Tournai, which was held by a French Territorial brigade, fell that day. There was nothing apparently to prevent the German host at this juncture from continuing its course to the coast and seizing the Channel ports as far as the Seine. That, doubtless, would have been included in the programme had the Germans anticipated a campaign of any considerable duration. The Kaiser, however, had promised his troops that they should be home again "before the leaves fall"; and to bring this about it was necessary to settle with the Allied army once and for all. Where von Moltke failed, according to Ludendorff and other critics after the war, was in not striking farther to the north or north-west, and in not throwing still more weight into the scale from his left wing.
On the 25th the French were still retreating all along the line save at Maubeuge, the garrison of which held out until 7th Sept., and at Longwy, north of Verdun, which fell on 28th Aug. The British army, battle-worn and suffering severely from the heat, but resisting all the German efforts to turn its western flank, marched stubbornly back, gallantly assisted by Allenby's cavalry. The French were a day's march ahead of them when the British reached the Le Cateau position. General French decided, therefore, that, sorely as the troops needed rest, there was nothing for it but to resume the retreat at daybreak, and issued orders to that effect. The hardest fighting on the 25th had fallen to the 1st Corps at Landrecies, where Haig's weary troops were violently attacked at nightfall, before they could snatch any rest, by fresh enemy troops sent forward in pursuit in motors and lorries. The German infantry paid dearly for their temerity in advancing through the narrow streets of the town in close order, two or three British machine-guns mowing them down in hundreds. The attack was a disastrous failure.
The 2nd Corps did not reach Le Cateau until ten or eleven o'clock that night, thoroughly exhausted after a hard day's fighting and marching. Smith-Dorrien had lost heavily in the operations, and was so convinced that his troops were unfit to resume the march at daybreak that he elected to stand and abide by the result. The magnificent fight put up by his troops on the following day, assisted by Allenby and Sordet's cavalry, and two divisions of French Territorial troops under d'Amade, which had been detailed to guard the British left flank, saved the situation, and averted, in the considered opinion expressed by General French five years later, "a stupendous repetition of Sedan". The actual result was a total loss of some 14,000 officers and men, about 80 guns, and numbers of machine-guns, as well as quantities of ammunition and material. According to General French, these losses heavily handicapped the British army in the subsequent stages of the retreat, and were felt throughout the first battle of the Marne and the early operations on the Aisne. In his dispatch of Sept., 1914, the British Commander-in-Chief had written of this battle in eulogistic terms. It was not till some time later, he explains, that he came to know the full details of the battle and to appreciate it in all its details. For General Smith-Dorrien it is urged that his stand at Le Cateau broke the full force of the German pursuit, and checked its course in time.