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Extending from Arras through the colliery towns of Mons and Charleroi, the extreme western front of the armies was held by General D'Amade at Arras, with about 40,000 reserve territorial troops; by General French, with 80,000 British regulars, at Mons; by the Fifth French Army of 200,000 first-line troops, under General Lanrezac, near Charleroi; and by a force of 25,000 Belgian troops at Namur.
The operative corner was this group of armies before Namur on the Sambre and Meuse, the 4th French Army under Langle, the 5th French Army under Lanrezac, the British contingent under French.
A, Belgians; B, British; C, Lanrezac; D, Langle de Cary; E, Ruffey; F, Castelnau; G, Dubail; H, Pau. Germans. Meantime the French had mobilized with expected speed and before mobilization was completed had pushed a raid into southern Alsace, wholly comparable to the German raid on Liege. But this was a minor operation.
On the 22d the Germans at the cost of considerable losses succeeded in passing the Sambre, and General Lanrezac fell back on Beaumont-Givet, being apprehensive of the danger which threatened his right. On the 24th the British army retreated, in the face of a German attack, on to the Maubeuge-Valenciennes line.
Attempting to pierce and envelop the allied left center, Von Kluck marched across the front of the British to strike at the Fifth French Army commanded by General d'Espérey, who had replaced Lanrezac after the Charleroi defeat. But the turn of the tide was at hand. The first great German offensive had failed in its purpose. By September 12, 1914, the whole German front was retreating northward.
It had consisted in the British contingent upon the left, or west, in front of Mons; the 5th French Army, composed of three army corps, under Lanrezac, to the east of it, along the Sambre, past Charleroi; and the 4th French Army, also of three army corps, under Langle, along the Middle Meuse, being in general disposition what we have upon the accompanying sketch.
On the same day, August 22, 1914, the Fifth French Army, under the lead of General Lanrezac, was enduring the double stress of Von Bülow's army thundering against its front, and Von Hausen's two army corps pressing hard upon its right flank and rear, threatening its line of retreat.
The First Corps was at that moment scarcely out of difficulty, and General Sordêt whose troops had been fighting hard on the flank of the Fifth French Army, with General Lanrezac, against General von Bülow's hosts was unable to help the British, owing to the exhausted state of his cavalry. The situation was full of peril; indeed, Wednesday bade fair to become the most critical day of the retreat.
On the right, the Third and Fourth French armies under Ruffey and Langle de Cary had advanced from the Meuse to attack the Germans across the Semois. They were severely checked and withdrew behind the Meuse, while an unsuspected army of Saxons under Von Hausen attacked the right flank of the Fifth French army under Lanrezac which lay along the Sambre with its right flank resting on the Meuse.
To the three armies in the field, those commanded severally by General Manoury, Sir John French, and General Lanrezac, the generalissimo steadily sent reenforcements. But he informed the French Government that he was not able to save the capital from a siege.
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