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"From the Camp before Mons, September 26.

Comrade,

I received yours and am glad yourself and your wife are in good health.... Our battalion suffered more than I could wish in the action.... I have received a very bad shot in the head myself, but am in hopes, and please God, I shall recover. I will not pretend to give you an account of the battle, knowing you have better in the prints....

Your assured friend and comrade,

John Hull."

Quoted in the Tatler, Oct. 29, 1709.

The war of 1914 is in many ways an illustration of Alison's remark that battle-grounds have a tendency to repeat themselves, for to a student of Marlborough's campaigns the whole battle-line of Flanders is familiar. In 1709 the confederate armies, British, Dutch, Prussian, under Marlborough, numbering about 95,000 strong, succeeded by rapid marches in cutting off Mons from the French who were marching to its relief. After a most sanguinary battle, which took place on the 11th September, the French were forced to retire.

Between 1709 and 1914 no military comparison is possible owing to the new factors which have entered into the operations of war. Moreover, in 1709 the opposing forces were approximately equal. Still it is interesting to note that in 1709 the French, although beaten and compelled to retire, suffered less, owing to the strength of their position, than the confederate army, and that the French retreat from Mons was accomplished in perfect order.

The aspect of the country stretching northwards beyond the village and woods of Hyon is probably much the same to-day as when Marlborough's troops camped there in the autumn of 1709. From the dominating woods of Hyon the ground slopes very gradually, and is divided into irregular plots of cultivated ground, groups of farm buildings, and patches of woodlands; farther down the valley away to the right are some considerable villages; near at hand on the left lies the town of Mons, partly hidden from view by a piece of rising ground.

On leaving billets at Hyon on Sunday, 23rd August, each company marched out with separate orders to take up the position to which it had been detailed the night before, and it was about 6 A.M. when D company reached the appointed spot on the main road from Mons. There had been rain in the night; the sun was already high, but as yet no summer haze impeded the distant view. Vainly did field-glasses explore the country for some sign of the enemy, and we little imagined that through the far distant woods the Huns were once more descending upon the Hainault. We, resting in the shade of the long avenue of trees, had not yet realised the imminence of great events.

In the days of peace, when soldiering was mostly confined to a manœuvring space on some open heath, and the route-march along the King's highway, the word "battlefield" had lost its meaning, and was a contradiction in terms in its literal sense. Fields were always "out of bounds." Since landing in France we had not yet lost the fear of cultivated ground, and at every halting-place precautions were taken to prevent troops straying off the highway; and when in billets, entrance into orchards, gardens, and fields surrounding the village was strictly forbidden. We had marched along many miles of long straight dusty road between the pleasant trees, and halted many times by a roadside such as this, when nothing but a shallow ditch and the conventions of soldiering in peace time prevented our entry into potential battlefields. The word of command to fall in had for so many years been followed inevitably by a simple "quick march," and so on to the next halt.

Now, with the command "left wheel, quick march," we left the straight road and entered the cultivated fields, marching across a piece of bare stubble, then over some thickly growing beetroot still wet with dew, and again without hindrance, for there was no fence on all the land; across yet another plot of stubble up to the edge of a large cabbage patch, where two sticks were standing freshly cut, and stuck into the ground as if to mark the stand for guns at a cover shoot.

In front the unencumbered ground, cultivated in narrow strips, sloped evenly down to a main road which crossed our front diagonally, and formed an angle on the left, but out of sight, with the road we had just left. At this point the angle of the roads held by C Company on our left flank was hidden from view by a piece of rising ground. On the right flank and at a lower level, No. 14 platoon had already started digging their trench in a stubble field: beyond this, and in the same line, was a plantation of tall trees, with thick undergrowth.

The Route Nationale, with its usual border of poplar-trees, cuts diagonally across the patchwork of roots, stubble, and meadow. The distance at its nearest point to our trench, which is now traced out on the edge of the cabbage field, is just about 400 yards; 50 yards farther down to the right, on the far side of the road, there is a large white house.

Beyond the road the fields carry a heavy crop of beetroot, but there is here no great width of cultivated land. The irregular border of the forest reaches in some places to within four or five hundred yards of the road, forming a barrier to the searching of a field-glass at 1000 yards from our position. Away to the right the valley opens out like a map, with villages dotted here and there among green plantations in the middle distance, and beyond a great rolling stretch of country looking to the naked eye like some large barren heath, but showing in the field-glass the patch-quilt effect of innumerable tiny strips of variegated cultivation.

On such a day as this, when the sun is shining in the distant valley, while thick clouds above shade and tone the light, one can see farther yet to where fields and woods and villages fade together in the blue distance, with here and there a darker tone of shadow, and sometimes the sparkle of sunlight on a distant roof.

There was nothing in all the prospect to give the slightest hint of war. No traffic stirred down the straight avenue of poplars; distant patches of open country away to the right where the sun was shining remained still and deserted. Overhead the clouds had been gathering. The trench was nearly completed, when the rain came suddenly and with almost tropical force, blinding all view of the landscape.

I determined to pass away the time with a visit to the white house by the roadside, and at the same time get a look at our trench from what might soon be the enemy's point of view.

The village on the road and on our flank (half left) consisted of a dozen houses. Every house was shut up. The warm rain poured in torrents, and the village appeared to be deserted. I turned and walked slowly down the road towards the white house.

I can still see in my mind's eye the picture of this roadside inn as I saw it that morning, as none will ever see it again.

The house stood back a little from the road; two steps above the ground-level one entered the estaminet, a large airy room, a long table down the centre covered with a red-and-white check oilcloth. Outside stood a number of iron tables and chairs on each side of a sanded level space for playing bowls or ninepins. Beyond this a garden, or rather series of rose bowers, each with its seat, a green patch of long grass in the centre, and high hedges on the side nearest the road, and on the side nearest the cultivated fields and the woods beyond. In one of the rose bowers in the garden I found a sentry peering through the hedge. I was struck with the air of conviction with which, in answer to my question, he said he had seen nothing. The tone showed how convinced he was that this was simply the old old game of morning manœuvres and finish at lunch-time.

In my own mind such an impression was fast fading. The barricaded silent village up the road had helped to create a sense of impending tragedy. But the mask of make-believe did not quite fall from my eyes until I met the woman of the estaminet, a woman who came out of the white house weeping and complaining aloud, with her children clinging to her skirt. Her words I have never forgotten, though at the time I did not realise the whole meaning they contained, nor that this woman's words were the protest of a nation.

The Germans were close at hand, she said, and would destroy everything. What was to be done, where was she to flee for safety? Her frightened, sobbing voice, and the frightened faces of the children, these were, indeed, the first signs of war! I told her the truth that I knew nothing, and could give no advice as to whether it was safe to stay or flee, and as I left the tidy sanded garden and stepped on to the main road she raised her voice again with prophetic words: "What have we done, we poor people, 'paisible travailleurs'? What have we done that destruction should now fall upon our heads? Qu'est ce que nous avons fait de mal!"

The warm sunshine was pleasant after the rain. Not a sign of life on the long straight road. Four hundred yards away a soldier was still planting cabbages along the top of our parapet. I watched his work for a moment through my field-glasses, and then turned and looked across the road at the thick undergrowth beyond the cultivated ground. If the woman of the estaminet was right, even now those woods might conceal a German scout.

If at the time such a thought passed through my mind, it scarcely obtained a moment's consideration, so difficult it was then to realise the change that had already come upon the world. How incredible it is now that at the last moment of peace the prospect of real fighting could have still seemed so remote.

Somewhere hidden in the memory of all who have taken part in the war there is the remembrance of a moment which marked the first realisation of the great change—the moment when material common things took on in real earnest their military significance, when, with the full comprehension of the mind, a wood became cover for the enemy, a house a possible machine-gun position, and every field a battlefield.

Such an awakening came to me when sitting on the roadside by the White Estaminet. The sound of a horse galloping and the sight of horse and rider, the sweat and mud and the tense face of the rider bending low by the horse's neck, bending as if to avoid bullets. The single rider, perhaps bearing a despatch, followed after a short space by a dozen cavalrymen, not galloping these, but trotting hard down the centre of the road, mud-stained, and also with tense faces. A voice crying out above the rattle of hoofs on the roadway: "Fall back and join H.Q."

Now that the sound of cavalry had passed away the road was quiet again. There was no stir around the white house, no peasants or children to see the soldiers, no stir in the fields and woods beyond.

Behind the closed shutters of the white house the tearful woman of the estaminet listened in terror to the sound of horses' hoofs, and crouched in the silence that followed. I returned slowly across the drenched fields filled with the new realisation that this trench of ours was "the front."

The trench, three feet deep and not much more that eighteen inches broad, formed a gradual curve thirty to forty yards in length, and sheltered three sections of the platoon. The fourth section was entrenched on higher ground a hundred yards back, protecting our left flank.

At some distance to the rear stood a pile of faggots, which we laid out in a straight line and covered with a sprinkling of earth to form a dummy trench.

The dinners were served out and the dixies carried away, still in peace. The quiet fields and woods, with the sun now high in the heavens, seemed to contradict the idea of war. Searching round the edge of every wood, searching in turn each field and road, my field-glasses could find no sign of troops, and nothing disturbed the Sunday morning calm. Then, far away, a mile or more along the border of a wood, I saw the grey uniforms.

A small body of troops, not more than a platoon, showed up very badly against the dark background; even as I looked again they had disappeared among the trees. To the left of the white house, beyond the road and beyond the beetroot fields, the thick brushwood which skirts the cultivated ground becomes more open, and here the sun throws a gleam of light. Here, it seemed, were many shadows. At that moment German snipers, unknown to us, were already lying somewhere on the edge of the wood. The sound of bullets is most alarming when wholly unexpected. Those German scouts must have been using telescopic sights, for they managed to put a couple of bullets between Sergeant Lee and myself. Still more unexpected and infinitely more terrifying was the tremendous explosion from behind, which knocked me into the bottom of the trench, for the moment paralysed with fright.

The battery behind the woods of Hyon had fired its first range-finding shell rather too low, and the shot ricochetted off a tree on the road behind our trenches.

The situation in front of the trenches had not yet changed, as far as one could see, since the first shot was fired. An occasional bullet still flicked by, evidently fired at very long range.

The corner house of the hamlet six to seven hundred yards to our left front was partly hidden from view by a hedge. The cover afforded by this house, the hedge and the ditch which ran alongside it, began to be a cause of anxiety. If the enemy succeeded in obtaining a footing either in the house itself or the ditch behind the hedge, our position would be enfiladed.

One of my men who had been peering over the trench through two cabbage stalks, proclaimed that he saw something crawling along behind this hedge. A prolonged inspection with the field-glasses revealed that the slow-moving, dark-grey body belonged to an old donkey carelessly and lazily grazing along the edge of the ditch. The section of my platoon who were in a small trench to our left rear, being farther away and not provided with very good field-glasses, suddenly opened rapid fire on the hedge and the donkey disappeared from view. This little incident caused great amusement in my trench, the exploit of No. 4 section in successfully despatching the donkey was greeted with roars of laughter and cries of "Bravo the donkey killers," all of which helped to relieve the tension.

It was really the donkey that made the situation normal again. Just before there had been some look of anxiety in men's faces and much unnecessary crouching in the bottom of the trench. Now the men were smoking, watching the shells, arguing as to the height at which they burst over our heads, and scrambling for shrapnel bullets.

The German shells came in bunches; some burst over the road behind, others yet farther away crashed into the woods of Hyon. At the same time the rattle of one of our machine-guns on the left and the sound of rapid rifle fire from the same quarter showed that C Company had found a target, while as yet we peered over our trenches in vain. I will not pretend to give an account of the battle of Mons, "because you have better in the prints," and because my confused recollection of what took place during the rest of the afternoon will not permit of recounting in their due order even events which took place on our small part of the front. The noise of bursting shells, the sound of hard fighting on our left, must have endured for nearly an hour before any attempt was made by the Germans, now swarming in the wood behind the white house, to leave cover and make an attack on our front. From the farthest point of the wood, at a range of 1200 yards, a large body of troops marched out into the open in column, moving across our front to our left flank, evidently for the purpose of reinforcing the attack on C Company.

At 1200 yards rifle fire, even at such a target, is practically useless. It was impossible to resist the temptation to open fire with the hope of breaking up the column formation and thus delaying the reinforcement operations. "No. 1 Section, at 1200 yards, three rounds rapid." I bent over the parapet, glasses fixed on the column. They were not quite clear of the wood and marching along as if on parade.

At the first volley the column halted, some of the men skipped into the wood, and most of them turned and faced in our direction. With the second and third volleys coming in rapid succession they rushed in a body for cover.

All our shots seemed to have gone too high and none found a billet, but the enemy made no further attempt to leave the wood in close formation, but presently advanced along the edge of the wood in single file, marching in the same direction as before, and affording no target at such a distance.

Various descriptions of the battle of Mons speak of the Germans advancing like grey clouds covering the earth, of "massed formation" moving across the open to within close range of our trenches, to be decimated by "murderous fire."

On every extended battle line incidents will occur affording opportunities for picturesque writing, but in the attack and defence of an open position in the days of pre-trench war, excepting always the noise of bursting shells, the hum of bullets and the absence of umpires, the whole affair is a passable imitation of a field-day in peace time.

Our position at Hyon, important because it dominated the line of retreat, was weakly held. We had practically no supports. The German superiority at that part of the line was probably about three to one in guns, and five or more to one in men.

The enemy attacked vigorously, met with an unexpectedly vigorous resistance, hesitated, failed to push their action home, and lost an opportunity which seldom occurred again—an opportunity which has now gone for ever.

With half the determination shown at Verdun the Germans could have captured our position with comparatively trifling loss, turned our flank, and disorganised the preparation for retreat.

The steady hammer of one of our machine-guns and a renewed burst of rapid fire from the rifles of C Company made it clear that an attack on the village was in progress. Then the battery whose first shell had nearly dropped into our trench put their second shot neatly on to the red-tiled house at the left-hand corner of the village.

A shell bursting over a village! Who would pay attention now to such a detail when whole villages are blown into the air all along a thousand miles of battle?

Twenty feet above the red tiles a double flash like the twinkling of a great star, a graceful puff of smoke, soft and snow-white like cotton-wool. In that second the red tiles vanished and nothing of the roof remained but the bare rafters.

Now our guns were searching out the German artillery positions, and sent shell after shell far over our heads on to the distant woods; and now the German shells, outnumbering ours by two or three to one, were bursting all along the woods behind our trenches and behind the main road. The noise of what was after all a very mild bombardment seemed very terrible to our unaccustomed ears!

Still the rattle of a machine-gun on our left; but the bursts of rifle fire were less prolonged and at rarer intervals, so that the pressure of the German attack was apparently relaxing. The surprise of the day came from our right flank.

Here the main road ran across and away diagonally from our line, so that the amount of open ground in front of No. 14 Trench was considerably nearer 600 than 400 yards—the whole distance from this trench to the road being bare pasture-land, with scarcely cover for a rabbit. No. 14 Trench extends to within a few yards of the thick plantation which runs almost parallel with our line. The cover is not much more than two or three acres in extent, and on the far side of the wood the line is carried on by another company.

I was on the point of laying down my glasses, having made a final sweep of the ground, including a look down to No. 14 Trench, when something caught my attention in the plantation, and at that same moment a body of troops in extended order dashed out of the woods and doubled across the open meadow. The sight of these men, coming apparently from behind our own line and making at such speed for the enemy, was so entirely unexpected that, although their uniforms even at the long range seemed unfamiliar, I did not realise they were Germans. A volley from No. 14 Trench put an end to uncertainty. The line broke, each man running for safety at headlong speed; here and there a man, dropping backwards, lay still on the grass.

In the centre of the line the officer, keeping rather behind the rest, stumbled and fell. The two men nearest him stopped, bent down to assist him, looking for a moment anxiously into his face as he lay back on the grass, then quickly turned and ran for cover. A very few seconds more and the remaining racing figures dodged between trees on the main road and found safety.

When the rifle fire ceased, two or three of the grey bodies dotted about the field were seen to move; one or two rose up, staggered a few paces, only to fall at once and lie motionless; other two or three wriggled and crawled away; and one rose up apparently unhurt, running in zigzag fashion, dodging from side to side with sudden cunning, though no further shot was fired.

The German attack now began to press on both flanks—on the left perhaps with less vigour, but on the right an ever-increasing intensity of rifle fire seemed to come almost from behind our trenches; but on neither left nor right could anything be seen of the fighting. The ceaseless tapping of our two machine-guns was anxious hearing during that long afternoon, and in the confusion of bursting shells the sound of busy rifles seemed to be echoing on all sides.

Three German officers stepped out from the edge of the wood behind the white house; they stood out in the open, holding a map and discussing together the plan of attack. The little group seemed amazingly near in the mirror of my field-glass, but afforded too hopelessly small a target for rifle fire at a 1000 yards' range. The conference was, however, cut short by a shell from our faithful battery behind the wood of Hyon. A few minutes later, the officers having skipped back into cover, a long line of the now familiar grey coats advanced slowly about ten yards from the wood and lay down in the beetroot field; an officer, slightly in front of his men, carrying a walking-stick and remaining standing until another shell threw him on to his face with the rest.

Our shells were bursting splendidly beyond the white house, with now and then a shell on what had once been the red-tiled corner house, and now and then a shell into the woods beyond where the German reserves were sheltering.

Two or three lines of supports issued forth from the wood, and the first line pushed close up to the white house; but as long as we could see to shoot, and while our shells were sprinkling the fields with shrapnel, the enemy failed to reach their objective and suffered heavy casualties.

After the sun had set the vigour of the fight was past, and in the twilight few shells were exchanged from wood to wood, although machine-guns still drummed and rifles cracked, keeping the enemy from further advance. And now, far in the distant valley—perhaps fifteen or twenty miles away—the smoke of exploding shells hung in white puffs on the horizon, and the red flame of fire showed here and there a burning village in the wake of the French Army.

General French had by now received the news of the retreat from Charleroi, and the retreat of the British Army was in hasty preparation; but from us all such great doings were hidden.

Although it was now too dark for accurate shooting—for even the road and the white house were fading into the dusk—we had selected a certain number of outstanding marks easily seen in the twilight: a stump of a tree, a low bush, and a low white wall—points which the enemy would have to cross should they attempt to approach the house from the left flank. A remnant of the twilight remained when the Germans left the cover of the beetroot field, and with my field-glasses I could just manage to see when they passed in front of our prearranged targets, to see also the sudden hail of bullets spatter on the road and against the white wall among leaping, dodging shadows. On the right the machine-gun was silent for a space. In front dead silence round the familiar shadows of the white house. Then a voice broke out of the darkness, and a sound as of hammering on wooden doors. What followed, and what atrocious deed was committed in the night, none can ever surely tell.

The voice shouted again, "Frauen und Kinder heraus!" No description can convey the horror of this voice from the dark, the brutal bullying tone carrying to our ears an instant apprehension. More hammering, and then a woman's screams—the brutal voice and piercing screams as of women being dragged along, and the French voice of a man loudly protesting, with always the hard staccato German words of command; then yet another louder shrieking, then three rifle-shots, and a long silence. A long silence, and never more in the night did we hear the man's protesting voice or the terrified shriek of women.

The silence was broken by leaping, crackling flames, and in an instant the white house was a roaring bonfire. Fiercely danced the flames, carrying high into the night their tribute to German efficiency!

During the long silence after the three shots, we had all seen with eyes straining through the darkness, how shadows were at work round the walls, and one shadow on the roof whose errand there was at first a mystery, but was quickly explained in the light of the great blaze which rose up instantaneously from a spark kindled in the darkness of the courtyard.

In the ring of light thrown by the blazing house, the trees on the roadside, the out-houses beyond the courtyard, and even, for a short way, the beetroot fields, showed vividly against the black arch of night. Here, on the fringe of light in uncertain mist of mingled smoke and darkness, it seemed as if men were grouped revelling over the night's work. Now that the roof had fallen in, clouds of smoke hung low over the fields and the red-hot glow gave little light. Only every now and then a flame, shooting high into the thick darkness, threw a momentary gleam on a wider arch and showed the black shadows of men dodging back into the safety of the night.

The work was well and quickly done. The pleasant roadside inn where I had idly wandered in the morning was now a smouldering ruin.

There is no excuse for this ruin of a Belgian home. The burning was deliberate, and carried out with military precision under orders given by the officer in command, serving no conceivable military purpose, and prompted solely by a spirit of wanton destruction.

The story of the three shots in the dark will, perhaps, never be clearly told, but there can be little doubt—there is none in the minds of those who heard—that both the women and the man were brutally murdered.

Nearly a thousand years ago this same land was laid waste by the Huns, who left a memory that has lasted down to the hour of their return, for "it is in memory of the Huns," says an ancient chronicle, "that the province received the name of Hanonia or Hainault," a name which it retains to this day.

Again, after a thousand years, the Huns have risen and left a track in Europe for the memory of many generations.