The War Room V: Rifles at Mons, 1914 

My Great Grandfather fought and was wounded at Festubert - at 33 years old in 1914, he was at the end of his 15 years long Military service, having already fought with the 3rd Batt, KRRC in the Second Anglo Boer War for 3 years. Now with 5 Children at home he was re-instated in 1914 as a full time Soldier again with the 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps, part of the British 2nd Division. The 1st Battalion landed at Rouen as part of the 6th Brigade in the 2nd Division in August 1914 for service on the Western Front. He saw action at the Battle of Mons in August 1914, the First Battle of the Marne and the First Battle of the Aisne in September 1914 and First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. He fought at the Battle of Festubert in May 1915 and his record shows that on the 31st of May he was discharged Medically Unfit due to "wounds". This is several days after the battle of Festubert was fought and where he was likely wounded. The 2nd Division lost 5,500 men during the Battle of Festubert and having already served 15 years in the British Army as a Rifleman - he fought in two wars and survived both ... going home to his Family. I continue to stand in awe ... of him and any who fought with him. Lest We Forget.

I can't be the only one looking at this thinking "If Battlefront made a Combat Mission: Guns of August, I'd buy it in a heart beat." It's very interesting to see at Mons the bolt-action magazine rifle acting as the primary arm to win fire superiority instead of just being a heavy stick carried by a guy whose primary job is to feed ammo into a machinegun.

Bout time this dropped Seriously, though, if there's one thing I know little of and always wanted more information on in tactical depth, it's non-trench warfare during WW1. Another great video, man.

Great video! It's nice to see someone put the BEF into a broader context than just the "expertly-trained riflemen who were superior to their opponents" that you see a lot when talking about Mons.

I should have wrote it under the first video in the series. This kind of close-up case studies have tought me more than many hours of tactical training in the military. Not in "hows" but in more important "whys".

I’m a few minutes in and this is already very interesting I hope you continue the series

Absolutely fantastic. Will definitely discuss this video with friends later.

Great video! Little historical note, I'd treat Bloem's claim of being engaged by guerillas at Cortenberg with a grain of salt. The Germans were very, very, very paranoid of "francs-tireurs" after the experience of the Franco-Prussian war and they had a tendency to see partisans everywhere (this was a big reason why their occupation of Belgium was so brutal).

You should do a video on the Defense of Duffer Drift, or Bowler Bridge, tactical narratives written during the 2nd Boer War, and Inter War period respectively that analysis platoon level combat operations, and tactics in the form of a scenario that is played out multiple times to preview different outcomes of planning. Your style of video making, and the subject matter would match up well.

Another tour de force. My favorite part however was the closing reference to 'next time'. Can't wait to hear it. And I have a sneaking suspicion that my questions about machine guns are going to get some answers when we hear about the development of modern trench warfare. The MG as the solution to the problem of how to boost the rate of fire of dug in and spread out infy, maybe? Man, this is better than a whodunnit.

Great video ! Dinally some Combat mission in the War Room !

For me the whole operation from Mons, to Le Cateau to the Marne with a 200 mile fighting retreat and then the significant contribution at the Marne was one of the most cohesive, impressive and brave feat of arms of any band of brothers in history. They truly were exceptional and it must be remembered that it was a force that had to go anywhere in the world and fight in any conditions but it was not thought that it needed to be big because we had the navy who were the most powerful in the world at that time , so they would solve most problems and that is why their budget was huge in comparison.

Lovely stuff all around, the simplicity of the German attack is intriguing indeed. One wonders if they couldve kept most of the speed if the attack while achieving success if they had some more integrated fire support, like field guns and machine guns. It certainly would've made for a more credible attack!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="200">3:20</a> this looks a lot like a Combat Mission map. Some early Alpha material for Combat Mission: Great War? (hey, I never thought we would get Combat Mission: Cold War, but that is actually a reality now so I think it's not unreasonable for me to dream a little) Edit: I only read the description after posting this comment

I know what I'll be watching after work today.

That was great, and another example of the much overlooked tactical mastery of the British on the Western Front.

My grandfather fought there with the Royal Irish Regiment. He was wounded near La Bascule Crossroads and was taken prisoner by the Germans in his hospital bed. He spent three years in Zerbst POW camp and was repatriated by the Red Cross in 1917 as they did not expect him to live for very long. He made it home to Tipperary and passed away in 1954.

Very timely given your latest Defence review. The Army is being asked to reduce in size and rely on a technological edge against a potential mass foe. I guess the cycle continues.

notice how in a lot of the photos from the early days of the war , the infantry is bunched up together being prone on a bank or in the middle of a road , i guess its to maximize firepower to the front?

Another Day, Another Usually Hapless Video! : D

There is a lot wrong with this video, so im just going to mention that the mons myth is a great book and would highly recommend for anyone looking for a very different veiw on the battle of mons.

One question for you, as you know your way around the literature much better than I ever will: One of my favorite books on WW2 is Keegan's The Battle for History -- i.e., a readable annotated historiography. Has anyone written anything similar for WW1 and the runup to it?

It occurs to me, my original comment about how <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="200">3:20</a> looks like we might be getting Combat Mission: Great War was a joke. But I wonder if WW1 might actually be doable in the Combat Mission engine. For sure it can handle 1918 combat, as the infantry tactics used by then aren't so far removed from the infantry tactics of WW2, which CM has already done admirably well. The issue is in representing combat in 1914, 1915, and 1916. I'm actually pretty confident that Scourge of War could do an adequate job of representing 1914 combat (smaller units in skirmish order are represented in SoW: Waterloo and SoW: Gettysburg, for which the engine was orginally designed), but I seriously doubt it would be up to the task of representing combat in 1918. So if we are ever to have a realistic WW1 tactical game we need to find a game engine that can handle the full span of the war from 1914 to 1918. And while it would require doing things with the engine that have never been done before I think the CMx2 engine might actually be up to the task. The main obstacle is infantry tactics in 1914 don't revolve around the squads and teams that the CMx2 engine was designed to handle. The maneuver elements are primarily companies of a couple hundred soldiers. But I actually see no reason not to just implement a Combat Mission "squad" of 227 men to represent a British rifle company of 1914. With an interval of 10 men per action square the company would be 23 action squares across (46 action squares across with 5 men per action square). There would be a learning curve to handling this sort of formation, as it would not be able to make use of the kinds of terrain features that a smaller unit would use for cover or safe approaches, but rather than a problem that may just be an accurate representation of the weaknesses of the ways armies were organized going into the war (the four to eight or so action squares taken up by platoons later in the war will seem positively nimble by comparison). This will require zooming out a bit with the battalion being the smallest scale represented rather than the largest scale (a 1914 brigade might have about the same number of subunits to micromanage as a 1918 battalion, so the level of command should probably be about two levels above a more typical CM scenario), and each scenario will have to take place on a larger map to compensate for this. This may also require the ability to scroll up and down through your "squad's" silhouettes, as they could never all fit on screen at once. I imagine the scale of the scenarios reducing over the course of the war as the smallest maneuver element is reduced to the platoon, and then the squad, until by 1918 a typical scenario is representing typical CM scales in order to keep approximately the same number of units to manage over the whole time period. Another issue is artillery. That isn't a problem in August/September of 1914 when artillery is largely being used in direct fire, which the game already has working mechanics for to accommodate WW2 AT guns. But considering the lack of radios throughout the war it seems like it would be unrealistic to allow the player to call in artillery fire once the scenario has started. All artillery fire would have to be preplanned (unless an FO is in a position that simultaneously offers good observation and is near an uncut field telephone). Creeping barrages might be implemented by drawing two linear barrages (the first for the start line of the barrage, the second as the end line of the barrage) and then being asked to set the 5-15 minute time of the barrage twice, first to get the delay, second to get how long it should take for the barrage to progress from the start line to the end line. The large battles early on might play merry hell with the player's CPU though. So it might not be feasible. But there is a desperate need for a realistic WW1 tactical game, so I'm grasping at straws here.

very interesting

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="462">7:42</a> insane that he was totally OK with losing 60 men in under 600 meters of ground.

I was completely unfamiliar with the battle of Mons until this video so I might have no idea what I'm talking about, but It sounds like the British doctrine allowed the BEF to remain relevant with its much smaller numbers. Its not like they could have fielded 2 million more men at the outset of war if they had only cut back on the training.

Cool stuff, Hapless! Was interesting to learn about Mons from the german perspective. I'm really puzzled however with one tactical question of ww1: why it was so painfully hard to attack entrenched infantry? I mean, why the common wisdom of forming a firing line of riflemen and machine gunners, numerically superior both in men and equipment to the occupants of the sector of a trench, could not provide desired fire superiority and ultimately failed to carry the bayonet charge on?

"armed civilians" is probably a misidentification of the belgian "Garde Civique" (national guard)

While I knew about the Germans contemplation of ‘Boer tactics’ the only pros have heard for advance shoulder to shoulder in the increased morale for troops and ease of leadership. It never accured to me that might be stragically viable, and surprisingly modern. On arterrilly however, you fail to mention the most important improvement, indirect fire.

I advise you to take a look at Zuber's book on the battle of Mons. He is an open admirer of German tactical proficiency of that period and thus is hardly objective, but some of his conclusions are hard to ignore. The basic conclusion is that the BEF's positions were untenable by nightfall, regardless of the French retreat. He also provides casualty figures drawn from German regimental histories (primary sources were destroyed by RAF bombing during the II WW), which were serious, but significantly lower to what the British assumed. All of that was achieved while performing an attack over largely open ground against an opponent deployed for defense.

Wouldn't it have been great if the ghosts of English longbowmen had actually been there, though 👍

Todays British army is highly professional once again but its simply too small . The Russians in Ukraine use huge numbers similar to the ww1 Germans they used the same tactics in WW2 as well . Numbers matter !! Numbers of men and material and production often govern who wins a war as much as good commanders and well trained troops .