Talk:Battle of Mons

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[edit] Result:

The battle favoured neither side!!! It was an overall German victory because the Allies retreated & lost so many people. It was only a successful retreat for the Allies!! So on this note, Stop Saying It Was A British Victory!!!!! Spawn Man 06:51, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

RESPONSE:

I beg to differ. One must consider the situation the BEF was put under before the battle; being outnumbered, outgunned, and left with the possibility of encirclement. The BEF inflicted roughly a 4-1 casualty rate on the Germans despite being half their number. This had a dramatic effect on German morale, effectively stopping Von Kluck's Army in tracks; giving the Allies time to regroup and consolidate. If you read the individual dispatches and letters of both British and German officers after the battle (not to mention the Kaiser's fury at the result of the engagement!) one can conclude that Mons was a vital, if costly British victory. - Morden279

YAWN!.... Spawn Man 23:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Spawn Man but the blinkered view is unlikely to be the best informed.

In reading the following, it should be remembered that forces other than the BEF were doing things at the same time but we are discussing Mons.

I don't think there is much room for doubt: it was not a strategic victory for the Entente. That had to wait for the Marne.

Neither is there much room for doubt that Mons was a tactical victory for the Entente.

In judging the truth of these opinions it is important to keep the broad picture in mind.

A new caution was engendered in the Central Powers' thinking by the combination of fatigue, lengthening lines of communication and the un-planned-for setbacks of which Mons was an important example. The delays enabled the Entente forces to position themselves. In this, the delays at Mons and Le Cateau were more directly relevant in connection with the French Army's resilience on the Marne and Aisne. It also allowed the retention of the BEF's integrity so that it was able to move rapidly back to the North to support the preparations already begun by the Belgian Army and the British Admiralty in Flanders, with a view to keeping the invasion away from the northern French coast. Without this, it is doubtful that Britain could have long continued maintaining an army in France owing to the difficulty of keeping U-boats away from the cross-Channel shipping required.

The German High Command clearly learned from this. In the invasion of 1940, before turning south against the French army, the German forces made sure that they reached the coast so as to prevent a combined Franco-British resistance. The two allied armies were then dealt with in turn.

While the following is not a claim which can reasonably be made, owing to the long chain of imponderables, it is not beyond possibility that Mons won the War. Or, to put it more sensibly, Mons was a link in the chain of events which won the War. Break one of those links and the chain is broken. Tactical victory though it was, a small event at a key moment can be important. (RJP 11:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC))

• • Second response to Spawn Man**

If "yawn" is the finest riposte you can conjure up, sir, then you really have no right to enter into historical debates such as this. I responded with due care and consideration to the evidence at hand, and considering that veterans of the Great War are still alive today, I'd like to think that submissions to Wikipedia would reflect the respect such individuals deserve. May I pass my thanks onto RJP for providing a concise an well-informed evaluation of the battle itself

[edit] Notice Of Possible Innacuracy?

The Article mentions: Kaiser Wilhelm's 'Order of the Day' on August 19, 1914 was for "my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English; walk over General French's contemptible little Army." This led to the British "Tommies" of the BEF proudly labelling themselves "The Old Contemptibles". In the BEF article, it tells the whole story:

The Kaiser had apparently described the force as "contemptibly little", referring to its size, but it got reported as "contemptible". The name stuck and the BEF proudly referred to themselves as the "Old Contemptibles".

But no evidence of such an order was ever found in the German archives after the war, and the ex-Kaiser denied having said it. He remarked

On the contrary, I continually emphasised the high value of the British Army, and often, indeed, in peace-time gave warning against underestimating it. The order was, it seems, created by Frederick Maurice in the British War Office for propaganda purposes. (Reference: Nigel Rees citing Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, 1928.)

Maybe a mention of the innacuracy of the statement, or simply the removal of that paragraph? It doesnt seem to offer much information, although information on the Mons Star could be fleshed out.