Sir John French assembled his commanders at six in the morning on August 23, and explained to them what he understood to be General Joffre's plan. He knew nothing of what had happened on his right, and he believed that one, or at most two, of the enemy's army corps, with perhaps one cavalry division, were on his front. He had no idea that the enemy outnumbered him by at least two to one, and that they were attempting to envelop him by attacking his exposed flanks. A private in the 1st Royal West Kent Regiment tells us how the battle began. He says: "It was Sunday, 23rd August, that we were at Mons, billeted in a farmyard, and we were having a sing-song, and watching the people coming home from church. At about 12.30 an orderly had gone down to draw dinners when an aeroplane appeared overhead, throwing out some black powder. After this shrapnel began to burst, acquainting us with the fact that the Germans were in the vicinity. All was confusion and uproar for the moment, because we were not armed, and our shirts and socks were out to wash, that being the only chance we had to get them washed. It did not take us long, however, to get in fighting trim and go through the town of Mons to the scene of operations, which was on the other side of a small canal that adjoined." [Illustration] The British were soon standing to arms in their position along the whole twenty-five miles of the battle-line. Hardly had they thrust the cartridges into their rifles before the terrible thunder of the German guns began. These guns were massed just outside the southern edge of the woods, behind railway embankments, roadside trees, hedgerows, and the raised towing-paths of the willow-fringed canals. The thunder of the cannonade speedily showed that the enemy was in far greater force than had been supposed. Not, however, for some hours did Sir John French and his staff realize that they were _everywhere_ outnumbered. The guns were booming, but there was no sign of the enemy. The front seemed empty of men, but an observer would have seen soft, fleecy clouds hanging above the British trenches--a sign that shrapnel was bursting over them, and that a deadly flail of iron bullets was beating down upon them. Our soldiers, who had learned to take cover in South Africa, lay close, and waited, whiling away the time by joking and by playing marbles with the shrapnel bullets that fell among them. At first the aim of the enemy's artillery was not very good, but speedily their aeroplanes came circling over the trenches, and by throwing down smoky bombs revealed their whereabouts. Then they made very accurate shooting, and many of our men were hit. Meanwhile our artillery began to reply, and more than once silenced a battery of the enemy.