force of 25,000 Belgian troops at Namur. The
total Allied troops in this field of battle were thus about 345,000
men.

Opposed to them, on the north, were about 700,000 German troops,
General von Kluck farthest to the west, Generals von Buelow and von
Hausen around the Belgian fortress of Namur, Grand Duke Albrecht
of Wuerttemberg in the neighborhood of Maubeuge, and finally, on the
extreme left of the German line, the Army of the Moselle, under
Crown Prince Wilhelm.

The position of the Allied armies was based on the resisting power
of Namur. It was expected that Namur would delay the German advance
as long as Liege had done. Then the French line of frontier
fortresses--Lille, with its half-finished defenses; Maubeuge, with
strong forts and a large garrison; and other strongholds--would
form a still more useful system of fortified points for the Allies.

The German staff, however, had other plans. At Liege they had rashly
endeavored to storm a strong fortress by a massed infantry attack,
which had failed disastrously until their new Krupp siege guns
had been brought up. These quickly demolished the defenses. These
siege guns, therefore, which had thus fully demonstrated their
value against fortifications soon brought about the total defeat
of the French offensive, and compelled the Allies to retreat from
Belgium and northern France. The Germans lost no time in investing
Namur, and on Saturday, as noted above, August 22, 1914, the fortress
fell into the invaders' hands.

On the same day, August 22, 1914, the Fifth French Army, under
the lead of General Lanrezac, was enduring the double stress of
Von Buelow's army thundering against its front, and Von Hausen's two
army corps pressing hard upon its right flank and rear, threatening
its line of retreat. Against such terrific odds the French line at
Dinant and Givet broke, exposing the flank and rear of the whole
army; and by the evening of that day, August 22, the passages of
the River Sambre, near Charleroi, had been forced, and the Fifth
Army was falling back, contesting every mile of the ground with
desperate rear-guard action. The British, meanwhile, defending the
Mons position, were in grave danger of being cut off, enveloped,
and destroyed.

Sir John French had put his two army corps into battle array. He
had about thirty miles of front to defend, with Mons nearly in
the center.

On Sunday afternoon, August 23, 1914, the full weight of the German
onset fel