The initial German assault on Mons consisted of five
divisions attacking the British II Corps of two divisions commanded by
Lieutenant General Horace Smith-Dorrien, an old India hand. The German attack
must have seemed quite familiar to him; they advanced in tight ranks across
open ground, as ignorant of the effect of concentrated firepower as any
tribesman he had faced on the Northwest Frontier. Von Kluck’s men suffered
heavy casualties and the first assault was thrown back. They regrouped and a
more extended order of attack advanced on the British line a half-hour later.
This probe managed to find and dislodge the exposed flank of the British 3rd Division
and turn the previously defensible perimeter of the British force into a
dangerous salient.
Despite the tremendous casualties inflicted by the
defenders, the sheer weight of numbers worked against them; what had initially
resembled Omdurman was rapidly turning into something more akin to Isandlwana.
The point companies holding the bridge approaches suffered what for this early
stage of the war were heavy losses, but still managed to hold on. There at the
Nimy Bridge Lieutenant Maurice Dease, machine gun officer of the Royal
Fusiliers, won the first Great War Victoria Cross. `The gun fire was intense,
and the casualties very heavy, but the lieutenant went on firing despite his
wounds, until he was hit the fifth time and was carried away to a place of safety
where he died.’ The second VC followed in short order, as Private Sidney Frank
Godley took Dease’s place at the gun and kept it firing until the position was
overrun. In a final gesture of defiance, Godley smashed the firing mechanism
and tipped the gun into the canal just before retiring:
We carried on until towards evening when the order was
given for the line to retire. I was asked by Lieut. Steele to remain and hold
the position while the retirement took place, which I did do, although I was very
badly wounded several times, but I managed to carry on. I was on my own at the
latter end of the action. Of course, Lieut. Dease lay dead by the side of me,
and Lieut. Steele, he retired with his platoon. I remained on the bridge and
held the position, but when it was time for me to get away I smashed the
machine gun up, threw it in the Canal, and then crawled back on the main road
where I was picked up by a couple of Belgian civilians and was then taken to
hospital in Mons…I was being attended by the doctors…when the Germans came in
and took the hospital.
In a phenomenal act of courage, German private August
Niemeyer swam across the canal under intense British fire and brought back a
boat so that his patrol could cross. The German patrol then crossed the canal
and engaged the defending British soldiers. Then, Niemeyer set the swing
mechanism in motion that moved the bridge back into position across the canal
and reopened the bridge to road traffic. In its closed position, the Nimy swing
bridge allowed traffic to cross the canal. When a water vessel needed to pass,
motors rotated the bridge horizontally about its pivot point out of the way.
The British troops rotated the Nimy bridge away from the banks but did not
disable the mechanism. As a result, even after Niemeyer was killed, German
troops were able to charge across and secure the bridge. By 1:40 p.m., the
British infantry was falling back under fire from the Germans advancing through
Mons to Ciply. Had the machine guns been placed at an angle in a protected
position from which they could have swept the bridge, the British might have
held it much longer.
