.m. and came back at 12.30 p.m.
with information of long enemy columns moving from Grammont through
Lessines into La Hamaide and further troops on the Ath-Leuze road. They
had flown as far as Ninove and Alost, but found the country there clear.
On returning over Lessines at 11.30 a.m. they saw three German
aeroplanes on the ground; they dropped a bomb overboard, but missed.

In the evening of the 24th, the first day of the retreat, the position
was on the whole not unsatisfactory. The British Fifth Division had not
only defended six miles of front, but with the aid of the cavalry and
the 19th Infantry Brigade had met and beaten off von Kluck's enveloping
attack. But that attack was soon renewed. On the following morning a
heavy movement of German troops southward from Marchiennes, with
cavalry, guns, and transport, was reported at six o'clock. Marchiennes
is almost midway between Valenciennes and Douai, to the west of the
British line of retreat. This moving line of troops continued southward
through Somain for a distance of about five miles, and then bent in a
south-easterly direction, pointing straight at Le Cateau, until it
reached Bouchain, where there were mounted and dismounted troops
extending over three miles. But Le Cateau was not the objective of these
troops. General von Kluck believed that the next stand of the British
army, after Mons, would be made on a position running east and west
through Bavai, and resting its right on the fortress of Maubeuge. The
troops seen at Bouchain were intended to envelop it and take it in the
rear. Meantime the British army, having escaped the lure of Maubeuge,
was continuing its painful march southward on both sides of the Forest
of Mormal; and the claw that was extended to catch it closed upon air.

[Illustration: Map Illustrating Aerial Reconnaissance Area.
25th & 26th August 1914.]

These movements of von Kluck's army on the 25th were influenced by
his own air reports, which appear to have misled him. The army order
issued by him from Soignies at 8.30 p.m. on the night of the 24th
assumed that the British army would accept battle on the line
Maubeuge-Bavai-Valenciennes. Von Kluck was very hopeful. 'The
outflanking of the left of the British Army,' he says, 'on the
assumption that it remained in position, appeared to be guaranteed.'
An important air report which reached him at 1.0 a.m. on the 25th
led him to suspect that the British were withdrawing on Maubeuge.
Speaking