Page:Generals of the British Army.djvu/10

 evading that trap, should have met annihilation at Le Cateau. But they fought coolly, were manoeuvred skilfully, saving themselves by sheer righting ability from the tide which threatened to overwhelm them.

Only consummate leaders could have taken an army to the Marne. The army ought to have been wiped out long before. The Germans had fully resolved upon it, they had the men and guns to encompass it, their long-perfected plans depended upon it. The British, wearied by the pressure of a hurried retreat, fought almost without cover against a great concentration of guns. But not only did they fight with superb spirit; they fought also with that instinctive appreciation of tactics which comes from perfectly assimilated experience. When the German blow had over reached itself, the British Generals were able to advance, threaten the left wing of Von Kluck's army when his right was dealing with General Manoury's outflanking movement on the Ourcq, outmanoeuvre and out- fight the enemy on the Aisne and secure tactical advantages of the first importance. In the victory of the Marne not the least wonderful of many arresting features was this effective recoil of the army which the Germans had announced to be "dispersed" ten days before.

After the battle of the Aisne, the army, moved en bloc from the heart of France, where the war of positions was beginning to develop, appeared on the extreme left flank of the Allied forces, manoeuvring towards the East in the effort to outflank the Germans. Here, out of a struggle of cross-purposes, there emerged, little by little, the. outlines of a titanic battle for the possession of the Channel coast. The Belgian army had fallen back from Antwerp upon the sea, covered by an army corps pushed from the coast in a precarious venture towards Bruges and Ghent ; and the handful of British divisions stood between the picked troops of the Germans and the goal they had failed to value before it was lost. Many of these generals tasted the bitter savour of those days when it seemed impossible that flesh and blood could withstand the unceasing onslaught of ever fresh troops of the Bavarians, the Guard, and picked Prussian regiments and of the pound- ing of an overwhelming weight of metal. German critics have said that this army was one of non-commissioned officers, and certainly not even the racial stubbornness could have saved the situation if it had not been wedded to high ability, if undaunted courage had not been