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The World War I Battle of Mons and Hemingway's In Our Time Chapter III.

Article Excerpt
A look at the mention of "Mons" in Chapter III of In Our Time will show that Hemingway--at least in Chapter III by extension in his larger text-deployed literal details of and topical allusions to this important early battle of World War I. Such references have culturally-coded meaning that Hemingway's contemporary audience would have understood, but that may elude us today. This essay will show further that Hemingway manipulated such meaning to achieve particular effects with possible interpretive implications.

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INCREASINGLY CRITICS HAVE COME TO REALIZE what Hemingway's title, In Our Time, has been declaring all along--that time, place, and cultural history do matter for readers of this Hemingway text. A look at the reference to "Mons" in Chapter III of In Our Time will show that Hemingway--at least in Chapter III and by extension in his larger text--deployed literal topical details and allusions not as mere counters in some archetypal pattern, but as significant organizers of culturally coded meaning. (1)

Chapter III is brief enough to quote in its entirety:

We were in a garden at Mons. Young Buckley came in with his patrol from across the river. The first German I saw climbed up over the garden wall. We waited till he got one leg over and then potted him. He had so much equipment on and looked awfully surprised and fell down into the garden. Then three more came over further down the wall. We shot them. They all came just like that. (IOT 29)

The reference to Mons indicates more than just Hemingway's "respect for the names of places and things," for example, more than his "regard for the concrete" (Barloon 10). Rather, a garden at Mons conveys's specific culturally coded meaning that Hemingway's contemporary audience would have known, a meaning that would not be conveyed by a garden at any other battle of the Great War--not Ypres, say, or Artois--where a British soldier might also have witnessed the shocking killing of many Germans. (2) Hemingway manipulates this specific meaning to achieve particular effects with possible interpretive implications.

The Battle of Mons, as it came to be called, was the first serious clash of arms by the British army on the Western Front. Less than three weeks after German cavalry crossed into Belgium and Great Britain entered the war, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), an all-volunteer professional army consisting of two infantry corps and one cavalry division, about 70,000 men, unexpectedly encountered a significantly larger force of Germans, over 200,000 men, advancing toward the southwest through Belgium as part of the Schlieffen plan to encircle and capture Paris and thereby end the war quickly.

On the morning of 23 August 1914, despite having superior numbers and room to maneuver, German General von Kluck impatiently ordered a direct assault on the British front, hastily established before Mons proper and along a sixteen-mile stretch of the Mons Canal. The Germans advanced shoulder to shoulder across open fields. Thus from their defensive position the British infantry were able to dominate the early part of the day with their rifle fire, so heavy that the Germans believed themselves to be facing machine guns. Two British diary entries typify accounts of the assault:

Poor devils of infantry! They advanced ... in files five deep, and our rifle has a flat trajectory up to 600 yards. Guess the result. We could steady our rifles on the trench and take deliberate aim. The first company were simply blasted away to Heaven by a volley at 700 yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was almost sure to find two billets.... They had absolutely no chance. (qtd. in Terraine, "Mons 1914")

and

Our rapid fire was appalling even to us, and the worst marksman could not miss. Such tactics amazed us, and after the first shock, seeing men slowly and helplessly falling down as they were hit gave us a great sense of power and pleasure. It was all so easy. (qtd. in Winter and Baggett 79)

By mid-afternoon, however, continuing pressure from the German infantry and, especially, fire from German heavy artillery forced the BEF to begin falling back two or three miles to a second line Of defense, achieved by early evening. Rather than pressing their advantage, the Germans at this point broke off the engagement. British troops could hear German buglers blowing the "cease fire"; some units reported hearing German troops singing in unison after the day's fighting.

As such bugling and singing suggest, Mons presented an odd and at times disorienting collision of the 19th and 20th centuries. The first German killed by the BEE may have fallen to a mounted cavalryman wielding a sword. In what has come to be known in popular history as "The First Clash," early on Saturday, 22 August 1914,...

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