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In August 1914, the "war to end all wars"

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blazed through Belgium and northern France.

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Over the next few months, an old world of swords, lances and bugles

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would be shattered by the machine gun and the howitzer.

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Most of the British troops in the first battles in the Great War

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would not survive this new age of industrialised slaughter.

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In the first few days of the campaign,

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they marched across a landscape

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that previous generations of British soldiers knew.

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Here at the battlefield of Malplaquet,

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in 1709, the Duke of Malborough won his bloodiest victory.

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The smoky carnage of the battles of the horse and musket era

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must have seemed a world away to the schoolboys of Edwardian England.

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But in 1914, the British Expeditionary Force

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marched past this very spot.

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Two regiments even spent the night overlooking the battlefield

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where their ancestors had fallen.

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The British were moving up on the left of their French ally

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in an offensive intended to win the war at a stroke.

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In fact, they found themselves squarely in the path of German armies

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pouring down through Belgium.

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This monkey, his head rubbed smooth by countless hands for good luck,

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sits at the crossroads of military history.

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We're in the town of Mons,

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now in southern Belgium, but for centuries a border garrison town.

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That character is still called the Guard Room Monkey.

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In the Middle Ages, Mons was famous for textiles.

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But early this century, it was the capital of Belgium's Black Country.

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Mons was fought through rather than fought over.

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Its centre would still be recognisable

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to the men in the British Expeditionary Force.

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Their mobilisation had been a weird parody of a summer holiday:

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a train journey and a walk in the country.

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The men who came here in 1914 expected a war of movement

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which would be over by Christmas.

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It would be won by guts and determination.

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A British training pamphlet declares, "The object of infantry

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"in the attack is to get too close quarters as quickly as possible.

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"During the delivery of the assault the men will cheer.

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"Bugles will be sounded and pipes played."

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The soldiers who reached Mons on the 22nd August, 1914,

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were footsore and weary after marching up

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from their concentration area south of the French border

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and gladly rested in the Grand Place.

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But they were advancing against an enemy they believed was in trouble.

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They were greeted as heroes by the local population,

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which pressed food and wine on them, sometimes in unwise quantities.

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The soldiers here were from 4th Royal Fusiliers.

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They didn't know that only a few miles away,

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tens of thousands of Germans were swinging down on them like a mallet.

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Nor did they know that within 24 hours,

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many of them would be wounded or dead.

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As the church bells rang out over Mons

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on Sunday, 23rd of August,

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they might have been sounding the death knell

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for a world that was coming to the end of the line.

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Two miles north of Mons is the tiny railway station of Obourg,

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sitting alongside the Mons-Conde canal.

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On the 23rd of August, the British held the canal

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and early that morning,

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German cavalry scouts appeared on the far bank

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with infantry and guns close behind them.

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The canal was an effective barrier

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behind which the British could hold off the Germans for a time.

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The fighting here was really vicious.

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Although the Germans couldn't get across the canal,

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just behind me, they were able to work across the open country

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and come up into the Middlesex flank.

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The soldiers fought on desperately though their commander was killed.

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They got through and an unknown hero climbed onto the station roof

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and kept the Germans back - he was eventually killed.

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I come here often, but it never fails to move me.

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When the station was demolished in 1981,

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the Belgians left a bit of wall

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commemorating that unknown Tom, Dick or Harry,

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who gave his life defending his mates.

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# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag... #

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The British Expeditionary Force was a musical army.

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Its songs were the real soundtrack of that summer.

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# What's the use of worrying? It never... #

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A short walk along the canal

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takes us to the next village westwards, Nimy.

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# And smile, smile, smile! #

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We've walked up the canal to the railway bridge at Nimy

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and the next battalion along, 4th Royal Fusiliers.

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The canal then was a bit narrower and there was a swing bridge

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in place of that ugly concrete monstrosity.

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Most of the men up here were Londoners,

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reservists called back to the colours on the outbreak of war -

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big black moustaches and a knowing eye for a mademoiselle.

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The battalion's two machine guns were just up here,

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like pimples on the chin of the British position.

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They were commanded by Lt Maurice Dease,

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an Irishman from County Mayo.

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The machine gunners were an obvious target for German artillery

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and soon they were all killed or wounded.

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Dease himself was hit several times.

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Then Private Sid Godley of the rifle company

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admitted to knowing how to work one of these.

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He came up here, dragged the dead and wounded to one side,

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and kept firing till his friends had left and he was out of ammunition.

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Then he smashed it on the bridge, threw it into the canal,

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and skulked off into Nimy, bleeding profusely.

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Dease and Godley were awarded the war's first two Victoria Crosses.

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Dease died of his wounds and is buried nearby.

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Godley survived in a POW camp.

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His mates remembered him as an unlikely hero -

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dour and inclined to be dangerous in a barrack room.

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But then, heroes are like that sometimes.

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As the day went on, the German attack

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spread down the line of the canal.

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It was brought to a dead stop by this, the Enfield rifle,

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in the hands of men who knew how to use it.

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They'd shot for their pay. Being a marksman brought you extra money -

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for the wet canteen or for a tart to put a little comfort into soldiering.

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These were not men given to great reflections on right or wrong.

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They were hard men and, frankly, a lot of them enjoyed it.

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This is an account by John Lucy of the Royal Irish Rifles.

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"Our rapid fire was appalling even to us.

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"The worst marksman could not miss.

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"We had only to fire into the brown of the masses of the enemy,

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"who, on the fronts of our two companies,

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"were continually and uselessly reinforced

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"at the short range of 300 yards.

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"Such tactics amazed us and, after the first shock

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"of seeing men helplessly falling as they were hit,

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"gave us a great sense of power and pleasure."

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# It's a long way to Tipperary

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# It's a long way to go

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# It's a long way to Tipperary

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# To the sweetest girl I know! Goodbye, Piccadilly... #

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British units were strung out along the length of the canal.

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As the day went on, the German attack spread to the west.

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The British line was over by that unmilitary-looking service station.

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It was being attacked by 12th Brandenburg Grenadiers.

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One commander was a 46-year-old reserve officer called Walter Bloem.

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He'd been snatched from a comfortable literary existence

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to meet the demands of what he called The Tear Season.

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Bloem's first problem was getting his company across this field

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under heavy fire.

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Bloem and his company headquarters got to about here,

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where there was enough of a bank to keep that rifle-fire off them.

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He then saw a corporal, a gentleman ranker he hadn't previously noticed,

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offer a bottle of champagne to one of his officers.

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The four of them, Bloem,

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his orderly, the corporal and the lieutenant, finished the bottle.

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How useful a sharpener is to men in that desperate situation.

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No less useful to me!

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When the bottle was finished, Bloem got his company together

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for the last rush.

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We'll let him take us over the top.

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"The enemy must have been waiting to get us all together at close range,

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"for immediately the line rose,

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"it was as if the hounds of hell had been loosed at us,

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"as a mass of lead swept in amongst us.

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"'Graser!' I called out. No answer. "Where's Lt Graser?"

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"And then, from amongst the cries and groans all round

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"came a low-voiced reply.

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"'Lt Graser is dead, sir, just this moment.

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"'Shot through the head and heart as he fell. He's here.'

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"'Within seconds, almost all this convivial little group

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"'had been killed or wounded.'"

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Although their line held,

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the British realised that by staying put, they risked encirclement,

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as the Germans pushed past on both flanks.

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A little force of Norfolks and Cheshires

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was left near the village of Elouges to cover the retreat.

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They even gave a last hurrah, a cavalry charge.

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The cavalry charged down the line of this Roman road,

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4th Dragoon Guards on the left, 9th Lancers on the right.

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The Lancers were commanded by Col David Campbell,

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a flamboyant character who had won the Grand National on his horse Sora,

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and was inevitably nicknamed Sora Campbell.

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And see what the Lancers carried under the arm at the engage.

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There were many versions of what happened next -

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verse of varying quality and paintings like this one,

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portraying heroic lancers spearing German gunners.

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But all this is pure moonshine.

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The cavalry hurtled down here,

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heading for the German guns just the other side of the sugar factory.

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They were stopped by wire, not fire. An innocent Belgian farmer's fence.

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But it ran right in front of the German gun line

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and they simply couldn't get beyond it.

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Capt Francis Grenfell remembered

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they ran up and down in front of it like rabbits.

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Of course, they were easy targets, as Harry Easton tells us.

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Something hit my horse in the neck, just in front of me, and it fell.

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It took me out of the saddle and I lost the horse.

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Well, I lost the lot.

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And I am reminded of the Biblical saying of "Though I walk

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"through the valley of death, I had no staff to comfort me."

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Major Tom Bridges of the 4th Dragoon Guards was luckier.

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His horse was hit just here.

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He was dragged into a farm building.

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Just as the Germans appeared,

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someone threw him onto a spare horse and he galloped up the Roman road.

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He lost that horse as well. And he was sitting, wondering what to do...

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when the Brigade signals officer

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purred up in a blue and silver Rolls-Royce and wafted him to safety.

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But there was no safety for the Cheshires.

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The order to withdraw never reached them,

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and they were engulfed as German infantry fought its way in with bayonet and rifle butt.

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The action at Elouges cost 2nd Corps 2,000 men -

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more than the battle of Mons.

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Yet it allowed the BEF to begin its retreat.

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The men were already tired by marching up to Mons

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and they became tireder still marching away from it.

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They crossed the border into France

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and Mons' industrial suburbs were replaced by rich farming country.

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The retreat imposed a huge strain on British commanders.

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And on August 25th, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 2nd Corps Commander,

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found himself separated from the rest of the BEF

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by the Great Forest of Mormal.

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We're twenty miles south of Mons and two days into the retreat.

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The mighty forest of Mormal lay like a wedge behind the British Army.

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It forced Haig's 1st Corps off to the east

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and Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps to the west.

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Already, men were marching in a sort of trance.

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Private Frank Richards of the Royal Welch Fusiliers,

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who slogged down this road with his mates,

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remembered one of them believing he saw a castle twinkling in the woods.

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They knew the Germans were close.

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Nightly, the horizon was lit from burning villages.

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Many found the plight of refugees hardest to take.

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Alan Hanbury-Sparrow wrote of, "this broken torrent of dusty misery,

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"wains drawn by great percherons, wagons tugged by oxen.

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"Bicycles, tricycles, barrows and shandrydans,

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"coagulate and concertina painfully along this via dolorosa."

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The "via dolorosa" was to lead to the south,

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to Le Cateau.

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The retreat from Mons was sheer hell, especially for the reservists.

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They'd been issued with new boots

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and these had caused dreadful blisters on the march up.

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I've seen infantry there with their feet bleeding.

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I've seen men with their boots off and puttees wrapped round them.

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I've seen men sobbing and turning around,

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asking our officers, "Why the hell can't we fight?

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"Why won't you let us fight?"

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If we had an average sleep of two to three hours a day,

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that's as much as we got.

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And now they had the weather to contend with -

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scorching hot summer days mixed with sudden downpours.

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This is the school in the northern French town of Le Cateau,

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birthplace of the painter Matisse.

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During the battle of Mons, general headquarters was in this building.

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As the British army fell back on Le Cateau, Capt James Jack,

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a newly-appointed staff officer,

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was sent to find out what orders there were for his brigade.

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When he arrived he was met by an elegant staff officer

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who sent him into town for something to eat.

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Jack needed no second bidding

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and stuffed himself with omelettes and bread rolls.

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But when he came back, the place was empty.

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There was, he said, "not even a pencil left behind."

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While HQ was quick to retreat,

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tired men on blistered feet were much slower.

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By nightfall they were still drifting in to Le Cateau.

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General Smith-Dorrien decided to stand and fight.

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But he would do so outnumbered, outgunned and alone.

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His gamble was that he could deliver a stopping blow

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that would check the relentless pursuit.

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The Germans appeared invincible, but they too were exhausted.

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Most of them had been marching, day after day, for almost three weeks.

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They had also been surprised by the ferocity of the British at Mons.

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Smith-Dorrien's gamble wasn't quite as foolhardy as it might have seemed.

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# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

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# And smile, smile, smile...

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# While you have lucifers to light your fag,

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# Smile, boys, that's the style!

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# What's the use of worrying?

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# It never was worthwhile! So...! #

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Le Cateau was the sort of battlefield the men of 1914 expected.

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It was perfect country for an infantry battle -

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open, rolling fields.

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But it offered little cover from German shells

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and the British were to suffer grievously as a result.

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One of the men who fought here

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described it as Salisbury Plain without the trees. But he was wrong.

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There was one tree.

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Shown on the maps then, as now, as l'Arbre Rond - the round tree.

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This, I have to say, is a modern replacement.

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It was an obvious aiming mark

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and it enabled German gunners

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to drop their shells right here in the sunken lane, causing casualties.

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Lt-Col Ballard of the Norfolks gave orders for it to be cut down.

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This was almost finished when the wind changed,

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threatening to blow the tree down, blocking the sunken road.

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Then Brigade Commander, Count Gleichen,

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told Ballard that on no account was this valuable route to be blocked.

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The Pioneers had to guy the tree up with ropes

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until they could pull it down into the field behind them.

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A bizarre thing - worrying about tree-felling during a battle.

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Evidence of the fighting at Le Cateau can still be found

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in the fields around the town.

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This is a relatively safe piece of First World War debris.

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It is a German cartridge for the Mauser 98 infantry rifle.

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We can tell that it is German because it is rimless.

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The British version was fatter and had a pronounced rim, here.

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Fired in 1914, lying here ever since.

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As the morning of the 26th of August wore on,

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the British took a terrible pounding from the German guns.

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Smith-Dorrien's artillery commandos

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had pushed their guns right up into the infantry line.

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And when it was time to pull back,

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the horses had to be sent forward to extract them.

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Le Cateau was to be the last time in British military history

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when guns were fought the way they had been at Waterloo,

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wheel-to-wheel within sight of the enemy.

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This track was the gun line of 122 battery, Royal Field Artillery.

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Its six 18-pounder guns were just there, drawn up in the open.

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They took a dreadful hammering,

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first from German artillery, then from infantry and machine guns.

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The Germans got some machine guns into the church spire.

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Eventually, Smith-Dorrien decided the job was done.

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He'd delivered a stopping blow,

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and it was time to break clear if he was to have anything left to move.

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The two guns here were commanded by Lt Lionel Lutyens,

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who wrote home telling us exactly what had happened.

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One of his guns was just over here.

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The team came in, got over the bank,

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hooked the gun in and got it safely away.

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Lutyens said, "It was very smart and good."

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But the next team came in here.

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The bank was a bit too high and the horses wouldn't take it.

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A machine gunner, perhaps one in the church tower,

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brought down the drivers and then the horses too.

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To Lutyens, there seemed to be nobody left alive.

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He then glanced into the sunken road

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and saw that his trusty groom had kept his charger Bronco.

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He managed to get one foot up into Bronco's stirrup

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and Bronco began to move backwards.

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Lutyens remembered that he was "shaking with excitement and funk."

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Then he was into the saddle and away up the hill.

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By evening, it seemed that Smith-Dorrien's gamble had worked.

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The survivors slipped away from the battlefield in broad daylight.

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There were many days of retreat ahead,

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but the pursuit would never again be so close.

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Some of them came back through this village of Bertry.

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And the extraordinary tale of one of them

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is still remembered by the local inhabitants.

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THEY SPEAK IN FRENCH

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I am here being looked after by the station master at Bertry,

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and his father.

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And they are telling the story about Private Fowler and Corporal Hull,

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of the 11th Hussars, who got cut off here in the village

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and were looked after by the inhabitants.

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Hull unfortunately was caught by the Germans

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and as he was in civilian clothes he was shot.

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The head of the house that had looked after him

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was deported to Germany and never seen again. But Fowler was luckier.

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He was looked after by Madame Belmont, who kept him

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in a wardrobe for most of the day, and he was allowed out at night.

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He actually spent the whole war like that.

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In October 1918, a patrol of the 11th Hussars, led by Major Drake,

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came back into the village.

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They saw a strange dishevelled creature

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being led along by a patrol of Canadians.

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As they went past he shouted out,

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"I know him, that is Mr Drake, my troop officer!"

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And it was in fact Fowler recognising Drake,

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who had been his troop leader in 1914.

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Le Cateau is largely forgotten today,

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overshadowed by bigger, bloodier battles.

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But it gave the British a reprieve

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and helped give the Allies time to regroup for a counter-offensive,

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one of many that would eventually cripple an entire generation.

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By the end of 1914,

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of those thousand-strong battalions we've followed,

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there remained, on average, one officer and thirty men.

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It's as well that soldiers can't see the future.

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The day after Le Cateau,

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some of Smith-Dorrien's men crossed a little river here in Voyennes

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in exactly the same spot as Henry V,

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on his way to Agincourt, 499 years before.

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The river? It's called the Somme.

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Subtitles by Anne Morgan BBC 1996