The Retreat from Mons 1914 by Jon Cooksey

Author:Jon Cooksey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War I
ISBN: 9781473835009
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

Captain Francis Octavius Grenfell VC.

With the Norfolks and the 119/Battery guns now gone the Cheshires were left on the field unaware that they were now on their own.

Continue along the track and where the track bears round to the right go straight ahead. Just before you reach the junction of tracks – marked l’Avaleresse on the map – glance across to the right where the ruins of the old colliery are now shrouded in trees. ❾ Here two platoons of D Company with Captain William Rich of the Cheshires were positioned, as was a platoon of Norfolks which did not receive orders to retire. At 5.00pm Rich took it upon himself to order the withdrawal from the colliery and escaped along the railway line with Second Lieutenant Edward Groves and some forty men. When Hauptmann Huber and 9 Kompanie eventually reached the colliery there were very few British left. Huber – whom we shall meet again at the railway station at Le Cateau – was slightly wounded by a stray shot but his men were met by a spirited resistance, ‘the hostile fire was intense … and around the pit’s buildings could be seen several dead and wounded Lancers’. It also appears that the Cheshire’s firing line was to be seen about 600m beyond the pit and it was the rifle fire from D Company which initially checked the German advance: ‘Losses were heavy, 20-years-old Leutnant Wilheim Mielke was killed by a shot through the throat … The enemy began to withdraw, several English fell while going back over the open fields’. A heavy fire was also reported to be directed on Huber’s Kompanie from ‘a group of three houses about 500m beyond the pit’.

The three houses referred to would have been those you can see clustered around the crossroads, although it is difficult to ascertain whether or not the modern day houses are all of 1914 vintage. As you pass through the tiny hamlet keep a look out for the now-abandoned line of the former light railway which becomes apparent as it crosses in front of you. Captain Ernest Jones and the remaining half of D Company of the Cheshires were deployed astride this line. Jones gave the order for his company to begin their retirement at 3.00pm. Jones and a small party of men from 9 Platoon were confronted by men of IR 66 just after leaving the cover of Audregnies Wood and refusing to surrender, he and Drummer Edward Hogan were shot down.

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