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One of the best reconnaissances ever made was that of August 21st, which discovered the 2nd German Corps moving from Brussels through Ninhove and Grammont. From Maubeuge we had to retire on the 24th to Le Cateau, on the 25th to St.

The barrier fortresses of the Meuse, Liége and Namur, had gone up like paper in a fire. Maubeuge was at its last days. Another week's bombardment and the ring of Verdun would be broken. The sweep has no parallel in the monstrous things of history. Ten days had sufficed for the march upon the capital. Nor had there been in that ten days a moment's hope or an hour of relaxation.

France's airmen were flying over Belgium before we marched in; negotiations with France had already taken place, and in Maubeuge there was found an arsenal full of English munitions which had been stationed there before the declaration of war. This arsenal you know where Maubeuge is situated! points to agreements which Great Britain had made with France, and to which Belgium was also party.

But when, at Liége and Namur, at Antwerp and Maubeuge, the Germans proved conclusively that no forts could long withstand the battering of their heavy guns, the French took instant profit by the lesson. They promptly left the citadel and the forts nearest to it and established themselves in trenches on the surrounding hills, taking with them their artillery.

You may take an oblong of country with Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great roads to-day.

This force he stationed in close concealment within the thick forests between Maubeuge and Mons. Towards evening he sent twelve of the most trusty and daring of his followers, disguised as wine merchants, into the city.

In two days fourteen thousand wounded men came back through Maubeuge, and possibly ten times that many new troops, belonging to the first October draft of a million, passed down the line. In that week fifty thousand wounded men returned from the German right wing alone. He's a busy Red Glutton. There seems to be no satisfying his greed.. Belgium The Rag Doll of Europe

This point of Maubeuge and of its fall must be discussed later; for the moment all we need note is that the fortress afforded for a few hours that is, during the night of Monday to Tuesday, the 24th-25th August support to the British line during its first halt upon the rapid and perilous retirement from Mons.

He sent Calvert to Luckner's head-quarters to ask of the Maréchal permission to go to Paris and, placing his troops in safety under the guns of Maubeuge, he departed for the capital, whither he arrived on the 28th.

All the first ten days the cannon boomed without ceasing; by degrees it got more distant, and we knew the forts of Maubeuge were being bombarded by the famous German howitzers, which used to shake the hospital to its foundations. The French soldiers in the wards soon taught us to distinguish the sounds of the different cannon.