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Updated: June 13, 2025
In camp near Charleroi, Pa., Friday, May 4. Pilgrim, built for the glassy lakes and smooth-flowing rivers of Wisconsin, had suffered unwonted indignities in her rough journey of a thousand miles in a box-car.
All the rest of that day the Fourth corps were filing over the bridge, and we learned at night, that the whole army had passed the Sambre, and that there had been fighting near Charleroi, at Marchiennes, and Jumet.
Marshal Blucher now rapidly concentrated his forces, calling them in from the left upon Ligny, which is to the north-east of Charleroi. Wellington also drew his troops together, calling them in from the right.
Absent were the usual intermittent flare of blast furnaces. The greater part of Charleroi had become a heap of ruins. Those of its citizens still alive cowered in holes or corners for shelter. The battle of Charleroi went on throughout the night. Early on the morning of Sunday, August 23, 1914, Von Hausen swept down through the gap between the armies of Von Bülow and the Duke of Württemberg.
Mighty armies of 170,000 Russians and 250,000 Austrians were rolling slowly on towards Lorraine and Alsace respectively; 120,000 Prussians, under Blücher, were cantoned between Liège and Charleroi; while Wellington's composite array of British, German, and Dutch-Belgian troops, about 100,000 strong, lay between Brussels and Mons.
At Charleroi, where they arrived on the 22d, they enjoyed Christian association of the most interesting kind, especially with Pastors Poinsot and Jaccard, and with Marzial, who followed them from Brussels. They seem to have found much more of the life of religion among the newly-awakened in Belgium than they had expected.
Numbers of our comrades and of the wounded remained behind at Gosselies, but the larger part of the army kept on their way, and about nine o'clock we began to see the spires of Charleroi in the distance, when suddenly we heard shouts, cries, complaints, and shots intermingled, half a league before us.
"Papa says we shall go direct to Calais," replied Feodora, looking very sad, as, indeed, she felt when she thought of the separation. "I believe our company are going by Charleroi to Paris, and from there to Brest. Probably we shall never meet again." "O, I hope we shall!" exclaimed Feodora, looking up into his face. "It is not very probable."
The Germans, however, imagined, that once their vast armies crossed the Meuse and began a march on Namur and Charleroi, the martial ardor of the Belgians would cool and that beyond a formal protest, no resistance would be offered. As France and Belgium had been on terms of friendship for many years, the Franco-Belgian frontier had not been protected by fortresses.
"Two great losses at Morhange and Charleroi, at the East and the North. The enemy is going to invade French soil! . . . But our army is intact, and will retreat in good order. Good fortune may still be ours. A great calamity, but all is not lost." Preparations for the defense of Paris were being pushed forward . . . rather late. The forts were supplying themselves with new cannon.
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