Franco-British force, in face of such
overwhelming numbers, would have been perilous in the extreme. With
the forts of Namur abandoned almost at the first blow, the peril was
more than a peril. It had become almost certain disaster.

[Illustration: Sketch 43.]

With the fall of Namur, the angle between the rivers--that is, the
crossings of the rivers at their most difficult part where they were
broadest--was in the hands of the enemy, and the whole French body,
the 4th and 5th Armies, was at some time on that Saturday falling
back.

The exact hour and the details of that movement we do not yet know. We
do not know what loss the French sustained, we do not know whether any
considerable bodies were cut off. We do not know even at what hour the
French General Staff decided that the position was no longer tenable,
and ordered the general retreat.

All we know is that, so far from being able to hold out two or three
days against a numerical superiority of a third and under the buttress
of Namur, the operative corner, with Namur fallen and, not 30 per
cent., but something more like 130 per cent. superiority against it,
began not the slow retreat that had been envisaged, but a retirement
of the most rapid sort.

Such a retirement was essential if the cohesion of the Allied forces
was to be maintained at all, and if the combined 4th and 5th French
Armies and British contingent were to escape being surrounded or
pierced.

By the Saturday night at latest the French retirement was ordered; by
Sunday morning it was in full progress, and it was proceeding
throughout the triangle of the Thierarche all that day.

But the rate of that retirement, corresponding to the pressure upon
the French front, differed very much with varying sections of the
line. It was heaviest, of course, in those advanced bodies which had
lain just under Namur. It was least at the two ends of the bow, for
the general movement was on to the line Maubeuge-Mezieres. The farther
one went east towards Maubeuge, the slower was the necessary movement,
and to this cause of delay must be added the fact that von Kluck,
coming round by the extreme German line, had farthest to go, and
arrived latest against the line of the Allies.

Therefore the British contingent at the western extreme of the Allied
line felt the shock latest of all, and all that Sunday morning the
British were still occupied in taking up their positions. They had
arrived but just in time for w