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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 186, 11 September 1914, Page 6

In the plain, matter-of-fact language of the soldier, General French recounts in his report the stirring story of the British Expeditionary Force at Mons. It was apparent from the first fugitive messages touching on the dangerous action that the Britishers had been badly mauled, while there was . a suggestion that for days their position must have been absolutely desperate. General French's report makes clear the service his men did to the French in that terrible week. Lieutenant-General SmithDorrien, whose experience in South Africa must have proved invaluable to him when his greatly outnumbered division was threatened with envelopment, led the Britishers out of as nasty a scrape as could well be imagined. Isolated, with the appeal for natural support unable to be complied with, the '' Tommies'' fell back from Mons, battered, but never broken. . The censor's plaintive hints at the time suggested that in the superb show of discipline that enabled the Allied left wing to rearrange itself in good order, the Bri-

tishers had accomplished a feat of arms ! which would compare with anything in history. General French demonstrates i beyond dispute that such was the case. Mons, and the days that followed the splendidly stubborn retirement of the "Tommies" under exhausting conditions, will redound to the fame of our soldiers until the end of all war. The Germans well knew the moral effect to be gained by putting the British troops out of action so early in the campaign, while their failure to check the German right would have placed the French left armies at. the mercy of the enemy. Today's information shows just how desperately the German's tried to, effect their purpose; men were sacrificed by battalions in the attempt. General Joffre has good cause to be grateful to the Britishers, for their dogged resistance against overwhelming odds made possible the extended offensive attack which the Allies are pressing on the German front with such success. "Mons might well have been the turning point of the Campaign in France. Had the German right wing, flushed with its achievements' in Belgium, turned the Allies' flank, then their cause would have suffered a vital stroke. As it has eventuated, the right wing of the invading armies, punished terribly in its endeavour to break the British troops, has been flung back from Paris, exhausted, and outfought at all points. That could not have happened had th? Britishers not showed their bulldog characteristics at and behind Mons. It was a memorable and thrilling