V From Mons to the Walls of Paris
“The Lilies of France and our own Red Rose
Are twined in a coronal now:
At War’s bloody bridal it glitters and glows
On Liberty’s beautiful brow.”
Gerald Massey.
In his despatch to Lord Kitchener, dated September 7th, Sir John French tells of the four-days’ battle at Mons, and traces his masterly, triumphant retreat, in the face of irresistible odds, to Maubeuge, to Cambrai, to Le Cateau, to Landrecies, and so almost to within sight of the walls of Paris. He pays a glowing tribute to the magnificent fighting spirit of the officers and men who carried out these stupendous movements with such complete success, but at present it is to the men themselves you must turn again for detailed information of the horrors and heroisms, the grim and glorious hours that darkened and lightened through those tumultuous days. “What we did in that three weeks English people at home will never know,” writes Private J. Harris, of the Worcestershire Regiment: “We were marching and fighting day and night for three weeks without a break.”