A General Sketch of the European War: The First Phase

by Hilaire Belloc

The German Government, therefore, could not be secure of its intention to pass great bodies through the Belgian Plain until Liége was grasped, and it was determined to grasp Liége long before the mobilization of the German forces was completed. For this purpose only a comparatively small force, rapidly gathered, was available. It was placed under the command of General von Emmerich, and its first bodies exchanged shots with the Belgian outposts early in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 4, 1914.

The hour and date should always be remembered for the solemnity which attaches to the beginning of any great thing; and the full observer of European affairs, who understands what part religion or superstition plays in the story of Europe, will note this enormously significant detail. The first Germans to cross the violated frontier accomplished that act upon the same day and at the same hour as that in which their forerunners had crossed the French frontier forty-four years before.

The afternoon wore on to night, with no more than a conflict between outposts. Just before midnight the cannonade was first heard. It also was the moment in which the ultimatum delivered to Germany by this country, by a coincidence, expired.[2]

This night attack with guns was only delivered against one sector of the Liége forts, and only with field-pieces.

As to the first of these points, it will be found repeated throughout the whole of the campaign wherever German forces attack a ring of permanent works. For the German theory in this matter (which experience has now amply supported) is that since modern permanent works of known and restricted position go under to a modern siege train if the fire of the latter be fully concentrated and the largest pieces available, everything should be sacrificed to the putting into the narrowest area of all the projectiles available. The ring once broken on a sufficient single sector point is broken altogether.

The second point, that only field-pieces as yet were used (which was due to the fact that the siege train was not yet come up), is an important indication of the weakness of the defence—on all of which the enemy were, of course, thoroughly informed.

There were perhaps 20,000 men in and upon the whole periphery of Liége, a matter of over thirty miles, and what was most serious, no sufficient equipment or preparation of the forts, or, what was more serious still, no sufficient trained body of gunners.

It is almost true to say that the resistance of Liége, such as it was, was effected by rifle fire.

With the dawn of August 5th, and in the first four hours of daylight, a German infantry attack upon the same south-eastern forts which had been subjected to the first artillery fire in the night developed, and after some loss withdrew, but shortly after the first of the forts, that of Fléron, was silenced. The accompanying sketch map will show how wide a gap was left henceforward in the defences. Further, Fléron was the strongest of the works upon this side of the river. Seeing that, in any case, even if there had been a sufficient number of trained gunners in the forts, and a sufficient equipment and full preparation of the works for a siege (both of which were lacking), the absence of sufficient men to hold the gaps between would in any case have been fatal to the defence. With such a new gap as this open by the fall of Fléron, the defence was hopeless, even if it were only to be counted in hours.