The output of the Borinage coal field exceeds twenty million tons a year.  Its ungainly features of shafts, chimneys, and mounds of debris are relieved in places by woodlands, an appearance of a hilly country is presented where the pit mounds have been planted with fir trees.  Apart from its mining aspect, Mons is a city of historic importance.  It contains a Gothic cathedral and town hall of medieval architectural note.  It also, cherishes a special yearly fete of its own on Trinity Sunday, when in the parade of the Limacon, or snail, the spectacle of St. George and the Dragon is presented.  With great pride the citizens of Mons showed the British soldiers of occupation an ancient cannon, claimed to have been used by their forefathers as an ally of the English at Crecy.

Especially east of Mons, toward Binche, the British line ran through this district.  Several of the greatest European battles have been fought in its vicinity—­Ramilles, Malplaquet, Jemappe, and Ligny.

The night of Saturday, August 23, 1914, passed peacefully for the British soldiers, still working on their trenches.  But distant boom of guns from the east continued to vibrate to them at intervals.  Of its portend they knew nothing.  Doubtless as they plied the shovel they again speculated over it, wondering and possibly regretting a chance of their having been deprived of the anticipated battle.

Sunday morning, August 24, 1914, dawned brightly with no sign of the enemy.  In Mons and the surrounding villages the workmen donned their usual holiday attire, women stood about their doors chatting, children played in the streets.  Church bells rung as usual summoning to public worship.  General French gathered his generals for an early conference.  General Joffre’s message on Saturday morning, assured General French of victory, and positively informed him that Von Kluck was advancing upon him with no more than one or two army corps.  In testimony of it, General French thus wrote a subsequent official dispatch.

“From information I received from French headquarters, I understood that little more than one or at most two of the enemy’s army corps, with perhaps one cavalry division, were in front of my position, and I was aware of no outflanking movement attempted by the enemy” (Von Hausen’s advance on the right).  “I was confirmed in this opinion by the fact that my patrols encountered no undue opposition in their reconnoitering operations.  The observations of my aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate.”

To General French, therefore, his position seemed well secured.  In the light of it he awaited Von Kluck’s attack with confidence.  Toward mid-day some German aeroplanes swept up above the woods in front, and circled over the British line.  British marksmen at once fired on the bodies and hawklike wings of the intruders.

Some tense interest was roused among the men as British aeroplanes rose to encounter the German aircraft.  It was the first real battle of the sky they had witnessed.  General French’s cavalry patrols now brought information that the woods were thick with German troops, some of them deploying eastward toward their right at Binche.