from a Daily Telegraph War Book by Edmund Dane 1914

'Hacking Through Belgium'

 

Explaining Battles to the Public

A magazine illustration of an artist's imaginary impression of the fighting around a Liége fort.

 

Chapter 2

LIEGE

Germany’s rejoinder to Belgium was a declaration of war.

On August 3, German troops crossed the frontier at Dolhain, Francorchamps, and Stavelot. Already on the previous day a German army, waiting at Treves, had crossed the Moselle at Wasserbillig, Besselbrieck, and Remich, and in defiance of protests occupied Luxemburg. These were the first military movements in the war.

Driving in the Belgian cavalry outposts along the frontier, the troops from Aix, three army corps under the command of General von Emmich, pushed forward to secure on the one hand a passage over the Meuse before effective opposition could be offered, and on the other to surprise Liége. The 9th corps was detached to seize Visé and the bridge at that place; the 10th marched by way of Verviers with the object of occupying the country to the south and approaching Liége along the level ground between the Vesdre and the Ourthe; the 7th corps followed the direct road from Aix to Liége.

On crossing the frontier, General von Emmich, in command of these troops, distributed to the civilian population a proclamation declaring the pacific intention of the invaders and promising protection for person and property if no hostility was shown. This proclamation, it is evident, had been drawn up and printed in anticipation of Belgian compliance, and no time had been afforded for amending it.

Since the Belgian Government had only on July 31 ordered a partial mobilisation, no considerable force, it was supposed, would be met with south of the Meuse, nor was Liége likely in so short a time to have been made ready for defence. The invading forces consequently brought forward no heavy siege guns. Their equipment in siege artillery was apparently limited to the twelve 5 - 9 howitzers, four to each army corps, which represented their ordinary field outfit. During the greater part of their advance, the 7th corps met with nothing more formidable than a weak screen of cavalry.

But the Belgian Government had taken prompt and energetic measures. The German troops sent to occupy Visé found on arrival there that, though the Belgians had evacuated the main part of the town lying on the south bank of the river, they had already blown up the bridge, and were prepared from the suburb on the opposite bank seriously to dispute the passage.

The Meuse at this point is fully 300 yards wide. Some sixty yards of the bridge had been destroyed. It was necessary, therefore, for the Germans to construct pontoon bridges, and to cover this operation by shelling the Belgians out of their positions.

From well-covered entrenchments and loop-holed houses on the north bank, however, the Belgians kept up a galling fire, and, although out-weighted in the artillery duel, used their guns to good effect in hampering the German engineers. Repeatedly, when on the point of completion, the pontoon bridges were smashed by Belgian shells. The Belgians successfully contested the passage of the river for three days.

It was when this combat was at its hottest, on August 5, that a detachment of German cavalry was fired upon from the windows of some houses on the south bank. Exasperated by the difficulties met with, and their heavy casualties, the invaders forthwith drove out the inhabitants and fired the town. Many of the men, as they came out of the houses, were indiscriminately shot. The women and children were driven before the German troops with marked barbarity. Visé was reduced to ruins.

On the same day, the village of Argenteau, two miles up the river on the same bank, was similarly destroyed and its population decimated. There can be little doubt that this was an act of terrorism intended at once to conceal the attempt to bridge the river at that point, and to dispirit any defence of Liége.

To the Belgians the three days' struggle for the passage of the Meuse was of the utmost consequence. It gave General Leman the time necessary to prepare Liége for that resistance which has become, and will remain, one of the most famous episodes in European history.

Intrepid and resourceful, General Leman had thrown himself into Liége with the 3rd division of the Belgian army, and a mixed brigade of such troops as could be hastily got together. This force, of not more than 25,000 men, was reinforced by the civic guard, of the city and district, but it was still far short of the 50,000 troops needed to make up a complete garrison.

Thousands of the civilian inhabitants were willingly employed along the south and south-eastern suburbs in hastily digging trenches, across the sectors between the forts. The troops blew up buildings likely to afford cover for an attack; tore up and blocked the roads; laid wire entanglements; mined the bridges across the Meuse, the Vesdre, and the Ourthe; prepared landmines; placed quick-firing guns at points of vantage, and installed searchlights and field telephones.

All this had to be done with the greatest possible expedition. The completeness and rapidity with which the work was carried out formed a surprising feat of skilful organisation.

When the advanced posts of the 7th German army corps came into touch with the outworks of the defence they found that nothing short of an assault in force would suffice. The prompt and effective fire of the forts within range proved that Liége was ready and on the alert.

The German plan provided for a simultaneous attack from the north, the south-east and the south-west, and if it had been carried out it is difficult to see how the fortress could have resisted even the first onset. The plan, however, miscarried.

In view of the time lost by the 9th corps in forcing a way across the Meuse General von Emmich was obliged to hold off the intended attack by the 7th corps. These troops unsupported were too weak to risk such an operation. The advance, besides, of the 10th corps by way of Verviers had not been so rapid as had been intended. Their march through a stretch of country, hilly and for the most part well wooded, had been actively harassed by a mobile force of Belgians intimately acquainted with the defensive possibilities of the region.

In the meantime, the preparations for resistance were pushed forward night and day, and General von Emmich knew that his task became tougher with every hour that was lost.

He was well aware of the weak spots of the fortress. Of its surrounding ring of twelve forts, six only were large and powerfully armed; the remainder were smaller works. The latter, however, were not regularly alternated with the larger forts. Two of the smaller works, Chaudfontaine and Embourg, were placed close together on the south-west; two others, Lantin and Liers, filled a gap of more than 10 miles across on the north-east; a fifth, Evegnée, was midway between the larger forts of Barchon and Fléron on the south-east. These were the three points selected for the assault. Fort Evegnée covered by the fire of both Barchon and Fléron was the most difficult point of the three.

Needless to say, General Leman, equally well aware of the strong and weak points, had taken his measures accordingly.

Evidently feeling that he could not afford delay, the German commander on August 5 launched the 7th army corps against Fort Evegnée with the object of taking it by storm. The bombardment had begun the day before, following a demand for surrender which had been refused, but the German howitzers were outranged by the heavy ordnance of the larger forts. The fire of the latter, skilfully directed, had proved unexpectedly destructive.

Taking advantage of such cover as had been left by partly demolished buildings, walls, and felled trees, the German infantry at the distance for the final rush closed up into columns of attack and, with the support of their artillery, endeavoured to carry the trenches on both sides of Evegnée with the bayonet. Not only, however, were they enfiladed by the guns of Barchon and Fleron, but they suffered huge losses from land mines.

The tactics adopted by the Belgians were well advised. The troops in the trenches held their fire until the attack fell into difficulties with the entanglements, and then withered the assault by well-aimed volleys.

The onset, nevertheless, was too determined to be shaken. Despite their heavy losses, the Germans negotiated the ditches, and though they were mowed down in hundreds by the machine guns now turned upon them, some gained the crest of the trenches. The earthworks were filled with dying and dead, but the storming parties still advanced over the bodies of their fallen comrades.

It was at this juncture that the Belgian troops received the order for a counter-assault. Rushing from the trenches en masse and in good order, they drove back the storming columns by an irresistible onset. In the pursuit, the German losses were enormous. The first attack had failed. Eight hundred prisoners fell into the hands of the victors, and were sent to Brussels as the first evidence of the national valour.

While that night the 7th army corps, withdrawn beyond the range of the forts, was licking its wounds, the 9th corps, having won the passage of the river below Visé, had advanced to the positions before the forts on the north-east, and on August 6 a second attempt was made to carry the fortress by storm.

The attack was, of course, made from the south-east and from the north-east simultaneously. The sectors between the forts on the north-east had been not less carefully entrenched, and although the attack against fort Evegnee was again repulsed with losses to the storming columns equal to, if not greater than, those inflicted on the preceding day, some troops, apparently of the 9th corps, managed, despite a fierce resistance, to break through the north-east defences. Furious street fighting, however, forced them to retire. It was while covering this perilous retreat that Prince William of Lippe fell at the head of his regiment. The assault from the north-east, though carried out with the greatest determination, broke before an appalling rifle and machine-gun fire, and was turned into defeat by a counter-attack made at the decisive moment.

A critical period in the fighting on this day was when a body of German troops had penetrated as far as the bridge at Wandre. The bridge had been mined, and before the invaders could obtain possession of it, it was blown up. A superior force of Belgians regained the position.

The defence remained intact, and the terrible scenes in the trenches bore testimony at once to its intrepidity and to the resolution of the assault. German dead and wounded lay thick upon the ground up to the very glacis of the forts. An evidence of the boldness of the enemy is that exploit of eight Uhlans, two officers, and six privates, who, mistaken for Englishmen, rode during the fighting to the headquarters of General Leman with the object of taking him prisoner. They were killed or captured after a hand to hand struggle in the headquarters building with members of the Belgian staff aided by gendarmes.

But though heavy loss of two assaults had failed with life, a third, even more desperate, was made the same night. This time it was delivered from the south-east against fort Evegnée, and from the south-west against forts Chaudfontaine and Embourg. The attack from the latter quarter was carried out by the 10th corps, which had at length come into position. The third assault against fort Evegnée was open and supported by a heavy bombardment That against Chaudfontaine and Embourg was intended as a surprise. The troops of the 10th corps advanced as silently as possible, hoping to steal up to the trenches under cover of darkness. They waited until the attack upon Evegnée had been going on for more than three hours.

The events of this anxious night in Liége have been admirably described in the vivid narrative of Mr. Gerald Fortescue, the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who was an eye-witness of them.

There was a bright moonlight, and the Belgians took advantage of it to strengthen still further their defensive preparations, more especially to the south of the city. They were relieved from the necessity of using lights which would have exposed them to the guns of the enemy. Liége is undoubtedly most open to attack on the southeast and south, and most of all by the flat approach between the Vesdre and the Ourthe. This forms the industrial suburb. The great ironworks, the small-arms and gun factory, the electric lighting works, and the railway dep6ts in this quarter would make the seizure of it particularly valuable. On the other hand the difficulties of preparing an effective defence were serious. Forts Embourg and Chaudfontaine are here placed close together in view of that fact. A practically complete line of entrenchments, however, closed the enceinte between Forts Fleron and Boncelles. It was, for the defenders, all to the good that these entrenchments and the obstacles in advance of them had been so recently completed that the Germans could have no reliable knowledge of their details.

The city lay without a light, its ancient citadel rising from amid the sombrely moonlit forest of buildings like a great shadow. Only the searchlights playing from the forts gave signs of life and watchfulness. They travelled across the positions where the enemy had placed his artillery; and swept fitfully over the intervals of trampled country, where round ruined buildings and broken walls, in ditches, and amid entanglements multitudes of dead remained unburied.

Of course, the German commander knew that great activity must be going on in the fortress. That activity, if continued, meant ruin to the chance of taking the place by storm.

Half-an-hour before midnight, a furious bombardment against the south-east forts opened. High explosive shells burst with brilliant flashes and sharp uproar on the very glacis of the forts; a storm of shrapnel broke upon the trenches. The forts replied with energy. The city shook under the thunder of the combat.

With little delay, heavy forces of German infantry advanced. The night was favourable to such an attack. It was light enough for the troops to see their way, and yet dark enough to give such cover as greatly to diminish the risk. This was intended to be a bayonet fight. Though the grey-green of the German uniforms was barely distinguish able in such a light, the masses betrayed themselves by their movement. They could be seen from the trenches creeping up for the last rush.

When it was made their columns flung themselves across the intervening ground, and into the ditches with reckless resolution. But the fire of the defenders was as steady as it was destructive. Notwithstanding that the deadly lightning of the machine guns swept away whole ranks, men fought their way to the parapet of the entrenchments. It was brave, but it was vain.

Repeatedly the onslaught was renewed and repulsed. This, however, was not the main attack. At 3 a.m., just before daybreak and when the night was darkest, the assault suddenly opened, against forts Chaudfontaine and Embourg. No artillery announced it. So far as they could, the columns of the 10th army corps crept up silently, feeling their way. They found the defence on the alert In spite of the rifle fire from the trenches supported by the guns of the forts, they rushed on in close formation. Searchlights of the forts picked them out. They fell by hundreds, but time and again scaled the slope of the entrenchments. There were intervals of furious bayonet fighting. The brunt of the struggle was borne by the 9th and 14th Belgian regiments. The 9th, says Mr. Fortescue, fought like demons. Gun fire alone could not stop such rushes. Only the unshakable bravery of the defending infantry saved the situation, and not until the ditches were filled with their dead and wounded did the Germans break and run.

The fury of the assault may be judged from the fact that the rushes were continued for five successive hours. More than once as assailants and defenders mingled in fierce hand to hand combats and the trenches at intervals became covered with masses of struggling men, the attack seemed on the point of success. But as daylight broadened the weight of the onset had spent itself. As the beaten foe sullenly withdrew, a vigorous counter-attack from Wandre threw their shaken columns into confusion. The pursuit was energetically pressed. Numbers of fugitives sought safety over the Dutch border.

On the same day, General von Emmich asked for an armistice of twenty-four hours to bury the German dead. It was refused. Liége had won a brief respite.

Refusal of the armistice may seem a harsh measure, but the Belgians doubtless remembered that it was by breach of the conditions of such an armistice that the Prussians in 1866 had overpowered Hanover. Such enemies were beyond the pale of confidence.

 

Chapter 3

THE MORAL AND MILITARY EFFECT

When, on August 4 King Albert read his speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and Senate, it might well have been thought that the darkest hour had come in Belgium's long and troubled history. But the King spoke with unfaltering resolve. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom which was their birthright. In the moment for action they would not shrink from sacrifices. "I have faith in our destinies," King Albert concluded. "A country which defends itself wins respect, and cannot perish."

The speech echoed the feelings of a united nation. In the face of peril, party was no longer known. M. Emile Vandervelde, leader of the Socialists, accepted a post in the Ministry. Without hesitation, the two Houses voted the measures of emergency proposed by the Government. The announcement by M. de Broqueville, the Prime Minister, that German troops were already on Belgian soil caused deep emotion, but the emotion was not born of fear. It was the realisation of how priceless is the heritage of liberty.

On that stirring day in Brussels, which witnessed the departure of the King to join his troops at the front, the sentiment upper-most was in truth "faith in the nation's destinies." Great Britain had sent her ulti- matum to Berlin in defence of Belgian rights. Not merely reservists called to the colours, but volunteers in multitudes were anxious to take up arms. Crowds besieged the recruiting offices. The public feeling in the Belgian capital reflected the public feeling everywhere.

The mobilisation of the defensive forces of the country had proceeded smoothly and swiftly. Though it was common knowledge that in no part of Europe had the espionage system worked from Berlin become more elaborate, the national spirit was but intensified. Then came news of the fighting, and of the dauntless resistance offered by the garrison at Liége. Later came the first of many German prisoners of war.

Mistakes and miscalculations undoubtedly entered into the German disaster at Liége, and above all the mistake of grossly underestimating the quality and efficiency of the Belgian forces. That mistake was persisted in during all the attempts to storm the fortress. It cost thousands of German lives. Not certainly until this war is over will the extent of the disaster be really known. But that it was a disaster of the greatest magnitude is beyond any question.

From the merely military standpoint, the shattering of three army corps is a huge price to pay even for victory. But the shattering of General von Emmich's army accomplished nothing. It had merely proved that to hurl men in massed formation against positions defended by modern guns and rifles is folly. Elementary common sense, however, would enforce the same conclusion. As the assaults upon Liége showed, elementary common sense is not a strong point of Prussian militarism. Because massed formations were used with effect by Frederick the Great, massed formations were the one idea of some of his would-be venerators.

The moral effect was greater than the military. It brought down in three days all that edifice of prestige which Prussian diplomacy, Prussian espionage, and Prussianised philosophy had been labouring for a generation to build up. To say that Europe gasped with surprise is to state the effect mildly.

The peoples opposed to German ambitions woke as from a spell. The aspect of the war had changed. Here was an army, part of the great Fighting Machine in which war was presumed to be practically embodied as an exact science, beginning a campaign with the blunder of assuming that men fighting for their country were no better than half-trained mercenaries. The resistance to the passage of the Meuse; the resistance offered to the troops sent to seize the country south of Liége was treated as negligible. A general of resource and experience would have reckoned on that resistance as a certainty.

Neither Prussian strategy then, nor Prussian tactics, were the perfection they had been taken to be. Both had broken at the first test. Nowhere was the gravity of the moral effect better appreciated than at Berlin. Henceforward the effort of Berlin was to efface it. In that fact will be found the key to all the succeeding "seventies" in Belgium.

That in Berlin, at all events in official and informed quarters, the surprise was as profound as elsewhere is proved by the fact that on August 9, through the neutral channel of the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, the German Government made a second offer. The offer was in these terms.

The fortress of Liege has been taken by assault after a courageous defence. The German Government regrets that as a consequence of the attitude of the Belgian Government against Germany such bloody encounters should have occurred. Germany does not want an enemy in Belgium. It is only by the force of events that she has been forced, by reason of the military measures of France, to take the grave determination of entering Belgium and occupying Liége as a base for her further military operations. Now that the Belgian army has, in a heroic resistance against a great superiority, maintained the honour of its arms in the most brilliant fashion, the German Government prays his Majesty the King and the Belgian Government to avert from Belgium the further horrors of war. The German Government is ready for any agreement with Belgium which could be reconciled in any conceivable way with its conflict with France. Once more Germany offers her solemn assurance that she has not been actuated by any intention to appropriate Belgian territory, and that that intention is far from her. Germany is always ready to evacuate Belgium as soon as the state of war will permit her.

Of course, the fortress of Liége had not been taken by assault, though perhaps the Government of Berlin had been led to believe it had. Coming from such a quarter the tribute to Belgian valour is significant. Germany had fallen into a pit, and her ‘solemn assurance,' was not good enough to lift her out of it. The reply of the Belgian Government was, a second time, an unhesitating refusal. Berlin must take the consequences, and those consequences were serious.

The first necessity was to clear up the mess, and if possible to conceal it; above all to conceal it from the troops who had to pass over this same route. They must hear of nothing but victories. Necessity for clearing up and concealment had a greater result in delaying the German advance than even the successful resistance of the Liége garrison.

Why, it may be asked, was the garrison withdrawn from Liége, leaving only a force sufficient to man the fortifications? For that step there were imperative reasons. To begin with, the defence of the city, as distinct from the defence of the forts, had served its purpose. It had not only delayed the German advance; it had inflicted grave disorganisation. It was certain, however, that at the earliest moment heavy German reinforcements would be brought up, and the defence outside the forts overpowered by sheer weight of numbers. In the violent fighting the garrison holding the trenches had suffered severe losses, though these were light in comparison with the crushing punishment they had inflicted. They formed, nevertheless, a body of excellent troops still more than 20,000 strong. To have risked the loss of these troops meant a reduction of the Belgian army in the field which must seriously cripple its effective. The need of the moment was a concentration of forces. Though the defence of Liége to the last was important, still more important was the purpose which the Belgian army was intended to serve throughout the campaign, and most important of all the successful defence of Antwerp. Upon the defence of Antwerp hung the nation’s independence.

While, therefore, the way was still open for retreat, Generals Bertrand and Vermeulen, who had rendered conspicuous services and had proved, like General Leman, that the Military School at Brussels is a nursery of able and distinguished men, withdrew their forces and rejoined the main army.

This measure was carried out with so much promptitude and secrecy that the enemy, well-served as he was by spies, and in close observation of the movements of the garrison, was not able to interfere. General Leman remained to continue the defence of the permanent works. These had been provisioned for a siege of at least two months.

Before evacuating the city the troops blew up all save two of the many bridges which within the circle of fortifications cross the Meuse, the Ourthe, and the Vesdre. At Liége, the Meuse divides. A considerable district of the city is built on the island between the branches of the river. The bridges left intact were a concession to public necessity, but were those least likely to be of service to the enemy.

Destruction of the bridges greatly reduced the value of a hostile occupation. The importance of Liége to the Germans as part of their line of communications lay in command of the railways. These, however, were dominated by the forts. So long, then, as the latter held out, Liége, in any real military sense, was to the Germans valueless. In view of the position of the Belgians it was therefore a well-advised step to concentrate the strength of the defence on the works.

On August 8 and 9, the Germans before Liége were apparently quiescent. But this seeming respite covered an unceasing activity. Masses of wreckage mingled with dead bodies floating down stream bore testimony to the severity of the struggle for the passage of the Meuse. As rapidly as possible German engineers threw across the waterway beyond the range of the Liége forts five floating bridges. The passage secured, the enemy covered the country to the north with a screen of cavalry, obstructing observation by the Belgian outposts and guarding their bridge works against a surprise in force.

Evidently they were not certain that the departure of troops from Liége might not be a ruse. Their severe handling had taught them caution. Small bodies of Uhlans stole into the city from the east on August 9. These, as usual, were men who had specially volunteered for the service. Though they might never return, the ambition for the Iron Cross is strong. They found the city and the entrenchments evidently evacuated. No hostilities were offered.

Reports to the German headquarters of this state of things led to a second demand for surrender. To secure protection for the defenceless population a deputation of seventeen leading citizens sought an interview with the German general. The deputation were seized as hostages.

On August 10, German troops marched in without resistance. The city was put under martial law and a "fine" of £2,000,000 imposed upon it. But the occupation was a hollow triumph. Liége, as a military possession, was a husk from which the kernel had been carefully withdrawn.

The defence, followed by the continued resistance of the forts, had created a formidable tangle of difficulties. As the forts, by the use of reinforced concrete, had been adapted to resist modern artillery the shells, even of the 5 - 9 howitzers, made no impression upon them. It was necessary to bring up from Essen the 28 centimetre howitzers, and even the still heavier guns, 42 centimetre, specially made for the prospective siege of Paris.

Needless to say, with the strategical railways to Aix already working at full pressure, the transport of these heavy pieces played havoc with the cut and dried time-table. There was the necessity, too, not calculated for at this stage, of sending wounded to the rear, and of replacing by fresh troops the battalions broken in the attempted assault. To hurry troops to the front, lest the Belgians should move in force upon the Meuse, was urgent. The sending forward of supplies was, in consequence, badly hung up. The commissariat became for the time almost a chaos.

If we sum up their situation at the end of the first fortnight of the war we find that the Germans had accomplished little or nothing. They had expected by that time to be close upon Paris. All they had, in fact, gained was a passage across the Meuse. It is impossible to overrate the military importance of this delay. During that fortnight the mobilisation of the French had been completed without interruption. At the end of it the British Expeditionary Force had been landed at Boulogne. The calculated advantages of secret preparation which had inspired the ultimata launched from Berlin were nullified. The first principle of German strategy had failed.

Important as a subsidiary means of communication, the floating bridges across the Meuse were in no sense adequate for the supply of such a force as it was intended to send through Belgium to defeat the armies of France and Great Britain and to seize Paris. Command of the railways was indispensable. But without a reduction of the forts at Liége that was out of the question.

The forts at Liége held out until August. The larger works were each triangular in formation, armed with both heavy and quick-firing guns mounted in steel revolving turrets. Three of these turrets were of the disappearing type. On the discharge of the guns a turret of this type falls out of sight automatically. By means of telescopic and reflector sights, the guns can be "laid" for the next shot while the turret is hidden from outside view.

To storm the forts, as had been proved, was not practicable. They had to be broken up by the shells of the huge ordnance brought along for the purpose, and mounted on massive concrete beds.

One by one the forts were broken up. They offered, however, an unyielding resistance. Their garrisons knew that they were called upon to sell their lives for the Belgian fatherland. None deserted their posts of duty. There have been many acts of heroism in this war. The defenders of the forts at Liége deserve an honoured place in the memories of an emancipated Europe.

General Leman, who had taken up his quarters in Fort Loncin, was in the fort when it was blown up by a German shell, which had found its way into the magazine. He was saved by a signal act of bravery. "That I did not lose my life," he wrote in that affecting letter sent later from his place of confinement in Germany to the King of the Belgians, "is due to my escort, who drew me from a stronghold while I was being suffocated with gas from exploded powder. I was carried to a trench, where I fell."

Most of the garrison were buried under the ruins, but the few survivors risked themselves in this act of devotion. No better evidence could be offered of the spirit of Belgian defence.

A German captain found the intrepid commander helpless and after giving him liquid refreshment carried him as a prisoner into the city. The defence of Liége, however, had fulfilled its purpose.