Produced by Al Haines. _*The Operations of the British Army in the Present War*_ *THE RETREAT FROM MONS* WITH A PREFACE BY FIELD MARSHAL LORD FRENCH BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published July 1917_ *PREFACE* I am told that it has been thought advisable to publish short accounts in pamphlet form of prominent and important operations which have been carried on during the course of the war which is still raging. Such war stories may undoubtedly be beneficial, and in the belief that such "propaganda" is productive of more good than harm I have consented to indite this very brief preface to _The Retreat from Mons_. Any hesitation I may have felt arises from my profound conviction that no history of a war or any part of a war can be worth anything until some period after peace has been made and the full facts are known and understood. This pamphlet however, is not so much a "history" as an interesting summary or a chronology of leading events, and the writer carefully avoids according praise or blame in connection with any event or group of events which can ever become the subject of controversy. In a Preface to so brief and so unpretentious a military work as this, it is impossible to put before the reader more than a glimpse of the situation in regard to which plans had to be conceived and put into execution as suddenly and speedily as the demand for them was unexpected. That it is the "unexpected" which generally happens in war, and that it is the "unexpected" for which we must be ever ready, has of late years been deeply instilled in the mind of the British officer. A cardinal axiom in his military creed is that he must never be taken by surprise. When, therefore, the Germans, on the same principle as they subsequently used poison-gas, sank hospital ships, and disregarded every known rule of civilized war, suddenly and quite unexpectedly overran a neutral country in such a drastic manner as to nullify all preconceived plans and possibilities, and the British Army found itself on the outer flank of the threatened line exposed to the full weight of the German menace, it was this previous careful training which formed the sure foundation upon which to plan and conduct the inevitable retreat and carry it to a successful conclusion.