United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Not only was Von Buelow's right exposed, but a gap had been left between his left and Von Hausen's right, possibly for troops which were detained at Maubeuge or had been diverted to East Prussia. Nor was this all, for his centre was bogged in the famous marshes of St. Gond.
General French effected his retreat during the night behind the salient of Mons. Threatened on August 24 by the strength of the whole German army, he fled backward in the direction of Maubeuge." The German hosts now stood at the gates of France. It was a mighty spectacle.
The position of the Allied armies was based on the resisting power of Namur. It was expected that Namur would delay the German advance as long as Liege had done. Then the French line of frontier fortresses Lille, with its half-finished defenses; Maubeuge, with strong forts and a large garrison; and other strongholds would form a still more useful system of fortified points for the Allies.
Probably from the day it was put up this station had never been really and entirely clean. Judged by American standards Continental railway stations are rarely ever clean, even when conditions are normal. Now that conditions were anything but normal, this Maubeuge station was incredibly and incurably filthy.
A German army could debouch into France through this gap the more easily inasmuch as the French, relying on the neutrality of these two states, had not strongly fortified the frontier from the sea to Maubeuge.
Consequently we possessed our souls in impatience and dabbled in conjecture. Veterans gave tips on war in the open country, or chatted airily about another tour of such places as Le Catelet, Le Cateau, Mons, the Maubeuge district, and Namur. The cautious listened in silence, and distilled only two facts from the dubious mixture of fancy.
After taking some tea, the remainder of the evening was dedicated to reciprocal conversation of all kinds; and our guards having acquaintance in the town, and knowing it was impossible for us to escape, even were we so inclined, very civilly left us to ourselves. We found the General had been wounded at Maubeuge, and was now absent on conge for the recovery of his health.
First, that the locking up of any considerable portion of the Anglo-French force in its retirement would have jeopardized the chance of that counter-offensive which the French hoped sooner or later to initiate; secondly, that, as will be seen later, the works of Maubeuge were quite insufficient to resist for more than a few days a modern siege train.
The Germans bombarded our lines nearly all day, using heavy guns brought, no doubt, from before Maubeuge as well as those with the corps. "All the German counter-attacks, however, failed, although in some places they were repeated six times. One made on the Fourth Guards Brigade was repulsed with heavy slaughter. "Further counter-attacks made during the night were beaten off.
Current rumor among the soldiers at Binche for the natives, seemingly through fear for their own skins, would tell us nothing was that at Maubeuge the onward-pressing Germans had caught up with the withdrawing columns of the Allies and were trying to bottle the stubborn English rear guard. For once the gossip of the privates and the noncommissioned officers proved to be true.
Word Of The Day