The fall of Namur opened the way for German armies to cross the Meuse along the whole line from Namur to Verdun. The first crossing was made at Dinant on Aug. 23rd, the very day on which Namur fell, by a Saxon army, which marched thither by cross routes through Luxembourg; the second by the Duke of Würtemberg’s army between Mezières and Sedan; and the third by the Crown Prince of Prussia’s army immediately north of Verdun. West of the Meuse the Saxons and Würtembergers amalgamated, and got into touch with von Bülow on their right. Advancing parallel with him, they reached Charleville on Aug. 25th, crossed the Aisne at Rethel on the 30th and the Marne at Châlons on the 4th, and were stopped on the 7th at Vitry en Perthois. The Crown Prince, on their left, did not penetrate so far. Instead of the plains of Champagne he had to traverse the hill country of the Argonne. He turned back at Sermaize, which he had reached on Sept. 6th, and never saw the Marne.
On the left of the Crown Prince a Bavarian army crossed the frontier between Metz and the Vosges. Its task was to join hands with the Crown Prince round the southern flank of Verdun, as the Duke of Würtemberg had joined hands with von Bülow round the flank of Namur. But Verdun never fell, and the Bavarian advance was the weakest of any. Lunéville fell on Aug. 22nd, and Baccarat was entered on the 24th; but Nancy was never reached, and on Sept. 12th the general German retreat extended to this south-easternmost sector, and the Bavarians fell back.
Thus the German invading armies were everywhere checked and driven back between the 6th and the 12th September, 1914. The operations which came to this issue bear the general name of the Battle of the Marne. The Marne was followed immediately by the Aisne, and the issue of the Aisne was a change from open to trench warfare along a line extending from the Vosges to the Oise. This change was complete before September closed, and the line formed then has remained practically unaltered to the present time. But there was another month of open fighting between the Oise and the sea.
When the Germans’ strategy was defeated at the Marne, they transferred their efforts to the north-west, and took the initiative there. On Sept. 9th the Belgian Army had made a second sortie from Antwerp, to coincide with the counter-offensive of Joffre, and this time they had even reoccupied Aerschot. The Germans retaliated by taking the offensive on the Scheldt. The retaining army before Antwerp was strongly reinforced. Its left flank was secured, in the latter half of September, by the occupation of Termonde and Alost. The attack on Antwerp itself began on Sept. 27th. On the 2nd the outer ring of forts was forced, and on the 9th the Germans entered the city. The towns of Flanders fell in rapid succession—Ghent on the 12th, Bruges on the 14th, Ostend on the 15th—and the Germans hoped to break through to the Channel ports on the front between Ostend and the Oise. Meanwhile, each side had been feverishly extending its lines from the Oise towards the north and pushing forward cavalry to turn the exposed flank of the opponent. These two simultaneous movements—the extension of the trench lines from the Oise to the sea, and the German thrust across Flanders to the Channel—intersected one another at Ypres, and the Battle of Ypres and the Yser, in the latter part of October, was the crisis of this north-western struggle. On Oct. 31st the German effort to break through reached, and passed, its climax, and trench warfare established itself as decisively from the Oise to the sea as it had done a month earlier between the Vosges and the Oise.
Thus, three months after the German armies crossed the frontier, the German invasion of Belgium and France gave place to a permanent German occupation of French and Belgian territories behind a practically stationary front, and with this change of character in the fighting a change came over the outrages upon the civil population which remained in Germany’s power. The crimes of the invasion and the crimes of the occupation are of a different order from one another, and must be dealt with apart.
II. FROM THE FRONTIER TO LIÉGE.
(i) On the Visé Road.
The Germans invaded Belgium on Aug. 4th, 1914. Their immediate objective was the fortress of Liége and the passage of the Meuse, but first they had to cross a zone of Belgian territory from twenty to twenty-five miles wide. They came over the frontier along four principal roads, which led through this territory to the fortress and the river, and this is what they did in the towns and villages they passed.