August 22nd.
Western Front:
The Battle of Lorriane as the German 6th and 7th Armies under the Crown Prince of Bavaria, Ruppercht, continue to advance against the French along the border. The French 1st and 2nd armies under overall command of Noël de Castelnau continue to fall back. On this day, Castelnau recieved word that his son had been killed in the fierce fighting. As his staff rushed to consol him, he stood silent and firm, before uttering “Nous continuerons Messieurs (We will continue gentlemen).”
Meanwhile, in the Ardennes forest, the French 3rd(Pierre Ruffey, the lone proposer of heavy artillery in the French army) and 4th(Fernand de Langle de Cary) armies moved forward to strike the German 4th(Albrecht of Württemberg) and 5th(Crown Prince Wilhelm) armies. Unknown to the French due to horrid weather conditions, the Germans heavily outnumbered the advancing French troops.
The Germans moved to attack the French armies, and both sides stumbled upon each other in heavy fog and dark forests on the 21 of August. unorganized fighting broke out all along the front. In some places, quickly entrenched German infantry threw back waves of Frenchmen who’s commanding officers though digging in to be beneath a Frenchman. In other, German units wandered blindy into carefully waiting French 75’s, slaughtering entire regiments before they knew what happened. Both sides moved up during the afternoon to prepare for action the next day.
And of course, the Battle of Charleroi, the most important of all the battle fought that day (tied with Lorraine for the most important battle of the campaign) when the German 2nd(Karl von Bülow) and 3rd(Max von Hausen) attacked the French 5th Army under Charles Lanrezac. The Germans had to attack across a river to get at the French, but instead of digging in, most of the French corps (most…more will be discussed on the 23rd), simply waited by the river unprotected to throw the Germans back with their bayonets. German machine guns and artillery had a field day, and by the end of the night the Germans had 2 immovable bridgeheads, wrecking most of the French III Corps in the process.
The Great Retreat had begun, even if most didn’t know it yet.
Eastern Front: The Russian 2nd Army under Samanov beings to advance into East Prussia from Congressional Poland after the 1st Armies victory at Gumbinnen the day earlier. This was pushed from Russian higher command, Yakov Zhilinskiy, more than Samanov, who argued his troops weren’t ready. But Zhilinskiy insisted, despite knowing that the 1st army was yet in no position to support the 2nd Army. The 2nd Army began the advance with no logistics, little supplies, and many units not yet at full strength.
The Germans, on their part, were preparing a total retreat to the Vistula, despite arguments from most of the divisional commanders at the time.
Africa: German militia from German Southwest Africa invade South Africa.