IN THE RETREAT FROM MONS: THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS... (My poem about Lady Elizabeth Butler's Word War I painting...)

 In The Retreat From Mons: The Royal Horse Guards…

The expectation, the adrenaline, the sensation

Of an offensive

And the pre-battle rush, intensive,

Is evidently absent here… For exclusive

To this sombre squadron, retreating

Upon a wet, rutted road,

Their plight unabating,

Is trauma, grim trauma,

Through muddy debris and detritus intrusive,

Whilst the slime, the loathsome grime

For the wounded, merely compounds the crime

Of war. And weary, lean, dejected mounts

Sink tired hooves into the Mons mire…

Trench warfare would eventually render such cavalry units

Largely obsolete, pointless and criminally indecisive…

Pete Ray

Lady Elizabeth Butler’s painting is about the British 

Expeditionary Force’s retreat from Mons between August 23rd and September 5th, 1914.

The Royal Horse Guards covered the left flank of the BEF, as well as seeing other action, in Halte, Saultain, Cambria and Néry…