Belgium Blocks the German Plan.—The invasion of Belgium had two results which the Germans had not foreseen. In the first place, it brought Great Britain immediately into the war to the aid of Belgium and France. In the second place, the Belgian king and people refused to be bought off with a promise of compensation; they made the high decision to defend their country as long as possible against the terrible German army-machine. Said the Belgian king: "A country which defends itself commands the respect of all; that country cannot perish." This action of Belgium disarranged the German army plans; instead of reaching Paris according to schedule, the Germans were delayed in Belgium for ten days. These ten days were full of horror and suffering and defeat for the brave Belgians; but they are precious days in the light of history. They gave time for the French to mobilize their armies and bring them up to the northeast; and they enabled Great Britain to send across the English Channel her first hundred thousand troops. In this way Paris was saved from capture, and France from conquest; and probably the whole world from German domination. The German plans for world conquest met their first defeat at the hands of brave little Belgium. The would-be conquerors had forgotten to include in their time-table the elements of honor, patriotism, and self-sacrifice.
The German Advance.—Luxemburg was occupied without resistance, for that little country had no army. On August 4, 1914, the German armies attacked the Belgian fortress of Liege (lee-ĕzh´), and within twenty-three days Belgium was overrun, its capital taken, and all the important places except Antwerp captured. After the delay in Belgium, the main German armies advanced into France. Here they were met (August 21-23) by French and British troops; but the defenders were not yet strong enough to stop the German advance. For twelve days they fell back toward Paris, fighting continually, until the invaders were within twenty miles of the city. The French government and archives were withdrawn from Paris to Bordeaux in the southwest, so imminent seemed the capture of the capital. The battle line now extended for one hundred and seventy-five miles eastward from near Paris to the fortress of Verdun.
The First Battle of the Marne.—In the meantime the French commander, General Joffre (zhofr), had secretly been collecting another army with which to attack the invaders on the flank from the west. At the right moment he hurled this army upon the German flank, while the men on the main battle line were commanded to "face about and accept death rather than surrender." On September 6-10 took place the first great battle of the Marne, during which the Germans, under these new attacks, were compelled to retreat fifty miles from their most advanced position. The French armies had rescued Paris in the nick of time. The French government once more returned to its capital. "France had saved herself and Europe."
The Race to the Coast.—On reaching the river Aisne (ân) the German armies had time to entrench themselves and thus beat off the heavy attacks of the French and British (September 12-17). The Allied armies in turn began to entrench opposite the German positions. But both armies turned toward the north in a race to reach the North Sea and outflank the enemy. The Germans were particularly anxious to reach Calais (ca-lĕ´) and cut the direct line of communication between England and France. Antwerp surrendered to the Germans on October 9; Lille (leel) on the 13th. In tremendous massed attacks the Germans sought in vain to break through the British lines (Battle of Flanders, October 17 to November 15). The German losses were upwards of 150,000 men. On the coast the Belgians cut the dikes of the river Yser (ī´ser) and flooded the neighboring lowlands, thus putting a stop to any further advance of the enemy.
Trench Warfare.—By this time the combatants had reached a temporary deadlock. Both had adopted trench tactics, and for over three hundred miles, from the sea to the Swiss border, two systems of entrenchments paralleled one another. The trenches were protected in front by intricate networks of barbed wire. Looked at from above, the trenches seemed to be dug with little system. But they rigidly adhered to one military maxim,—that fortifications must not continue in a straight line, because such straight trenches are liable to be enfiladed from either end. Hence the trenches curve and twist, with here and there supporting trenches and supply trenches. Sometimes the trenches are covered; sometimes dugouts and caves are constructed. Every turn or corner is protected with machine-guns. In some portions of the line these trenches faced one another for over four years with scarcely any change in their relative locations.
German Treatment of Occupied Territory.—Eastward of the German trenches lay all of Belgium except a very small corner, and the richest manufacturing districts of France, including eighty per cent of the iron and steel industries, and fifty per cent of the coal. On the other hand the Allies had occupied only a small section of German territory at the southern end of the line, in Alsace.
German occupation of Belgium and northeastern France was accompanied by horrible barbarities and systematic frightfulness, which were in violation of the Hague Conventions as well as of other laws and usages of civilized warfare. The aim at first was to terrorize the people and reduce them to a condition of fear and of servility to the conquerors. Men and women were executed without adequate evidence or trial; many German soldiers were quartered in the homes; at the slightest sign of resistance innocent persons were punished for the guilty; immense fines and forced contributions were imposed upon the communities; furniture, works of art, beautiful buildings, and historic structures were ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed. In the second place, the Germans began a systematic plundering of the occupied country, taking for transportation to Germany anything they deemed useful or valuable. Nearly every article made of metal, wool, rubber, or leather was seized. Machinery from Belgian and French factories was taken to German establishments. Households were compelled to surrender bathtubs, door knobs and knockers, kitchen utensils, gas fixtures, bedclothes, etc. Food, farm animals, and farm products were confiscated; and the population was saved from actual starvation only by the energies of Belgium's friends in France, England, and America. At a later time, a third policy of the Germans was to drag Belgian and French young men and women away from their families and relatives and compel them to work far from their homes in factories, fields, and mines. Probably more than two hundred thousand persons were forced into this industrial slavery. Finally, where the Germans were forced to retire from the lands they had occupied in northern France and in Belgium, they sought to reduce much of the evacuated territory to a desert condition. Not only were bridges and roads destroyed, but houses, factories, and churches were leveled to the ground, and the foundation walls and cellars were obliterated. In some parts of France even the fruit trees and grapevines, the product of many years' growth and care, were systematically destroyed, and everything which might make the land habitable disappeared.
The War in the East.—As has already been explained, the German military leaders had counted upon a rapid crushing of France by way of Belgium before Russia should have time to complete her military preparations for attacking eastern Germany. But during the time lost through the unexpected resistance of Belgium huge Russian armies were gathered together in Russian Poland for an invasion of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
The western border of Russian Poland is less than two hundred miles from Berlin. But Russia could not advance along this road without running the risk of having the Germans from the north and the Austrians from the south cut off her armies from their sources of supply in Russia. In other words, Russia dared not advance on Berlin without first driving the Germans out of East Prussia and the Austrians from Galicia. Hence the plan of her campaign in 1914 was to invade these two provinces.