Le Cateau may without shame be accepted as a defeat. There was at no time, even in anticipation, the possibility of victory. It was an affair on altogether different lines to that of Mons. At Mons the British Army had been set a definite task, which it had cheerfully faced, and which it had carried through with credit to itself and with much advantage to its ally. Its ultimate retirement had only been in conformity with the movements of that ally. Everything worked according to book. But Le Cateau was quite another affair. Here we find half the British force temporarily cut off from the other half by _force majeure_, and turning at bay on a pursuer whom it could no longer escape. There was never any question of victory. The disparity in numbers and in armament left no room for illusions on that score. Searching deep below the surface, we might perhaps find that the main factor in deciding that Briton and German should cross swords at Le Cateau was the primitive impulse--always strong in the Anglo-Saxon breed--to face an ugly crisis and die fighting. In the event the British force faced the foe, and fought, but it did not die--as an army; a result due to consummate generalship on the part of the Army Corps Commander, aided by a strange laxity, or over-caution, as the case may be, on the part of the enemy. Why the Germans did not pursue with more vigour will never be known till the history of this period comes to be written from the German side. The failure to pursue after Mons is intelligible. While the 2nd A.C. was defending the group of manufacturing towns north of the Valenciennes road, the 1st A.C. on the right was thrown forward in échelon, and formed a standing menace to the left flank of the advancing enemy. A too eager pursuit, in advance of the general line, might well have resulted in the isolation and capture of the German right. At Le Cateau, however, there was no such risk. Here the German attack had been mainly concentrated against the 5th Division, evidently with the idea of turning the British right flank, and forcing in a wedge between the 1st and 2nd Army Corps. This was in effect done, and all that remained was for the Germans to push their advantage home in order to separate, at any rate, a large percentage of the 2nd A.C. from the main body on its left. This could have been effected without any fear of a flank attack from the 1st A.C, that corps being at the time far too scattered and distant to make any concerted move; and in any case being hopelessly cut off by the Sambre.