Now let us look more closely at the position which the British were to hold.[14] Find the town of Mons, which stands to the west of Charleroi,[15] on the highroad running northward to Brussels. Mons is the old capital of Hainault, and its history goes back to the days of Cæsar. Those of our soldiers who came from colliery districts must have been strongly reminded of home when they arrived in the neighbourhood of Mons, for it is a place of busy factories, surrounded by a coalfield. Tall chimneys, the headgear of pits, huge mounds of refuse, railway lines running along embankments, and miners' cottages are the chief features of the landscape. Many of the rubbish heaps have been planted with little forests of dwarf firs, and look like ranges of low wooded hills. The country is, however, flat and much cut up with deep dykes filled with muddy water. The British headquarters was at Mons, and the line which our soldiers were to hold extended to the west and to the east of that town. On the west it stretched along the banks of a canal which runs west for fifteen miles, from Mons to the village of Condé. Still farther to the west, a French Territorial battalion held the town of Tournai. Eastward of Mons the line ran for another ten miles to the village of Binche, which lies south-east of Mons. The British position, you will observe, was not quite straight, but in the form of a very flat triangle, with the apex at Mons. By the evening of Friday, 21st August, two army corps and one cavalry division of the British were in position awaiting the German attack. The 3rd Army Corps had not yet arrived. [Illustration: The Town of Mons. _Photo, Exclusive News Agency._] The Commander-in-Chief was Sir John French, of whom we have already heard. The 1st Army Corps, which was posted to the east of Mons, was commanded by Sir Douglas Haig, a cavalryman like Sir John French, and one of the youngest of British generals. He had seen service in the Sudan and in South Africa, and had held high military positions at home and in India. The 2nd Army Corps, which was posted along the line of the canal west of Mons, was commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, also a brilliant soldier, who did fine work in South Africa. The cavalry division was under Major-General Allenby, one of the most famous cavalry scouts in the British army, and the 5th Cavalry Brigade was commanded by Sir Philip Chetwode. [Illustration: Map showing British and French Positions at the Battles of Mons and Charleroi.]