On the way out I had heard some slighting comments passed on the German troops, and no doubt some of them are not worth much, but those thrown at us were very fine specimens indeed. I do not think they could have been beaten in that respect.
“It was like a great river bursting its banks. The moment the Belgians were forced to retire to their entrenched camp at Antwerp,” wrote Mr. William Maxwell, on August 21, from Mons, “the Germans swept over the country without check west toward Ghent, south toward Mons. The enemy was committed to a great turning movement. It was striving to hold the French along the Meuse between Namur and Dinant, while its armies west of the river were marching south along a front of many miles. One army threatens Mons with the object of penetrating the French frontier and descending on Maubeuge and Valenciennes, another army was advancing toward the line of Tournai—Coutrai which covers the great city of Lille. At Ath there were indications that the enemy was advancing south along the Enghien—Soignies, though he seemed to avoid the main road at Jurbise. By deserted country paths from this point I came to Mons.” Here as everywhere great fear was manifested by the citizens at the approach of the Uhlans. The authorities had been warned by telephone that they were near. “They pretend that they are English and then when the villagers cry ‘Vive l’Angleterre,’ they find out their mistake.”
On the same day, a French witness, the correspondent of a Paris paper, spoke of the German advance as extending “over a line of nearly 100 miles, spreading out in a formidable fan-like movement, preceded by a swarm of scouts in all directions, which sweeps over the country from Brussels to Arlon. The German hordes are on the march over five different routes towards France. They will find men to meet them.”
M. Auguste Mellot, deputy of Namur, saw in that town on August 21 eleven German Army Corps “pass the Meuse coming from Visé, a powerful force being detailed to mask their march.” The German troops engaged in this action probably amounted to fewer than half that number.
The lines of the Allied Armies practically covered every assailable point from Condé to Dinant. Mr. Maxwell thus described the position of the British forces just before the great battle which began on Saturday, August 22:—