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of the First Corps and General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien leading the Second Corps.

The French army commanded by General Joffre joined hands with General French on Aug. 21 in Southern Belgium. The British centre was a little to the left of Mons, a town on the railway from Brussels to Maubeuge, and the front of about twenty miles was held by 76,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 312 guns.

On the left rear of the British Army was a French army, under General D'Amade, between Arras and Douay; to the rear, General Sordet's army below Maubeuge; on the right, the bulk of the French forces under Lanrezac, along the Sambre beyond Charleroi, with the right flank covered by the armies of Langle and Ruffey, both the latter deployed facing east. The angle in the French line followed that of the Rivers Sambre and Meuse, inside which it was formed with the sharp point of the angle at the fortified City of Namur, where 350 pieces of artillery were scientifically placed in a splendidly planned circle of Brialmont forts. The Belgian garrison at Namur somewhat exceeded 26,000 men.

Namur and Antwerp

The main German armies were now advancing rapidly through Belgium, and their artillery included the great siege trains which were allowed to get into position within three miles of Namur. The storm of heavy shells smashed one after the other of the forts, and the German infantry pushed across the Meuse below the junction with the Sambre. The Belgian infantry fought for a day, hoping for French succor, but on the 22d the Belgians and 5,000 French troops who had come up were thoroughly defeated. They retreated, hard pressed, toward Philippeville, and on Aug. 22 General von Bülow was in Namur, which was to have been the impregnable pivot on which the Allies were to hinge their operations.

While the main German army turned south to invade France, a considerable force had been dispatched to the north to deal with Antwerp. The Belgians at Antwerp numbered nearly 125,000, and on Aug. 23 they marched south and expelled the Germans from Malines. For

the next three weeks a series of hard battles was fought south of Antwerp, where the strong Belgian offensive threatened the communications of the great German armies invading France.

Between Sept. 13 and 17 a heavy battle was fought along the Malines-Louvain railway, which the Germans won. From there the Belgians slowly retreated to Antwerp, while the Germans burned three of the noblest towns of Europe-Louvain, Malines, and Termonde. Scores of villages and towns were wantonly destroyed. By Sept. 27 the great siege howitzers of the Germans began to bombard the southern forts at Antwerp. The German guns had an effective range of seven and one-half miles, while none of the Belgian artillery had a range of over six miles. During the first week of October two British naval brigades, numbering 6,000 men, arrived as a reinforcement for the garrison of Antwerp, and they brought an armored train and a few naval guns.

On Oct. 7 the Belgian Government officials went aboard ship and sailed for France. A large part of the population fled, and the British and Belgian garrison retreated. Thousands were captured and other thousands fled into Holland, where they were interned. On Oct. 9 the Germans entered Antwerp. England was chagrined at the pitiful failure of her attempts to help Belgium.

The Battle of Mons

After the fall of Namur the Germans inflicted a disastrous defeat upon the French inside the angle of the Sambre and the Meuse. In the confusion of the retreat no word was sent to General French, who remained at Mons, believing his right flank to be still covered by the French. Von Kluck attacked the British Army on Sunday, Aug. 23, at noon, and a few hours later a message from General Joffre told Sir John French of the retreat of Lanrezac's army, which he had supposed still sheltered the British right.

Sunday night and Monday morning, the 24th, the British made a very skillful retreat, and, thanks to brave soldiers and skillful commanders, escaped a great disaster. Between Aug. 23 and 28 General French's army retreated steadily under

constant pressure and suffering severe losses. On the 27th they came to a halt north of St. Quentin. On that day the French armies, which had attempted to hold the line of the Meuse, gave way, and the Germans crossed the river at Donchery. Mezières, Montmedy, and Longwy fell. On the west Lille fell, and only Maubeuge among the fortresses of Northern France still flew the tricolor. At Tournai a French brigade and a British battery were captured.

The Retreat from Mons

The French and British continued to retreat, and the Germans pushed on for Amiens and got astride the Paris-Boulogne line of communications. On Aug. 27 the Munster Fusiliers were cut off and all either killed or captured. On the 28th the British force was on the Oise between La Fère and Noyon after six days of constant fighting and marching. A welcome reinforcement came up to their support on the left, where General d'Amade's Sixth French Army arrived from the direction of Arras and threatened the right flank of von Kluck's pursuing army. About the same time strong French corps came up and relieved the pressure on the British right toward Guise.

The line La Fère-Laon-Rheims seemed like the proper place for the re-formed

French and British armies to make a stand, but the huge German armies on the French right flank crossed the Meuse, and after a hard two-day battle captured Rethel and crossed the Aisne. The German centre thrust forward toward Rheims, and the thoroughly beaten French were unable to make any effectual defense.

The result was to compel a further retreat of the British and the Fifth French Army on the west flank. Von Kluck's army took La Fère and Laon without a fight.

General Joffre, the supreme commander, after the successive French defeats on the Semois, the Meuse, the Aisne aţ Charleroi, Dinant, and Donchery, was withdrawing the whole group of allied armies behind the Marne. As they fell back the Germans pursued closely, and there were hard-fought rear-guard battles daily. On Sept. 3 the British succeeded in crossing the Marne and destroyed the bridges. On Sept. 5 they were some miles further south along the Grand Morin, a tributary of the Marne. To the south lay the forest of Fontainebleau and the Valley of the Seine. The French Government moved from Paris to Bordeaux.

[Next Installment: Battle of the Marne.]

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By Admiral Sir John Jellicoe

First Sea Lord, Former Commander of the Grand Fleet

[An address delivered in London on Jan. 11, 1917, when Admiral Jellicoe was presented with the honorary freedom of the Fishmongers' Company]

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HERE are great differences between the conditions of today and a hundred years ago. These lie in the greater speed of ships, in the longer range of guns, in the menace of the torpedo as fired from ships, destroyers, and submarines, and the menace of mines, the use of aircraft as scouts, and of wireless telegraphy. In the Napoleonic era the ships opened fire with guns at ranges of about 800 yards. The ships of today open fire at 22,000 yards' (or eleven nautical miles) range, and gunfire begins to be very effective at 18,000 yards. The torpedo as fired from surface vessels is effective certainly up to 10,000 yards' range, and this requires that a ship shall keep beyond this distance to fight her

of vessel, combined with the use of mines, entirely prevents the close blockade resorted to in former days. In addition, these two weapons add greatly to the anxieties of those in command. It is one thing to fight an enemy that you can see. It is a different matter to deal with a

hidden foe. Thus modern conditions add immensely in this respect to the responsibility of those commanding fleets. They cannot get warning of the enemy being at sea until the enemy is well at sea. Nelson watching Villeneuve off Cadiz had his inshore squadron close into the enemy's port, and could see what was actually going on inside that port. The British fleet of today, watching the German High Seas Fleet, is not in the same happy position. The further the watching ships are from the enemy's port the greater is the facility with which the enemy can escape and the greater is the difficulty of intercepting him.

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ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE

guns. As the conditions of visibility in the North Sea particularly-are frequently such as to make fighting difficult beyond a range of 10,000 yards, and as modern fleets are invariably accompanied by very large numbers of destroyers, whose main duty it is to attack with the torpedo the heavy ships of the enemy, it will be recognized how great becomes the responsibility of the Admiral in command of a fleet, particularly under the conditions of low visibility to which I have referred. As soon as destroyers tumble upon a fleet within torpedo range the situation becomes critical for the heavy ships.

The submarine is another factor which has changed the situation, as this class

There was never any likelihood in the olden days of the enemy's fleet escaping unseen unless the blockading squadron was forced from its watching position by bad weather, which, of course, occasionally occurred. In our day submarines and mines compel the watching force to take up their station further and further away. In spite of this, and in spite of the German boast as to the occasions on which the German fleet has searched the North Sea for the British fleet, our enemies have only on one occasion ven

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