Very different, however, were the ideas of General Joffre. The famous ‘Plan XVII’ consisted in a general offensive in an easterly and north-easterly direction by four French armies, with the last remaining army in reserve behind their centre. It was based upon an ardent faith that the French right would penetrate deeply into Alsace and Lorraine and an obstinate disbelief that the French left would be turned by a German movement west of the Meuse through Belgium. Both these calculations were to be completely falsified by the first events of the war. From the very earliest days it was clear that the views which the British General Staff had consistently held, since 1911, of a great German turning movement through Belgium, probably on both sides of the Belgian Meuse, were correct. Why should the Germans with their eyes open throw first Belgium and then the British Empire into the scales against them unless for an operation of supreme magnitude? Besides, there were the evidences of their long preparations—camps, railways and railway sidings—which the British Staff under Sir John French and Sir Henry Wilson had so minutely studied. Lastly, reported with much accuracy from day to day, there came the enormous troop movements on the German right, towards and into Belgium on both sides of the Meuse. Before the end of the first week in August General Lanrezac, the Commander of the left French Army (the Fifth), was raising loud cries of warning and alarm about the menace to his left, and indeed his rear, if he carried out the rôle assigned to him and attacked as ordered in a north-easterly direction. By the end of the second week the presence of the accumulating masses of the German right could no longer be denied by the French High Command, and certain measures, tardy and inadequate, were taken to cope with it. Nevertheless, after the raid of a corps and a cavalry division into Alsace on the 13th August, General Joffre began his offensive into Lorraine with the two armies of the French right, the centre armies conforming a few days later; and up till the evening of the 18th General Lanrezac and the left French army were still under orders to advance north-east. Three days later this same army was defending itself in full battle from an attack from the north and north-west. It had been compelled to make a complete left wheel. The main shock began on the 20th, when the two armies of the French right battered themselves in vain against the strongly-prepared German defences. By the 21st the French centre armies were definitely stopped, and by noon on the 23rd General Lanrezac and the French army of the left were outflanked and beaten. Meanwhile our small army, thrust hurriedly forward towards Mons to shield the French left, found itself in presence of not less than four army corps with numerous cavalry constituting the swinging fist and sabre of the German encircling advance. By the evening of the 23rd ‘Plan XVII’ had failed in every single element. The French armies of the right were thrown back into France and were entirely occupied in defending themselves. Their armies of the centre and the left were in full retreat towards Paris and the south, and the British Army, isolated and beset by overwhelming numbers, was in the direst peril of complete destruction. So much for ‘Plan XVII.’