BATTLE OF MONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1916, Page 5

BATTLE OF MONS.

SIR A. CONAN DOYLE'S VIEW. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for some p«st lias been accumulating evidence of all kinds and from every possible source for the purpose of placing upon record the heroic deeds of the* British Army. The second instalment of his •'History of the British Campaign in France" contains, his vivid description of the battle of lions:

August 20 was the date of von Kluek's exultant telegram in which he declared that he held the British troops surrounded, a telegram which set Berlin fluttering with flags. On this day the First Army Corps was unmolested 'in its. march, and reached the Venerollos lino that night. There was woody country] upon the west, and from beyond this curtain of trees they heard the dytant roar ofajjreat cannonade, and knew that a gieat battle was in progress to the westward. It was on Smith-Dorrien's Second Corps and upon the single division of the Third Corps that the full storm of the German attack had broken. In a worn, a corps and a half of British. troops, with two hundred and twentyfive guns, were assailed by certainly four and probf.bly six tierman corps, with., six hundred guns. It is no wonder that the premature tidings of a great German triumph were forwarded that morning to make one more item in that flood of good news which from August 21 to the end of the mouth was pouring in upon the ftcrman people. A glittering mirage lny before Ilium. Tl.e French lines had been hurled baqk from the frontier, the British were in full retreat, and now were faced with absolute disaster. Behind these breaking lines lay 'the precious capital, the brain and heart of France. But f.ocl is not always with < the big battalions, and the end was not yet.