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Second Battle of Mons
Part of The Western Front of the First World War
Canadian troops in Mons
Date 9 November - 11 November 1918 Location Mons, Belgium Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Canada	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Sir Arthur Currie	Unknown
Casualties and losses
280 killed, wounded, or missing	Unknown

The Second Battle of Mons was a military engagement fought on between 9 November - 11 November 1918, in which Canadian forces captured the Belgian town of Mons, liberating an area that had been under German occupation since 1914.

Background

After the failure of the German spring offensive and the Allied success at the Battle of Amiens, the Entente began an aggressive series of offensives on the Western Front which would come to be known as the Hundred Days Offensive. The Germans were forced into a full retreat eastward. The Canadian Corps closed on Mons. A city of huge symbolic value to the Entente. British troops had staged a fighting retreat in the early days of the war, delaying the Germans in their advance towards Paris but suffering heavy casualties in the process. Mons had also been under German occupation for the entirety of the war and had been used as a critical logistical centre. Now, the Canadians had a chance to recapture Mons on the last day of the war. The Imperial German Army, though badly beaten, fought a fierce rear-guard action as it retreated towards Mons. In early November, Canadian troops had taken the French city of Valenciennes after a costly battle.

The Battle

By November 9th, Canadian forces were already on the outskirts of Mons. Arthur Currie wanted to take it to break German morale and ensure that the Germans did not think they had any pieces for negotiation. While Currie’s senior officers did not protest, the men on the ground were less pleased, but trusted their commanding officer and obeyed the order nonetheless. The plan to capture Mons was an encircling maneuver, with the 2nd Canadian Division attacking from the South and Southeast, and the 3rd Canadian Division attacking from the East. On November 10, the Canadians pushed into the outskirts of the city, engaging with German patrol in skirmishes but no large-scale assaults on dug-in German positions. There was no artillery bombardment of the city due to orders from higher command not to bombard Mons with artillery in order to capture the city without destroying it. On the night of 10 November At around 11pm, platoons from the 42nd Battalion and the Royal Canadian Regiment made it through the southern defences of the city. From the west, other companies crossed into the city over bridges. By the early morning of 11 November, after heavy street fighting, Canadian forces had captured most of Mons without the use of heavy shelling. Bagpipes played and the town’s inhabitants welcomed the Canadians as liberators.

Aftermath

The Canadians had lost 280 men killed, wounded, or missing. Canada is traditionally assigned the tragic distinction of having suffered the last fatality among British Commonwealth forces during the First World War. Private George Price was hit in the chest by a sniper shot in the town of Ville-sur-Haine, near Mons. He died at 10:58 AM, two minutes before the armistice went into effect.

References

1. Edmonds 1939, p. 306. sfn error: no target: CITEREFEdmonds1939 (help)
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20170724155927/http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/first-world-war/canada/Canada15
3. https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/mons/
4. https://vimyfoundation.ca/battles/the-capture-of-mons-and-the-armistice
5. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-mons
6. https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Mons-1918