was ready to make the opening moves of the French counter-attack- the Battle of the Marne. Indeed, to labour the exploits and hardships of the BEF during the retreat from Mons is to take their actions out of context; they did well, but no better than their French comrades, and it took some days for the many stragglers to come in and rejoin their units. One account by a BEF medical officer recalls:
On arriving at Compiegne on August 28 we found we were to be stationed in a kind of sports ground with a small grandstand on one side. When we got there we found there were already about 300 BEF stragglers there who had rolled up on their own with no officers as yet. Instructions were received for our CO to take over as camp commandant and there was a constant stream of stragglers coming in, in parties of one or two or up to 30 at a time, mostly under NCOs, only about half a dozen officers. Each party was quite sure they were the only survivors of their battalion and while they were telling us that another party of the same battalion rolled up. They were in rather a state. Most of them, or quite half, had no arms or equipment of any sort. All were footsore and some had slight wounds. How they found their way was a bit of a mystery. The marvel will always be how many of them stood up to the intense fatigue and fighting continuously for days against hopelessly overwhelming odds.
Between 23 August and 5 September the BEF marched at least 320 kilometres (200 miles), in scorching heat and drenching rain with little food and no more than two or three hours' rest per day. When the retreat ended the BEF had apparently lost around 20,000 men, but troops continued to trickle in during the following days and weeks and the final total of men lost - killed, wounded or missing- was in the region of 15,000, plus forty-five guns, most of the losses falling on the hard-pressed II Corps.
The Official History sums up the state of the BEF when the retreat ended: 'They were short of food and sleep when they began their retreat; they continued it, always short of food and sleep, for thirteen days and at the end they were still an army and a formid able army. They were never demoralized for they rightly judged that they had never been beaten.' (13)
Not beaten, perhaps, but certainly disorganized. Writing to his wife from Compiègne on 30 August, Henry Wilson records:
We are still here, gradually withdrawing our troops to the west under cover of the R. Oise. No fighting for us today, and if we get ten days of quiet we shall be able to get out of the really great confusion we are now in. We have men of every battalion and battery scattered all over the place, columns of ammunition, sappers, ambulances, parks etc., mixed up in a most bewildering way. Still quite impossible to say who has been killed, wounded or missing though a preliminary list goes home today, I hope. We are still waiting for the 6th Division and what on earth keeps the Cabinet from sending it here passes all understanding. (14)
The BEF would not get ten days of quiet. In spite of their numerous problems the men in these units were more than ready to fight, but on 30 August Field Marshal French informed Kitchener and Joffre that he intended to exercise the privilege of independent command. His men, he declared, were exhausted and short of supplies. He therefore intended to withdraw the BEF to a safe haven south of Paris and keep it there until it was refreshed, re-equipped and reinforced. Only then would he bring his force back to the battle.
Once again, as in his orders preventing BEF participation in the Battle of Guise, French's action seems to have been motivated by his early experiences with Lanrezac. 'I could not forget', French wrote: ‘that the 5th French Army had commenced to retreat from the Sambre at least 24 hours before I had been given any official intimation that Joffre's offensive plan had been abandoned. Only due to the vast superiority of our cavalry and the marching and fighting powers of our troops had we been saved from an overwhelming disaster ... It is impossible to exaggerate the danger of the situation as it existed. Neither on this day or for several subsequent days did one man, horse, gun or machine-gun reach me to make good deficiencies.’ (15)
Whatever the truth of these assertions, if Field Marshal French carried out his declared intention and took the BEF out of the line, a wide gap would be created in the Allied front and the Battle of the Marne would be fatally compromised before it had even begun.
From the Marne to the Aisne 5-12 September 1914
It appeared to the Cabinet that Sir John French had determined to retire so far out of the Allied line that he would frustrate their policy of co-operating closely with the French.
British Official History, I9I4, Vol. I, p. 244
To trace the origins of the next dramatic event in the BEF story it is necessary to go back to 29 August, the day of the Battle of Guise, and refer to the memoirs of Field Marshal French. Although French's account is a masterpiece of obfuscation- and frequently a tissue of lies- now and then it proves helpful, not least in revealing the thinking of the commander-in-chief of the BEF at critical moments in its history.
By now it will be clear that from the very start of this campaign the field marshal had been prone to doubt and subject to mood swings. From 25 August he had become increasingly convinced that his force had suffered considerable losses, that his allies were unreliable and that the enemy was about to overwhelm him. The field marshal maintains this position in his memoirs, while freely admitting at the same time that his troops were still fighting hard, were well disciplined and by no means disheartened. Even so, when offered a choice between optimism and pessimism, the Field Marshal usually took the gloomy view, and so it was on 29 August.
'Throughout the day', he writes, ‘reports, often contradictory and conflicting, reached me. It was quite clear that our position on the Oise was being dangerously threatened by superior forces and I felt that it would be impossible to stand on that line even until we could make good some of our heavy losses and I could not hope to get anything up for several days to come. With great reluctance I ordered the retreat to be continued to the line of the Aisne from Compiegne to Soissons but in view of the knock given to the enemy at Guise by the Fifth French Army and the desire expressed by General Joffre that the Allied forces should hold their ground as long as possible and only retire when necessary I directed all commanders to carry out their marches with all deliberation and to take advantage of every opportunity to check the enemy's advance.’ (1)
If so, French was ordering his commanders to do no more than they were doing already, while Joffre, as French confirms in the next paragraph, was 'most anxious to take the offensive at the earliest possible moment'. (2) Therefore- and again according to French's own account- on the afternoon of 29 August Joffre came to see French at Compiegne to urge the Field Marshal to keep his force in the line and join the French in the forthcoming offensive.
French declined to do so. 'I remained firm in my absolute conviction that the British forces could not effectively fulfil their share in such action for some days and that, in so far as we were concerned, a further retreat was inevitable. I strongly represented to Joffre the advantage of drawing the German armies on still further from their base, even although we had to move south of the Marne.' In fact, again according to French, his intention was to withdraw the BEF even farther south, to somewhere between the Marne and the Seine.
The problem with tracking the course of the Field Marshal's decisions is that his account is frequently contradictory- as again here
: 'The French Army was still in full retreat,' he writes. 'The French 6th Army on our left was not yet formed and the Commander-in-Chief had put no definite plan of attack before me, with an assigned role which he desired me to fulfil. All he asked me to do was to remain in the line and fill up the gap between the 5th and 6th Armies. This I had every intention of doing.' (3)
One must doubt this, if French's other statement on the same page- that a further BEF retreat was 'inevitable' - is anything to go by. Inevitably, French is incapable of making this latter, more positive declaration without a further swipe at his particular bête noire, Horace Smith-Dorrien. 'I am bound to say that I had to make this decision in the face of resistance from some of my subordinate commanders, who took a depressed view as to the condition of the troops. When I discussed the situation at a meeting of British commanders held at Compiegne, Sir Horace SmithDorrien expressed it as his opinion that the only course open to us was to retire to our base, thoroughly refit, re-embark and try to land at some favourable point on the coastline. I refused to listen to what was the equivalent of a counsel of despair.' (4)
This account, published in French's memoirs in 1919, is a lie. When it appeared, a furious Smith-Dorrien wrote to the other BEF commanders present at that Compiegne meeting - Haig, Allen by and French's chief-of-staff in 1914, Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Murray - asking whether they could recall him ever expressing such an opinion. Without exception they stated that they had no such recollection and, on the contrary, had found Smith-Dorrien 'full of optimism at all times'.
It will also be recalled that only three days previously, at Le Cateau, French had chided Smith-Dorrien, in front of his staff, for being' over-optimistic'. The field marshal also neglects to mention that on 29 August he had given a warning order to Major-General F. S. Robb, the BEF's Inspector General of Communications- the officer responsible for transport and supply- advising him that he had decided to make 'a definite and prolonged retreat, due south, passing Paris to the east or west'.
The Old Contemptibles Page 21