595. The First World War: The Battle of the Frontiers (Part 2)

27:30But not all at once, presumably. I think you could have a brilliant holiday with those three words. And just to remind people, Henry Wilson speaks excellent French, doesn't he? Yes. Exactly. Now, Laurent Jacques is a real Cassandra, as in, he's right. He has been warning his fellow French commanders for weeks that the Germans are going to come through Belgium, and they're going to come through Belgium in far greater strength than anybody thinks. And basically, nobody has listened to him because they just think he's a massive doomster, and who cares what this guy thinks. and a week before the battle of the frontiers Lorzac had gone to see Joffre and he had said please don't send your troops into the death trap of the Ardennes that's his words and Joffre had said no way and by the way I forbid you to retreat when the Germans come at you and Lorzac said I left with death in my soul so now a week on from that the 21st of August Lorzac realises geez I was completely right because he hears reports that the German 2nd and 3rd armies are coming right at him.

28:33The Germans capture these bridges over the River Sambre. He tries to retake the bridges. The Germans can't be dislodged, and they keep coming. The next day is the 22nd of August. So this is the same day that Joffre's men are being massacred in the Ardennes. Lorzac sends the 5th Army into the attack. He says, we've got to recapture these bridges. We've got to stop the Germans from getting across. It's a complete and utter disaster. So there's a British liaison officer who's watching who says, They went into this assault with the utmost gallantry, as if at maneuvers, bugles blowing, drums beating, flags flying.

29:07They were like eager children, as gay as if it were the dawn of a holiday, and they were going to march down the road to make a day of it at the local fair. And across the valley, German artillery, machine guns. The result is a complete and utter bloodbath. And Lorzak's army begins to break. So he holds out for another day. And then by the 23rd of August, he says, sod my orders. We just have to retreat now. The army is going to be destroyed. And he's right about that, isn't he? He's totally right. So he, in a way, his retreat enables in the long run, the French army to hold the Germans off. He's really hard done by because, spoiler alert, he ends up being fired.

29:46But actually, he was right about everything. Anyway, his men are retreating. Now, the British are kind of adjoining them. And the British, of course, have been like drinking wine, kissing people at stations, you know. Moule and Freit and all that. They've been having a brilliant time. Have they been told that the French are retreating? No. They haven't been told, A, that the French are retreating, or B, there are loads of Germans coming right at them. So basically, they have no idea what's about to hit them? No. So by the evening of the 22nd of August, they have reached this little industrial town called Mons, which is about 20 miles west of Charlois, where L 'Orzak has been having his terrible sort of meltdown.

30:29Now, they think the Germans are still way ahead of them, and they have no idea how many Germans there are. But a few miles away in the darkness, as night falls, the 160 ,000 men of Alexander von Kluck's German First Army are preparing to strike. And Dominic, remind us how many men of the British Expeditionary Force are lying in their path? There are about 80 ,000. Outnumbered two to one. These are the kind of odds that the British enjoy. So unbelievable excitement. and we will find out what happens next after the break.

31:11Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. It's the 22nd of August, 1914. And for the last 10 days, the British Expeditionary Force has been marching east through the fields of eastern France and Belgium. Following, I guess you could say, you know, they've crossed the channel in the manner that the English did under Edward III and Henry V, when English armies loved fighting against overwhelming odds. So part of a continuum, you might say. And Dominic, we've been hearing from Aubrey Herbert, this Baleale man turned Tory MP, and we don't have that kind of person on Goldhanger Podcast, do we? And he wrote, the people threw open their houses, their barns and their orchards.

31:54They could not have been kinder everywhere. Corn was offered for our horses and wine for ourselves. But there was a great fear underlying the quiet so it's not total on souciance there is a sense of foreboding oh there definitely is i think as they get to mons which they do that afternoon when they get to mons there is this sense now okay the you know the the big clash is coming something is up ahead now they are i mean they've been marching for what is it 10 days or so so their foot saw They're burned by the sun. But they're pretty confident, I think. They know that they're excited, I think, rather than really apprehensive.

32:33Their officers say that evening, okay, stop here. We will hold the canal. There's a canal that runs about 15 miles west towards the French border. This is where we'll stop. They know that there are some Germans ahead of them. But Sir John French, their hapless commander-in-chief, says, I don't think there are many. There are not many Germans. No, it'll be absolutely fine. They hear that afternoon or that evening the thunder of guns away to the east, and they don't know what it is. Actually, what it is is L 'Ange-Rossac's men being pushed back at Charlois, so leaving them exposed. Exactly. Nine miles away now.

33:07So the British are now nine miles in front of the blooded and battered French army to their right. But Sir John doesn't know this, and Air Reconnaissance reports to him and says, There's a load of Germans up ahead. And Sir John French actually says, no, that can't be right. You must be mistaken. Which is amazing, isn't it? Because the implication is that the whole British expeditionary force could be surrounded and wiped out. I mean, the odds are very high that this is going to be their fate. Right, exactly. So late that night, he gets another message from Lorozac. Lorozac says, you know, I'm in terrible trouble to your right.

33:47Please wheel your army to the right and come and help us out. And Sir John French, this is very much his vibe. He says, no, we're absolutely fine where we are. I like our position where we are, actually. You look after yourself. And he goes to bed and he sleeps very soundly. And he thinks nothing could possibly go wrong. But in the night, the British centrists can hear gunfire in the distance. And they're starting to get quite jittery now. Anyway, dawn breaks on the 23rd of August. Sir John, of course, is staying at a chateau, the Chateau de Sars. He's in great form when he wakes up. He says to his men, there probably are some Germans ahead.

34:23I think they've probably only got two divisions, which would be 40 ,000 men. And he says, there's nothing to worry about. And he says, here's the plan. When the Germans come at you, I think you should do one of three things. You could advance and fight them. You could hold the line and stay where you are. Or you could retreat. Brilliant. That covers all the bases. this yet and then unbelievably he says i'm gonna have a little tour and he drives off for the rest of the day brilliant now actually of course as we said the approaching germans are 160 000 men of alexander von kluck's first army and at nine o 'clock they start this artillery bombardment so there's kind of shells raining down on the british by the canal and then at about nine o 'clock the germans launch their first attacks on the bridges over the canal so there's a bit of the canal called the Mons Salient that bulges out to the north.

35:13Now, for many of the younger British troops, this is their first experience of combat. And I'm delighted to report, Tom, that we do well. They were very well trained. They're very well equipped. The Germans actually were so impressed by the British rate of fire. Because don't forget, rate of fire has always been a British thing. Think about Nelson's Navy. We're very good at firing. And the Germans are so impressed that they report back the British have machine guns, lots of machine guns, which we didn't. We're just as good as a machine. So that's nice. But there are so many Germans that in the hours that pass, they're fighting their way across this canal, across these bridges.

35:48And it's one of these battles where there are basically tremendous stories of sort of boys' own heroism on both sides. So the German, the top German hero, we should sort of doff our hats, the top German, who's a guy called Oskar Niemeyer. So Oskar Niemeyer had been a gardener before the war and he swam across the canal. He got a boat. He got the boat back. He took men back and forth, and then he managed to open this swing bridge at Nimi that allowed loads of Germans to kind of pile across the bridge. And then he was hit and killed, and he was kind of decorated after the war, and the Germans said, what a great man he is.

36:20And he is a great man, I suppose, but not as great as Sid Godley. So Sidney Godley, we've had a lot of public school men in this episode, so it's nice to get somebody who perhaps represents the great majority of British soldiers. Sid Godley was a decorator's son from London, I think, who had worked in an iron mongery store before joining the Royal Fusiliers. He's part of this machine gun unit defending the railway bridge at Nimi. And the first machine gun crew were all killed. So that just leads two blokes, Sid and his lieutenant, who's called Maurice Deese, to take it over. Then Maurice Deese is shot as well.

36:56And the order comes to retreat for everybody else to retreat across the bridge, but somebody has to cover them. And Sid Godley says, oh, I'll do it. And Dominic has a top historian of the First World War, perhaps written about what then happens in amazing prose. In an amazingly moving and I think profound way, no? Shall I read it? Do read it. I'd love that. For two hours, Sidney stayed at his post, his aching finger pressed on the trigger, giving his friends time to escape. All the time, the German shells rained down, showering him with dirt and shrapnel, but he never faltered. One metal fragment flew into his back, another into his shoulder.

37:35A bullet punched into his thigh. Then he felt a blinding pain in his head as another bullet thudded into his skull. Still, Sidney refused to give up, blazing away at the advancing grey ranks. And that is from your adventures in time on the First World War, a thrilling read and godness. I mean, it makes you proud to be British, doesn't it, to hear that? But when I go to primary schools and people say, tell us an inspiring story, and you can see the school head thinks, please let it be Rosa Parks. And actually, it's godly killing Germans. That's what the kids want. Anyway, he's captured by the Germans.

38:17He's taken to a POW camp near Berlin. And then everybody behaves splendidly because he's given the Victoria Cross. The Germans find out about it. the people running the camp organized a special dinner with sid as the guest of honor and the commandant came up and said well done and shook his hand and basically oh lump in the throat so so i mean huge kudos to um to sydney godley i mean he's done very well but it has to be said that actually the reason that the british get away is not sid it's the fact that ghostly archers from the Battle of Agincourt come to their rescue at this point. And that's actually what happens.

38:59So that's why I gave a little taster of the, you know, the Hundred Years' War. That's actual historical fact, isn't it, Dominic? Yeah. They're basically ghostly archers returned from the dead to help their British friends in their hour of need, to help their descendants. And yeah, this is a sign, obviously, that God was on Britain's side. and that the spirit world was on Britain's side. And this becomes a massive story in the course of the war, the angels of Hmongs, the idea of this sort of ghostly intervention. And Tom, do we have a special episode prepared for members of the Restless History Club on this very subject?

39:37We do, because obviously this is, as I've said, this is the turning point of the entire First World War. So we wanted to give it all the attention that it merits. And there will be a special bonus for club members on this coming out. next week and we'll be saying you know were they real um if they were what were they if they weren't well how on earth did people end up thinking of all this and it's an amazingly interesting story is there any way that just quickly before we get back to the story that people who want to hear that episode but are not members of the rest is history club how could they how could they get to hear it there is dominic they could go to this website uh and you just type in the rest is history dot com and then you kind of click your your mouse and it'll take you there and it's amazing that's brilliant tom and the thing is the great thing about all this is that nobody nobody minds the narrative being interrupted for um advertising in this way right okay so let's crack on theo's gesturing wildly in the background flailing around so actually to get back to the to earth to the battle of mons the british expeditionary force actually did do really well they were ended up being outnumbered more than three to one they lost 1 600 men killed wounded and taken prisoner But by holding out, they had prevented von Kluge from outflanking and encircling the French.

40:52And the Germans were very impressed by how the British fought. So every single book on this battle mentions a quotation from a Brandenburg officer called Walter Blum, whose battalion had suffered heavy losses. And he said, it was a bad defeat. There can be no gain saying it. We were badly beaten. And by the English, by the English that we'd laughed at a few hours before. What were they doing laughing at the English? But the Germans aren't actually defeated, are they? Because the British do have to withdraw, because if they don't withdraw, then they would be cut off. Exactly. So they do have to withdraw.

41:22Now, Sir John French, right, who's gone on a nice drive that day, who's been so confident up to this point. At this point, he completely loses the plot. So having been madly overconfident before, he now sinks into total and utter gloom. At one o 'clock that night, he says, OK, like, we've lost. Like, keep retreating. Don't stop retreating. actually let's go straight back to Amiens and if necessary we'll go from there to the ports and go home. And this is the big French worry all the time isn't it that the British will kind of scuttle off and leave them in the lurch. Well because by now the French too have realised that something has to change and they are now going back as well.

42:01So the same day so this is the day after the Battle of Mons General Joffre goes to a meeting in Paris and he says to the war minister France's strategy has completely and utterly failed. We must abandon all talk of attacking and we must retreat. Basically, what we have to do now is to sort of hold on as long as we can. And then we might be able to resume the offensive one day, but we'll have to rest and re-equip first. And Paris is the key. Yes. They've got to keep Paris from falling. They've got to, exactly. So they're falling back towards Paris. So retreating for any army, it's obviously the most depressing thing you can do, but it's also the most dangerous thing you can do because the terror is that you will lose all your discipline and cohesion.

42:42And within a day of the retreat, So by about the 25th of August, at least one British officer is seriously worried that his units are going to fall apart, that the Germans are going to overwhelm them and destroy them. And this is another terrific character. He's called Sir Horace Smith Dorian. So he's the commander of No. 2 Corps, which is about half of the BEF. And he, I mean, he's had an amazing life, sort of flashman-esque life. He was one of a handful of men who had survived the terrible British defeat by the Zulus at Hassan Alwana in 1879. He'd been a comrade of great friend of the rest is history, General Gordon.

43:21He fought against the Mardi in the Sudan in the last battle where the British ever wore red coats. He fought at Omdaman against the Khalifa. He was in the Burr War. What a life. And Omderman had been commanded by General Kitchener. And Smith Dorian is a great friend of Kitchener, isn't he? And should we just mention at this point that Kitchener, he's got the definitive British moustache. He's been appointed Secretary of State for war. And he hates French and French hates Kitchener. So this is all adding to the mix. Because Kitchener had said, don't go to Belgium, stay in Amiens. You know, if you go to Belgium, you'll just be forced back.

44:04And Kitchener had been right. And so obviously French hates him all the more for having been right. Exactly. And Smith Dorian has no time to live with John French. He despises him as a woman. He famously once said to him, too many whores around your headquarters, field marshal. Basically, it's all about French's mistresses. And actually, before the war, Smith Dorian was invited to speak to, of course, the public school officers training corps. And he said to them, war should be avoided at all costs. War would solve nothing. The whole of Europe would be reduced to ruin. And his public school audience were appalled by this.

44:36Absolutely appalled and complained afterwards. But of course, he was quite, he was right. Anyway, late on the 25th of August, Smith Dorian's men reached a place called Le Cateau, which is just inside the French border. The home of Matisse. No way, really. Good fact. Very good fact. They're exhausted. They're hungry. They're really miserable. And he thinks we can't go on. You know, if we try to keep retreating, the Germans will overtake us and destroy us. And overnight, he consulted his senior officers. One of the key voices is a man called Edmund Allenby, who goes on to be the conqueror of Jerusalem and of Damascus.

45:11And Allenby says, my horsemen, my cavalry can't go on. The horses can't go on. Basically, either we stand on fire here or the Germans will overtake us. And there's a silence. And then Smith Dorian says, of course, very well, gentlemen, we shall fight. Now, there's a comic element to this. Most of the other British officers are kind of in a state, in a funk. So at five o 'clock in the morning, the news comes that Smith Dorian wants to fight. And the British chief of staff, Sir Archibald Murray, who's with quite a French's headquarters, he hears this and he has a fainting fit and collapses at the thought of Smith Dorian wanting to fight and somebody calls for a doctor and another man there who of course is called Fido Childs shouts out don't call a doctor I have a pint of champagne and pours this pint of champagne into Sir Archibald Murray to revive him this tremendous behaviour so that's been going on overnight morning comes Sir John French goes off to talk to Joffre and they meet in this darkened room obviously neither of them speaks the other's language so everything has to be translated so it takes a week for the meeting to happen joff says i think you should counter-attack french says no no no no we're going to keep retreating and the mood is completely funereal so the liaison officer who's called edward spears said everyone spoke in an undertone as if there were a corpse in the next room the sense of doom was as evident as when a jury is about to return a verdict of guilty on a capital charge i mean who's right there presumably french is right french is actually right yeah joff is mad to think about trying to attack.

46:45I mean, Smith Dorian's not trying to attack. He's just trying to kind of hold the, stop here, hold the Germans off for a bit, hold the line, and then we can carry on retreating. And this is what he does at Le Cateau. And Le Cateau is probably the last Napoleonic battle in history, maybe? I don't know. So there are columns of troops. There are people on horseback. There's kind of horse-drawn artillery. Yeah, Dominic, just to say, because we've talked about horses quite a lot, this is a terrible time to be a horse, isn't it? Yes. Because there are all kinds of lunatic cavalry charges where horses just get wiped out.

47:17The French and the Germans both are very given to flogging their horses so that they just collapse. So anyone who's read the Michael Mepurga book or seen the drama of War Horse, I mean, it's based on horrendous cruelty to horses. And we should remember them as well as all the men who die in this conflict. So actually, in this battle, the British fight incredibly well. They're holding out against overwhelming odds. they all behave splendidly they manage to they have to retreat and eventually they have to get their guns out under fire so that means men on horses getting them out three men get Victoria Crosses a guy called Douglas Reynolds who's a captain and two drivers called Frederick Luke and the excellently named Job Drain who's 18 and there's actually a statue of Job Drain in Barking is there?

48:04yeah there is you can google it oh wonderful he's obviously a tremendous fellow So at Le Cato, the British lost more men than they lost on the first day of D-Day, would you believe? Goodness. Now, it's a German victory. If you look on Wikipedia, Wikipedia says it's a German victory. But is it? Because actually the British have done two things. First of all, Smith-Doran has given the rest of the British Expeditionary Force time to get away, and the Germans are now never going to catch up with them. And secondly, every day the Germans lose is vital to them. They had six weeks. They're already in week three.

48:38So every day the British delay them, or the French delay them, makes it much harder for Moltke's plan to work. So actually, a lot of military historians say, sure, the British are going backwards, and it looks like a German victory. But strategically, in the sort of long-term picture, it's kind of a win for the BEF. A victory for British Plagg. Hurrah. Well, anyway, now the Great Retreat is on. So, you know, Smith Dorian, when he described the Great Retreat, said, oh, it's absolutely splendid. Everyone was like walking away from a race meeting. Everyone's smoking their pipes and chatting. This is like complete romantic self-delusion.

49:14Actually, they're marching 200 miles in 11 days. They're sleeping about four hours a night. They are absolutely shattered. The roads are strewn with abandoned wagons, with dead horses. They're kind of basically sleepwalking by the end, aren't they? Kept awake by the pain from their blisters. They're really footsore. They're passing refugees. refugees people who had cheered them as they went one way and now are glaring at them as they go the other because they basically feel they're abandoning them morale is terrible they've all got terrible diarrhea they're all massively sunburned none of them have any idea where they are there's no sense of a plan gunner sergeant william edgington on the 26th he says uh we're all feeling very much the want of sleep no rations all very much depressed owing to the total absence of any information we appear to be simply driven blindly back.

50:04And Dominic, do they blame their own inadequacies? Or do they blame the French? Of course they blame the French. Of course they blame the French. Captain James Harper, the damned French army never appears at all. There's been a bad strategy somewhere. Grenadier Guy Harcourt Vernon. Personally, I don't believe the French have properly mobilized. Whatever happens, the British army has done its duty. For the last week we've been fighting alone. I suddenly can't believe in these Frenchmen. Basically, they really wanted to have been fighting the French. They're disappointed that they're not. And when it goes wrong, they blame the French instead.

50:37So now Sir John French, ironically, of course, doesn't like the French. He's now lost 15 ,000 men one way or another, which is tiny compared with the French losses. But if you've only got 80 ,000 men, you can't keep losing 15 ,000 men a week. You won't have an army left. And he writes to Joffre at the end of August, and he says, we're not going to be in the front line. You know, don't expect to see us in the front line anytime soon. We're going to have to rest for at least 10 days. And in the same day, in his diary, he says, I have decided to retire behind the Seine to the west of Paris in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain.

51:15Now, this is an incredible moment. So John French is talking about pulling the British army back behind Paris, effectively abandoning Paris to the Germans. And the next day, he sends a telegram to London and he says, I'm washing my hands now of collaboration with the French. I don't see why I should again be called upon to run the risk of absolute disaster in order a second time to save them. So Max Hastings calls Sir John French a poltroon. Do you think that's, would you agree with that? Of course he does. I think he is a bit of a poltroon, to be honest with you. I mean, personally, I'd have been one of those people who said, don't send an army at all.

51:57Let the French look after themselves. Let's just rely on our splendid navy. But once you've gone there. I think once you've gone there, you've got to make an effort. You can't just go dip your toes in the water and then say, OK, fine, I'm out of here. Because the angels of Moldans haven't appeared to allow him to scuttle off back to Dover. No, for nothing, precisely. Now, so the question now is, and we will pick this up in the next episode. What does London think? I'm happy to say that the great friend of the rest is history, Herbert Henry Asquith, has been managing the war at admirable unconcern and general insouciance.

52:32So while everybody's been fighting Asquith, he's still been having country house weekends. So he spent one weekend, he went down to Kent. On the way, the man in charge of running the war noticed that another driver had broken down and he gave him a lift to the garage. Then on the way back, he saw some children from South London who'd been on holiday in Margate. And he said, oh, would you like me to give you a lift back to London? He gave them a lift as well. And then when he's actually doing any work, to quote Max Hastings again, Asquith treated vital strategic issues as if he were discussing the tiresome inability of some guests to attend a garden party.

53:13Now, the cabinet have been discussing, are they going to pull out the British Expeditionary Force via Dunkirk? But so far they've said no. And now that Sir John French has sent this message, they have a crucial decision to make. They have his telegram. Are they going to let him wash his hands of the whole campaign? So we'll pick up, we'll find out what happens in the next episode. But while they are deliberating, 31st of August, the news is at last filtering through to the British public. So wartime censorship means that no one knows about this until now. There have been little hints. People writing in their diary saying, I'm hearing reports of thousands of casualties, all of this.

53:53On the 29th, the Times had said, for the first time, the situation in France is very grave. And then on the 31st, the same day that Sir John French's telegram reaches London, the Times published a special edition with a report by its war correspondent, Arthur Moore. And he wrote in this, this is a bombshell for the British public. It's important that the nation should now realise certain things, bitter truths, but we can face them. We have to cut our losses, take stock, set our teeth. To sum up, the first great German effort has succeeded. We have to face the fact the British expeditionary force, which bore the great weight of the blow, has suffered terrible losses and requires immediate and immense reinforcement.

54:36Dominic, just to mention, this is the report that plays a crucial role in inspiring the story of the Angels of Mons. Oh, that's interesting. Right. Well, if you think the mood is bleak in London, it is even worse in Paris. The French capital, when the war had been declared, the mood had been one of great confidence. They'd looked forward to regaining Alsace and Lorraine. But now Paris is a city at bay. On the 28th of August, for the first time, the French government issued a statement and they said, we can confirm there is fighting deep inside France from the Somme to the Vosges. and when they said that the public were stunned they thought the fighting was all in belgium they couldn't believe it when the french government said it's actually deep inside france and then two days later the first german monoplane flew over paris and dropped five little bombs on paris now by this point all public buildings in paris have been closed well the theaters have closed most of the shops are shut because they're you know so many staff are away at the front There are thousands of refugees at the railway stations.

55:44The roads are blocked with traffic. And people have started building barricades at the entrances to Paris. It's like 1792 or 1793 or something. The same day, somewhere now the 30th, the first reports that the government is preparing to flee south to Bordeaux. They're going to take with them the gold reserves of the Banque de France. They're going to take all the masterpieces from the city's art galleries and museums. And at the British Embassy, the staff are now burning their confidential papers. Because in just a few days, the Germans will be at the gates of Paris and the fall of France is at hand.

56:24Or is it? We will find out next time. And if you want to hear that episode right now, then you can join our very own expeditionary force, The Rest is History Club, at therestishistory.com. and not only will you be able to hear that episode and all the episodes in this series you will also be able to hear us discuss the angels of Mons the archers from Agincourt or perhaps they were literally angels who came to the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force and changed the course of history so we'll maybe see you for that and if you don't want to sign up to that that's fine we will be releasing the next episodes over the next couple of weeks so either way lots more First World War action to come bye bye cheerio