The Battle of Charleroi, 1914

The Battle of the Frontiers in August and early September 1914 that witnessed the lightning advance of the German Army into Belgium and France culminated in the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September), which ultimately prevented a German occupation of Paris. Under this wide strategic umbrella, the Battle of Charleroi—actually a series of separate engagements just east of Charleroi (22–23 August)—was foreordained by the fall of the Liège forts (5–16 August). Just to the east of Mons, where the BEF made a heroic if doomed stand, the French Fifth at Charleroi made a similar effort. However, these attempts to some degree held up the German juggernaut, buying time for what was to become the First Battle of the Marne. 

General Charles Lanrezac's Fifth Army retreat from the Charleroi zone on 23 August, after great losses on 22 August, can be seen as saving the French Fifth Army from encirclement. Joffre, however, saw it differently as a too cautious retreat and after the Battle of St. Quentin (29–30 August) chose to sack Lanrezac on 3 September. Joffre replaced him in command with General Franchet d'Espèrey for what was to become the First Battle of the Marne, wherein d'Espèrey's boldness exploited a gap between von Bülow's and von Kluck's armies and forced their retreat, for a second time saving the French Fifth Army, as well as Paris.  

                                                                                                                                            KW 

 

The Battles at Charleroi are known in Belgium as the Battles Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse

 

        Note here that the BEF is facing Mons and the Lanrezac's Fifth Army is at Charleroi.

 

 

            A confident and elegant General Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey

 

Sources: International Encyclopedia of the First World War; Wikipedia; Roads to the Great War