Still the Teutons advanced with
reckless courage. While their artillery was engaged in a duel with
the French, German sappers threw pontoon bridges across the river,
and finally the French had to retire. Between Charleville and Rethel
there was another battle, resulting in the abandonment of Mezieres
by the French.
The retreating army crossed the Semois, a tributary of the Meuse,
which it enters below Mezieres, and advanced toward Neufchateau;
but they were repulsed by the Germans under the Duke of Wuerttemberg.
At Nancy on August 25, 1914, there was another engagement between
the garrison of Toul and the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria;
after fierce onslaughts the garrison was compelled to yield and
retire. Finally, on August 27, 1914, at Longwy, a fortified town near
Verdun, the army of the German crown prince succeeded in bursting
into France after a long siege, and marched toward the Argonne.
Thus from the western coast almost to Verdun there was a general
Franco-British retreat.
On August 28, 1914, pressed by the German armies commanded by Von
Kluck on the west, by Von Hausen from Dinant and Givet, by Von
Buelow from Charleroi and Namur, the Allies were pushed back upon
a line stretching roughly from Amiens through Noyon-Le Fere to
Mezieres; while their forces east of the Meuse between Mezieres
and Verdun were retreating before Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg,
and to the southeast of Verdun before the Bavarians.
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