Sir, The reports from The Times from August 1914 make fascinating reading. The article of August 30 talks of “broken” French and British regiments. This was an understandable exaggeration. The French did not “break” after fighting on the Sambre and the Meuse, known as the Battle of Charleroi. They embarked on a well-planned withdrawal in the face of superior forces. The same applies to the British after Mons and Le Cateau. The British Commander, Sir John French, thought that the Second Corps had ceased to exist as an effective force, but this was not the case. The Times’s call for reinforcements was heeded and they were sent.
Much of the coverage of the First World War anniversary in Britain ignores the role of the French. Often the conflict is portrayed as an Anglo-German football match. Nine tenths of the troops opposing the Germans on the Marne were French. In two months they sustained nearly half a million casualties. Without their dogged endurance the Germans might well have won the First World War.
Terry Cudbird
Oxford