Time Astra

Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1914)

Battle of Mons

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A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.
Flat, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns010 km20 kmN

Germany (Ger 1st Army, 260,000 men under Gen Kluck) attacked Great Britain (Br Exped Force, 70,000 men under Fm French) in Belgium. The CAA Database of Battles records 14 hours of fighting on a front of 35 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 6,210 (2%), Great Britain 1,638 (2%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Germany

Gen Kluck

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry60,240
Germany centreInfantry80,320
Germany right wingInfantry60,240
Germany reserveInfantry50,200
Germany artillery (600 guns)Artillery9,000
Gen KluckCommander—
In this plan260,000

Great Britain

Fm French

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry15,619
Great Britain centreInfantry20,826
Great Britain right wingInfantry15,619
Great Britain reserveInfantry13,016
Great Britain artillery (328 guns)Artillery4,920
Fm FrenchCommander—
In this plan70,000

What the sources report

GermanyGreat Britain
Strength, this plan260,00070,000
Losses, this plan6,2101,638

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 266, “Mons”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
14 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Flat, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
35 km (attacker), 35 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Germanyattacker260,0006,2100600Frontal attack; Penetration
Great Britaindefender70,0001,6380328Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.