23rd September 1914, Lessines.
The battlefield was carpeted with bodies, most were the field grey of the German First Army but here and there were scattered British corpses, cavalry men who had been shot down in the retreat to the main defensive line. It was not until early afternoon that the fighting for the cavalry positions ceased, with their withdrawal to the rear of the main line, they would form a mobile reserve to plug breaches in the defences of the infantry divisions. The retreat of the cavalry had been well managed, they had withdrawn in good order, but they had been gravely outnumbered by the attacking German infantry and had taken casualties.
Their defence had been worth the losses though, achieving two objectives, firstly inflicting stinging casualties on the German infantry as they attacked and secondly causing the Germans to spend precious time and scarce ammunition in a deliberate attack.
The delay had also allowed the defending infantry units further time to prepare their entrenchments, barbed wire was becoming more available, with every factory in Britain working double shifts and the first supplies from America also arriving. The infantry and engineers had formed wiring parties who had laboured mightily to create actual barbed wire entanglements, not the mere single or double wire fences seen previously but rather more effective barriers. These entanglements would be difficult to traverse whilst their apparent impenetrability would add further strains to the faltering morale of First Army.
The initial attack by the German Infantry was much more aggressively conducted than anyone expected, the same closely packed lines of infantry had come forward at a steady pace. The eighteen pounders had had a field day, with the vast majority of the Germans Artillery having exhausted their ammunition and subsequently been spiked and abandoned, their gunners drafted into ersatz regiments to press the attack. The British Guns had been able to position themselves with little thought to counter battery fire, they were drawn up as if it was Waterloo or the Crimea, the guns virtually on the front line. This position would expose them to rifle fire from the attacking Germans but it would enable easy direct fire against the oncoming foe.
The artillery batteries were as professional as the infantry, the men long service professionals, the officers educated at Woolwich. Along with the engineers the gunners considered themselves intellectually superior to the Sandhurst men of the cavalry and the infantry.
Shrapnel was being almost exclusively used, the shells bursting above the advancing infantry, the first attack continued to be pressed strongly, the German infantry advanced in the hail of shrapnel balls with little hesitation. They had advanced within 600 yards of the British front line before the order for the infantry and machine guns to open fire was given. The first rounds cracked out almost as a volley, the next round was more ragged with each man loading and firing rapidly but in his own time. The machine guns added their own noise but they were virtually drowned out by the rapid fusillade from the riflemen.
The artillery had been a steady erosion, the rifle and machine gun fire was a shattering blow, the first ranks of men down in a moment and the hungry wasplike bzt of bullets cracked past and into the remnant. They broke, turned about and ran, the past days defeats and hunger finally exceeding discipline and training, rumours of von Kluck’s death and the actions of the chain dogs had already worked on their morale but this sleeting death was too much.
The British infantry took advantage of this, sending them on the way back with well-aimed fire that felled men fleeing for the illusory safety of the start line, nor did the gunners stint, they continued to fire rapidly on both the fleeing men and those forming up to become the next wave of the attack.
The second wave having seen what happened to the first balked, it was in many cases comprised of ersatz units drawn from dismounted cavalry, artillerymen without guns, a field veterinary unit, even a balloon unit that had abandoned their craft in the retreat. In short, the whole supporting assemblage of the army pushed forward to try and break an impenetrable wall. These men were often older reservists, their courage was not in doubt, but they viewed themselves as specialists valuable men to the army for their skills and with lives and families that would depend on them in the future. They had only just recently been called up in many cases and they had seen little but loss, hardship and futility as they spread across Belgium like a tide that was now receding.
The military police and their officers snarled threats and potential for recriminations but to little avail they would not advance into that storm of steel not for the General, not for the colonel and not for some jumped up little tyrant with a gorget round his neck. They simply turned around and retreated back to the town, leaving a carpet of dead and dying men, the German First Army was no more.
The surrender when it came was an anticlimax, a small party of senior German officers rode towards the British lines, they attempted to negotiate passage for the army, shorn of their arms but an army still, that received curt dismissal, the only offer total surrender including arms and ammunition and supplies or the attack would resume in 2 hours. To prevent the useless effusion of blood, the terms of surrender were agreed too with Major General Hermann von Kuhl signing on behalf of General von Linsingen, General Smith Dorrien signed on behalf of the BEF.