The British retreat from Mons

On 24 August 1914 the British Expeditionary Force began its retreat from the Belgian town of Mons, where it had fought its first battle the day before. It was the beginning of the Great Retreat, which was to last almost two weeks and end only on the Marne.

A decision in the night

On the evening of 23 August Field Marshal Sir John French learned that the French Fifth Army under General Lanrezac, beaten on the Sambre, was falling back to the south. At the same time reports were coming in of strong German columns outflanking the British left wing from the west. The force was threatened with encirclement by the much more numerous First Army of General Alexander von Kluck.

At about one o’clock in the morning of 24 August French’s staff issued an order to retreat to a line near Bavay, a dozen or so kilometres south of the Mons–Condé canal. I Corps under General Douglas Haig, less heavily engaged the previous day, broke contact with the enemy relatively easily. A much harder task faced II Corps under General Horace Smith-Dorrien, which was still in direct contact with the Germans.

Rearguard actions

In the morning the Germans attacked the withdrawing units of II Corps around Frameries, Pâturages and Wasmes, mining villages south of Mons. The British battalions defended themselves among the slag heaps and buildings and then fell back to the south one after another.

The most dangerous situation arose on the western wing. The German IV Corps tried to outflank the British and cut off their line of retreat. At Elouges and Audregnies (PL) the flank was covered by two infantry battalions, the 1st Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment, supported by 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, and by units of General Edmund Allenby’s Cavalry Division. Squadrons of the 9th Lancers and the 4th Dragoon Guards attempted to charge the German infantry and artillery, but were stopped by wire fences and heavy fire.

The covering force did its job: the 5th Division managed to withdraw. The price, however, was high. The Cheshires did not receive the order to retreat in time; the battalion was surrounded and almost entirely destroyed, and many of its men were taken prisoner. The commander of 119th Battery, Major Ernest Alexander, with volunteers including the wounded Captain Francis Grenfell of the 9th Lancers, manhandled the guns out of the enemy’s fire. Both were awarded the Victoria Cross.

According to British estimates, losses on 24 August amounted to about 2,000 killed, wounded and missing, more than in the Battle of Mons itself. In the evening the Expeditionary Force halted around Bavay. In British tradition the fighting of 24 August is often counted as part of the Battle of Mons, then dated 23–24 August.

The long march south

The retreat soon turned into an exhausting march in the heat, almost without rest. In the path of the retreating corps lay the extensive Forest of Mormal, which separated Haig’s and Smith-Dorrien’s forces. On 26 August II Corps, too tired to march any further, turned to fight at Le Cateau. The Great Retreat ended only at the beginning of September, when the Allied armies went over to the counter-offensive on the Marne. In that time the British covered more than 200 kilometres.

The soldiers who fought in France and Belgium in the first months of the war later received the 1914 Star, a decoration for service between 5 August and 22 November 1914. It was popularly known as the Mons Star, and its holders proudly called themselves the “Old Contemptibles”. The name referred to an alleged order by Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was said to have called the British force a “contemptible little army”. Historians, however, doubt the authenticity of this order.