Battle of Mons - Background

Background

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, and on 9 August the BEF began embarking for France. By the standards of Continental European armies, the BEF was, in 1914, exceedingly small. Whereas at the beginning of the war the German and French armies numbered well over a million men each, divided into eight and five field armies, respectively, the BEF initially numbered only about 80,000 soldiers divided into two corps. Unlike the largely conscript armies of Germany and France, however, the BEF was an entirely professional force made up of long-service volunteer soldiers. As a result, the BEF was, on balance, probably the best trained and most experienced of the European armies of 1914. In particular, pre-war British Army training emphasized rapid marksmanship, meaning that the average British soldier was able to hit a man-sized target fifteen times a minute at a range of 300 yards with his Lee-Enfield rifle. This ability to pour out rapid, accurate rifle-fire would play an important role in all of the BEF's battles of 1914.

The Battle of Mons took place as part of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the advancing German army clashed with the advancing Allied armies along the Franco-Belgian and Franco-German borders. The BEF was stationed on the left of the Allied line, which stretched from Alsace-Lorraine in the east to Mons and Charleroi in southern Belgium. The British army's position on the French flank meant that it stood directly in the path of the German First Army, the outermost wing of the massive "right hook" intended by the Schlieffen Plan to encircle and destroy the Allies. The BEF, small as it was, thus had the crucial role of holding back the German right wing and preventing the Allies from being outflanked.

The British reached Mons on 22 August. On that day, the French Fifth Army, located on the immediate right of the BEF, was heavily engaged with the German Second and Third armies at the Battle of Charleroi. At the request of the Fifth Army commander, General Charles Lanrezac, the BEF's commander, Field Marshal Sir John French, agreed to hold the line of the Mons-Condé Canal for twenty-four hours to prevent the advancing German First Army from threatening the French left flank. The British thus spent the day creating entrenched positions along the canal.