Battle of Le Cateau (1914)

Background

Three days after Mons, the British Expeditionary Force was still falling back south-west, with Lanrezac's French Fifth Army on its right and Kluck's First Army trying to get round its western flank. On 24 and 25 August the Forest of Mormal split the BEF: Haig's I Corps went down the eastern side, Smith-Dorrien's II Corps down the western, under steady pressure from the west. GHQ had first meant both corps to stand on a position near Le Cateau, then ordered the retreat to go on. Haig, attacked at Landrecies on the night of the 25th, never reached the high ground east of Le Cateau that the plan had given him, and II Corps' right was left open.

The II Corps units came in after dark, in rain, worn out. Snow's 4th Division, just arrived from England without its cavalry, cyclists or heavy battery, had covered the retreat near Solesmes and came in on the left. After 11 p.m. Allenby reported that the Germans held the high ground north of Viesly, and that unless the troops could march before daylight they would have to fight. At 2 a.m. Hamilton told Smith-Dorrien that the 3rd Division could not be formed up to move before 9 a.m.

Smith-Dorrien decided to stand, to 'strike the enemy hard' and then continue the retreat. GHQ heard at 5 a.m. Sir John French's reply gave him 'a free hand as to method' but wanted every endeavour made to retire; on the telephone Henry Wilson warned of 'another Sedan'. Smith-Dorrien answered that the action had already begun.

The armies

Smith-Dorrien had about 40,000 men: II Corps (Hamilton's 3rd and Fergusson's 5th Divisions), Snow's 4th Division, the 19th Brigade as his only reserve, and Allenby's Cavalry Division, scattered and exhausted. They were the long-service regulars and reservists of Mons, tired after two days of marching. Few units had seen the position by daylight, and the only map was the unfamiliar French 1:80,000 hachured sheet. Most dug in with small entrenching tools; on the right some batteries could only mask their guns with corn-sheaves. The field guns were placed close behind the infantry, often in the firing line, to support it with direct fire.

Kluck believed he faced the whole BEF of six divisions and planned to envelop it on both flanks. In the event only Sixt von Armin's IV Corps (7th and 8th Divisions) and Marwitz's II Cavalry Corps (three cavalry divisions with Jäger battalions and many machine guns) fought for most of the day, and Sixt von Armin had no authority over the cavalry. III Corps arrived late on the right, IV Reserve Corps in the afternoon on the left, and II Corps was held near Cambrai by the French 84th Territorial Division. The German advantage was artillery: Edmonds counts the guns of five infantry and three cavalry divisions, plus sixteen 5.9-inch howitzers, firing from concealed positions.

The battle

The right turned (6 to 11 a.m.). The day dawned hot and misty. The 5th Division's right, the 14th Brigade, lay on the open spur just west of Le Cateau, with the 2nd Suffolk in front and the 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry beside them, and the XV and XXVIII Brigades RFA and the 37th Howitzer Battery in close support. Some battalions got the order to stand only at 6 a.m.; those east of the town never got it. Shortly after 6 a.m. German troops entered Le Cateau, and at 6.30 a.m. the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and half the East Surrey, waiting in column in the town, were fired on from houses; they cut their way out south-east. About a dozen German batteries opened from near Forest, and more from Rambourlieux Farm enfiladed the line. About 10 a.m. German guns reached the heights east of the town, so the batteries west of it were raked from both flanks; the 11th Battery was soon down to one gun. Massed German infantry advanced along a two-mile front and was shot down by the field guns and the 108th Heavy Battery's 60-pounders, but kept coming.

The centre and left (6 a.m. to noon). On the left, the 4th Division's 1st King's Own were caught resting in quarter-column near Longsart soon after 6 a.m. by machine guns, then shelled, losing about 400 men. Against Marwitz's cavalry and Jäger, the 12th Brigade fell back across the Warnelle to the line Ligny–Haucourt–Esnes; by 11 a.m. the attack there had been stopped. The 3rd Division, better posted, held Caudry, a salient attacked from 7 a.m., and Audencourt without difficulty.

The guns and the Suffolks (noon to 4.30 p.m.). By noon German howitzers on the Montay spur were firing on the Suffolk at close range, and machine guns in a cutting on the Cambrai road were enfilading them. At 1.20 p.m. Fergusson asked to retire. In a lull the teams came up: the 11th, 80th and 37th Batteries got most guns away, the 52nd lost theirs, and the 122nd's teams galloped through the cheering West Kents, saving two guns. Twenty-four field guns and a howitzer were lost here, breech-blocks removed. With German infantry 200 yards off, Captain Douglas Reynolds and volunteer drivers of the 37th Battery limbered up the last two howitzers and brought one away; Reynolds and Drivers Luke and Drain won the VC. Between 2.30 and 2.45 p.m. the Suffolk, Manchester and Argylls were overrun from front, flank and rear. The 2nd KOYLI, who never got the order to retire, held until about 4.30 p.m.; Major Charles Yate won a posthumous VC there, and Lance-Corporal Frederick Holmes another.

Withdrawal (2 to 6 p.m.). About 2 p.m. 5.9-inch howitzers shelled Caudry; the brigadier was stunned and the village largely given up. The 11th Brigade withdrew to Ligny and threw back two attacks. At 3.47 p.m. II Corps reported that the retreat had begun. From about 4 p.m. Sordet's French cavalry, sent back into the fight at Joffre's request, shelled the flank of IV Reserve Corps as it came up from Cambrai, covering the 4th Division as it pulled out from 5 p.m.

Left behind (night). The Gordons, with parties of the Royal Scots and Royal Irish, never got the order to retire and held Audencourt until dark. At 12.30 a.m. they marched off, ran into Germans near Bertry and Clary about 2 a.m., and were overpowered. Kluck ordered no pursuit until 4 a.m. on the 27th.

Aftermath

II Corps and its attached troops lost 7,812 men and 38 guns, by one account more than in any British battle since Waterloo; about 2,600 were taken prisoner. German losses were never published, and estimates run from about 2,000 to nearly 9,000. The retreat went on to St Quentin and beyond. Kluck reported a victory over nine divisions, rested his troops, and lost contact: II Corps had nearly twelve hours' start.

The argument began at once. French was furious that Smith-Dorrien had fought and accused him of putting the BEF at risk; Haig wrote of an 'ill-considered decision'. French later criticised him in print, and in 1915, after Second Ypres, relieved him of command. The British official historian, Edmonds, judged him 'fully justified' in fighting, and Terraine and Spencer Jones argue that the stand slowed the Germans and secured the retreat; Jones calls it 'a crucial, albeit bloody, victory for the BEF'.

Zuber's The Mons Myth (2010) takes the other side. Working from German regimental histories, he argues that the odds were roughly even, that the British positions had poor fields of fire and no covered line of retreat, that the planned delaying action never happened, and that German losses were about 2,900, far below British claims. The regimental historian of the German 93rd Regiment wrote that it had proved itself the British regulars' superior. Zuber's critics say he takes German accounts on trust.

Wargaming it

Le Cateau is a rearguard battle where the real question is when to leave. A front of about ten miles from Le Cateau to Esnes suits battalions or batteries as units with half-hour or hourly turns from 6 a.m. to dusk. The fight on the 5th Division's right, from the Selle valley to the Roman road, makes a tight company-level game over eight hours.

The British player has open stubble fields, sunken roads and small valleys that let attackers get close unseen, guns placed among the infantry, and orders that may not arrive: several battalions never got the word to stand or to go. Message delays and a chance that an order fails to reach a unit are essential. Getting the guns out should be costly, and the right flank above Le Cateau should be open.

The German player has superior, concealed artillery but arrives piecemeal: cavalry and Jäger on the left at dawn, IV Corps in the centre, III Corps and IV Reserve Corps only in the afternoon, with no single commander. Victory conditions should reward pinning and enveloping before dark, not ground taken.

What-ifs: Haig on the heights east of Le Cateau; Smith-Dorrien retiring at the 1 p.m. lull, which Edmonds thought would have invited a close pursuit; III Corps arriving on time; no Sordet or 84th Territorial on the left. Treat British rifle fire with the same caution as at Mons.

Maps and pictures

Pictures from the time

Photographs by the armies' photographers and the press, and drawings made at the time: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.