This picture illustrates an incident during the retreat. A half-battery of the Royal Field Artillery, in a rather exposed position, greatly galled the Germans by the accuracy of its aim, and a combined attack was made on it by the enemy. One by one the British guns were silenced, and the men who had been serving them lay dead around. At last one man alone was left, and he went on working the gun steadily and calmly until he was called away by an officer. Similar instances of resistance to the last man abound in the history of the Royal Field Artillery.]
[Footnote 50: _Lon-dreh-see´_ (_n_ nasal).]
[Footnote 51: _Dū-play´_ (b. 1697, d. 1763), governor of the French Indies. It was Clive's brilliant defence of Arcot which brought about the failure of his plans and led to his recall.]
Now dawned the fateful morning of 26th August 1914. The rain had ceased; the bright sun shone out; thin mists rose from the wet fields and gave promise of a sultry day. At sunrise the German guns began to thunder, and a shrapnel fire burst upon the British as though "turned on through a hose." The Germans were now determined to make an end of the British army. It had thwarted them again and again; it had refused to be beaten, and it would not yield. To-day, however, was to see the end of it. By nightfall the news of another Sedan would be flashed to all parts of the rejoicing Fatherland.
Our men had no time to entrench properly. Most of them lay in unprotected fields; nevertheless they showed, as Sir John French tells us, "a magnificent front" to the terrific fire that burst upon them. Smith-Dorrien had been ordered to break off the battle and retire at the earliest possible moment, but he soon saw that he could not obey orders without the gravest risk. He must fight on and beat off the Germans before he could retire in safety.
All day long the British infantry stood firm, firing steadily, and hurling back attack after attack of the enemy. Six times the Germans tried to break the British line, and six times they were foiled. German cavalry attempted to charge them, and once the horsemen of the famous Prussian Guard--the proudest and finest of all the Kaiser's troops--burst through an opening in the German firing line and dashed down on them, only to retire with heavy loss. Another German cavalry regiment rode right into the 1st Brigade, and was only driven back after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, in which men and horses were mixed up in frightful confusion.