Battle of Mons
The Battle of Mons, or the First Battle of Mons to differentiate it from another battle later in the war, was the first big engagement of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War. It was a subsidiary action of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the Allies clashed with the German Army on the French–German frontier. At Mons, the British Army attempted to hold the line of the Mons–Condé Canal against the advancing German 1st Army. Although the British fought well and inflicted disproportionate casualties on the numerically superior Germans, they were forced to retreat due to being outnumbered and the sudden retreat of the French Fifth Army which exposed the British right flank. Though initially planned as a simple tactical withdrawal and executed in good order, the British retreat from Mons lasted for two weeks and took the BEF to the outskirts of Paris, before it counter-attacked in concert with the French, at the First Battle of the Marne.
Background
Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 and on 9 August, the BEF began embarking for France. Unlike many Continental armies, the BEF in 1914 was small. At the beginning of the war, the German and French armies numbered well over a million men each, divided into eight and five field armies respectively; the BEF had troops in two corps of long-service volunteers and reservists. The BEF was probably the best trained and most experienced of the European armies of 1914. British training emphasised rapid-fire marksmanship and the average British soldier was able to hit a man-sized target fifteen times a minute, at a range of with his Lee–Enfield rifle. This ability to generate a high volume of accurate rifle-fire played an important role in the BEF's battles of 1914.The Battle of Mons took place during the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the advancing German armies clashed with the advancing Allied armies along the Franco–Belgian and Franco–German borders. The BEF was stationed on the left of the French line, which stretched from Alsace-Lorraine in the east to Mons and Charleroi in southern Belgium. The British position on the French flank meant that it stood in the path of the German 1st Army, the outermost wing of the massive "right hook" intended by the German deployment plan, a combination of the Aufmarsch I West and Aufmarsch II West plans, to pursue the Allied armies after defeating them on the frontier and force them to abandon northern France and Belgium or risk destruction.
The British reached Mons on 22 August. In the afternoon a message arrived from General Charles Lanrezac, addressed to Field Marshal Sir John French requesting the BEF to turn right to attack von Bülow's advancing flank. The Fifth Army, on the right of the BEF, was engaged with the German 2nd Army and the 3rd Army at the Battle of Charleroi. French refused, instead agreeing to hold the line of the Condé–Mons–Charleroi Canal for twenty-four hours, to prevent the 1st Army from threatening the French left flank. The British spent the day digging in along the canal.
Prelude
British preparations
At the Battle of Mons the BEF had some 80,000 men, comprising the Cavalry Division, the independent 5th Cavalry Brigade and two corps, each with two infantry divisions. I Corps was composed of the 1st Division and 2nd Division. II Corps comprised the 3rd Division and 5th Division. Each division had and in three brigades of four battalions. Each division had twenty-four Vickers machine guns and three field artillery brigades with fifty-four 18-pounder guns, one field howitzer brigade of eighteen 4.5-inch howitzers and a heavy artillery battery of four 60-pounder guns.II Corps, on the left of the British line, occupied defensive positions along the Mons–Condé Canal, while I Corps was positioned almost at a right angle away from the canal, along the Mons–Beaumont road. I Corps was deployed in this manner to protect the right flank of the BEF in case the French were forced to retreat from their position at Charleroi. I Corps did not line the canal, which meant that it was little involved in the battle and the German attack was faced mostly by II Corps. The dominant geographical feature of the battlefield, was a loop in the canal, jutting outwards from Mons towards the village of Nimy. This loop formed a small salient which was difficult to defend and formed the focus of the battle.
The first contact between the two armies occurred on 21 August, when a British bicycle reconnaissance unit encountered a German force near Obourg and Private John Parr became the first British soldier to be killed in the war. At on 22 August the 4th Royal Irish Dragoons sent two officers' patrols from Obourg northwards towards Soignies and one drove off a German outpost, the first occasion that British troops fired on Germans. A troop advanced later and engaged German cavalry advancing south from Soignies towards Mons, repulsing it near Casteau and began a pursuit until stopped by German return-fire. Three to four German cavalry were killed and three taken prisoner from the 4th Cuirassiers of the 9th Cavalry Division. That day, having used British reconnaissance aircraft along with Lanrezac's messaging to his army staff, the BEF's chief of intelligence, Colonel George Macdonogh, warned French that three German corps were advancing towards the BEF. French chose to ignore these claims, instead proposing to advance towards Soignies.
German preparations
Advancing towards the British was the German 1st Army, commanded by Alexander von Kluck. The 1st Army was composed of four active corps, II Corps, III Corps, IV Corps and IX Corps and three reserve corps, III Reserve Corps, IV Reserve Corps and IX Reserve Corps, although only the active corps took part in the fighting at Mons. German corps had two divisions each, with attendant cavalry and artillery. The 1st Army had the greatest offensive power of the German armies, with a density of per of front, or about ten per.Late on 20 August, General Karl von Bülow, the 2nd Army commander, who had tactical control over the 1st Army while north of the Sambre, held the view that an encounter with the British was unlikely and wished to concentrate on the French units reported between Charleroi and Namur, on the south bank of the Sambre; reconnaissance in the afternoon failed to reveal the strength or intentions of the French. The 2nd Army was ordered to reach a line from Binche, Fontaine-l'Eveque and the Sambre next day to assist the 3rd Army across the Meuse by advancing south of the Sambre on 23 August. The 1st Army was instructed to be ready to cover Brussels and Antwerp to the north and Maubeuge to the south-west. Kluck and the 1st Army staff expected to meet British troops, probably through Lille, which made a wheel to the south premature. Kluck wanted to advance to the south-west to maintain freedom of manoeuvre and on 21 August, attempted to persuade Bülow to allow the 1st Army to continue its manoeuvre. Bülow refused and ordered the 1st Army to isolate Maubeuge and support the right flank of the 2nd Army, by advancing to a line from Lessines to Soignies, while the III and IV reserve corps remained in the north, to protect the rear of the army from Belgian operations southwards from Antwerp.
On 22 August, the 13th Division of the VII Corps, on the right flank of the 2nd Army, encountered British cavalry north of Binche, as the rest of the army to the east began an attack over the Sambre against the Fifth Army. By the evening the bulk of the 1st Army had reached a line from Silly to Thoricourt, Louvignies and Mignault; the III Reserve Corps and IV Reserve Corps had occupied Brussels and screened Antwerp. Reconnaissance by cavalry and aircraft indicated that the area to the west of the army was free of troops and that British troops were not concentrating around Kortrijk, Lille and Tournai but were thought to be on the left flank of the Fifth Army, from Mons to Maubeuge. Earlier in the day, British cavalry had been reported at Casteau, to the north-east of Mons. A British aeroplane had been seen at Louvain on 20 August and on the afternoon of 22 August, a British aircraft, en route from Maubeuge, was shot down by the 5th Division. More reports had reached IX Corps that columns were moving from Valenciennes to Mons, which made clear the British deployment but were not passed on to the 1st Army headquarters. Kluck assumed that the subordination of the 1st Army to the 2nd Army had ended, since the passage of the Sambre had been forced. Kluck wished to be certain to envelop the left flank of the opposing forces to the south but was again over-ruled and ordered to advance south, rather than south-west, on 23 August.
Late on 22 August, reports arrived that the British had occupied the Canal du Centre crossings from Nimy to Ville-sur-Haine, which revealed the location of British positions, except for their left flank. On 23 August, the 1st Army began to advance north-west of Maubeuge, to a line from Basècles to St Ghislain and Jemappes. The weather had turned cloudy and rainy, which grounded the 1st Army Flieger-Abteilung all day, despite an improvement in the weather around noon. News that large numbers of troops had been arriving at Tournai by train were received and the advance was suspended until the reports from Tournai could be checked. The IX Corps divisions advancing in four columns against the Canal du Centre, from the north of Mons to Roeulx and on their left flank, met French troops at the canal, which was thought to be the junction of the British and French forces. Quast had ordered an attack for to seize the crossings, before the halt order was received. The two III Corps divisions were close to St Ghislain and Lochow ordered them to prepare an attack from Tertre to Ghlin. In the IV Corps area, General Friedrich Sixt von Armin ordered an attack on the canal crossings of Péruwelz and Blaton and ordered the 8th Division to reconnoitre from Tournai to Condé and to keep contact with Höhere Kavallerie-Kommando 2.