Mons and after

The 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers resting in Mons before the battle. I've often wondered who the hatless guy near the middle looking at the camera was and what happened to him. These guys look tired already and they're about fight a battle and then walk almost all the way back to Paris!

The French army is still retreating and the BEF still moving forward. However, it looks as if the BEF is going to have to handle Mons and the retreat without me. I'm off to the UK tomorrow and will have few chances to blog. Should be back for the Marne.

Interestingly, Mons on August 23 is probably the battle with the most mythology associated with it. The Angels and ghostly Agincourt bowmen were obviously created some time after the battle, but the idea that the Germans thought every British soldier had a machine gun is tougher to deny. The British did have fewer machine-guns and they did have the "Mad Minute", 15 aimed rifle rounds fired in a minute, which decimated the packed ranks of advancing German soldiers, but it's easy to tell the difference between machine-gun and concentrated rifle fire, so it's probably likely that the myth was put forward in the newspapers to make the British soldiers seem even better than they were.

The Guns of August

"Europe, in her insanity, has started something almost unbelievable. In such times one realises to what a sad species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and contemplations and feel only pity and disgust." Albert Einstein, August 19.

The French on the way to Berlin.

August 1914 was one of the bloodiest months of WWI, yet the battles are (unless you're British and know about the relatively small engagement at Mons), much less well known to our cultural memory than the Somme or Ypres. This is probably different in France where most of the fighting took place (anyone want to guest blog on it?).

As millions of Germans flooded through Belgium on their way to Paris, to the south millions of Frenchmen headed for Berlin. The titanic struggles that resulted throughout the month contributed the first several hundred thousand casualties to WWI's toll. On August 22 alone, at Charleroi and in the Ardennes, the French lost 27,000 dead, 8,000 more than the British dead on the first day of the Somme in 1916.

The Germans on the way to Paris.

Meanwhile, the relatively tiny British regular army packed its bags crossed the Channel and heading optimistically into Belgium, totally unaware that the French Armies were disintegrating around them. On August 7, Kitchener, realizing that it would be a long war, called for 100,000 volunteers.  Within days of the call, men were being sworn in at  a rate of 100 an hour in London alone. According to The Times, there was little obvious excitement, "but there was an undercurrent of enthusiasm, and the disappointment of those who failed to pass one or other of the test was obvious."

WAR—August 4

King George, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales after the declaration of war on August 4.

Britain sent a message to Germany repeating, as Prime Minister Asquith said, "the request made last week to the German Government that they should give us the same assurance in regard to Belgian neutrality that was given to us and Belgium by France last week." A deadline of midnight in Berlin (11 p.m. in London) was given for a reply.

It's unlikely that many people on either side thought the British ultimatum would have any effect. Things had gone too far. The ultimatum was a casus belli to justify Britain going to war. Bethmann Hollweg certainly thought so, he believed that the treaty assuring Belgian neutrality had the value of a "scrap of paper," and that Britain was going to war for her own interests.

Sir Edward Grey came very close to confirming this perspective in a conversation with the American Ambassador. He said, "The issue for us is, that if Germany wins, she will dominate France…she will dominate the whole of Western Europe, and this will make our position quite impossible. We could not exist as a first class State under such circumstances."

As 11 p.m. came and went, the British Government issued a statement: "Owing to the summary rejection by the German Government of the request made by his Majesty's Government for assurances that the neutrality of Belgium will be respected, his Majesty's Ambassador to Berlin has received his passports, and his Majesty's Government declared to the German Government that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany as from 11 p.m. on August 4, 1914."

Germany Declares War on France!—August 3

A quiet walk through the Belgian countryside—with a pipe!

As a first step in the war with France, German troops crossed into Belgium. Bethmann-Hollweg told the Reichstag, "The wrong…that we are committing we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military goal is reached." Nice of him to admit it, but it must have been small comfort to the Belgians as hundreds of thousands of soldiers begin tramping through their nation.

Two people who were to become famous in ways about as different as possible, were involved this day. In Munich, Adolf Hitler petitioned to enlist in a Bavarian regiment. Meanwhile, M.K. Gandhi was a passenger on a ship delayed by British mine laying in the Channel. Gandhi was coming to promote the idea that Indians living in Britain should take "their share in the war."

A significant number of the British Cabinet were not keen on going to war for France—there was no treaty, just a ten-year-old understanding, which had been drawn up to settle quarrels in Egypt and Morocco—but Belgian neutrality was different.

As dusk fell, Sir Edward Grey was looking out a window of the Foreign Office in London, watching the lamplighters light the street lamps. Memorably, he remarked to a friend, "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

A perpetually neutral state—August 2

Alfred von Schlieffen's plan

In the morning, German military patrols crossed into France for the first time since 1871. Corporal Andre Peugeot was killed, becoming number one of what would be over over 1.3 million French military deaths in the war.

At seven o'clock in the evening Germany demanded that Belgium agree within 12 hours to allow free passage to her troops. Belgium—backed by the 1839 Treaty of London which guaranteed her neutrality and had been signed by Britain, Prussia, Austria, France and Russia—refused to sacrifice, "the nation's honor".

Germany's plan to win a swift war depended on her violating Belgian neutrality. The idea was to sweep the army through Belgium and northern France in an arc, taking Paris and trapping the French armies against their own fortifications along the border. If this was down quickly enough, the German armies could then be released to go and defeat Russia who was expected to be very slow to mobilize.  The originator of this vast war scene, Alfred von Schlieffen, is supposed to have said of this vast undertaking, "Let the last man on the right brush the channel with his sleeve."

Interlude 3

First off, I accept that not everyone will be as excited about this as I am but Cambridge University Library has digitized Siegfried Sasson's entire First World War diaries and put them online.

How cool is that?

Previously, because of their fragile state (they still have mud from the Somme trenches on them!), they have only been available to one person, Sassoon's biographer. Now everyone can look at them in incredible detail. You have to love the digital age.




And here's one of my favorites, The General.

"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

                  .          .          .          .

But he did for them both with his plan of attack.

The spell of fear and hate—August 1

The Odeonsplatz, Munich, August 1

"Three hundred million people today lie under the spell of fear and hate. Is there no one to break the spell, no gleam of light on this cold dark scene?" asked a London evening newspaper on August 1. The simple answer was no.

The scene was not everywhere cold and dark. Crowds threw flowers at cavalry in Paris and in Munich's Odeonsplatz similar crowds, including a young struggling painter, Adolf Hitler, cheered the coming war.

In the evening, the German Ambassador to Russia went to the Foreign Ministry in St. Petersburg and handed over the German declaration of war on Russia. The Russian minister said, "This is a criminal act of yours. The curses of the nations will be upon you."

"We are defending our honor," the Ambassador retorted.

"Your honor was not involved," the minister said. "You could have prevented the war by one word; you didn't want to." Apparently, the Ambassador burst into tears and had to be helped from the room.

That night, German troops entered Luxembourg to secure rail and telegraph resources.