Every single account of conversations with wounded German soldiers or prisoners serves to show that the rank and file of the German army have not the smallest idea for what they are fighting, and that all profess not to have the smallest desire to invade either France or Belgium. In the war of 1870, the situations were reversed. Every German knew that the future of his country as a world Power depended on victory, and all marched to the front with a determination to conquer or to die. The French, on the other hand, had no idea for what they were fighting, and their purely professional army left for the war amidst vague cries of "À Berlin!" buoyed up by no moral principle. These factors must bear a very far-reaching effect on the eventual outcome of the campaign.
In a recent journey through France, I noticed nothing so remarkable as the intense seriousness of the people. Frenchmen will tell you there has been nothing like it since the Revolutionary wars, prior to the Napoleonic epoch, when the levée en masse crushed the invader at Valmy and Jemappes. The French have entered into this struggle through no love of fighting, but because they know their existence as an independent nation is at stake. One other fact must also be noted before the chances of the opposing armies are examined. In 1870 the French regular army, which should have had a peace strength of 400,000 men, only numbered 270,000, whereas the Germans, at the very start of the campaign, stood at a total war strength of over 1,200,000 men.
This inequality no longer exists. On paper Germany has a considerable superiority of numbers, namely twenty-five army corps against twenty-one, and her reserves are probably more numerous and better organised than those of the French. On the other hand, she is, according to the most reliable information, keeping four corps on the Russian frontier, and, therefore, the numbers available against France should certainly not show any superiority, and will probably show an inferiority when the Belgian and British armies are united along the line of the Meuse. For years German strategists have reckoned on having to fight both France and Russia at the same time, and they have professed themselves as being confident of undertaking such a gigantic task. Four corps especially trained under Von der Goltz to fight in more open formations were to hold the Russians, whilst the remaining twenty-one were to be flung with such rapidity against France as to obtain a decisive success before Russian intervention could make itself seriously felt.
It is one thing to have twenty-one army corps ready to invade France, and quite another to find a suitable front on which to deploy them for such an invasion. All the time-honoured old routes for the invasion of France are practically closed to modern armies by the chain of fortresses which the French have constructed, and, vice versa, the old roads to Germany are closed to a French invasion. Therefore, French, German, and Belgian strategists have long recognised that the only route by which a modern German army could invade France and march on Paris would be via Belgium, and that declarations of neutrality would count but little in the strategic scale. It was to resist such a menace that the Belgians constructed two fortified camps at Liège and Namur. The old routes of 1870 present too many formidable obstacles to be overcome. A direct advance into France from Alsace would have found itself faced by the fortified front Belfort-Epinal-Toul, and Verdun, four formidable fortified camps, supported by forts on the heights overlooking the Moselle and Meuse.
There are only two routes by which this line can be passed. That by way of Charmes, between Epinal and Toul, protected by the fort of Manonvillers, which would enable the Germans to enter Haut Marne and to gain the valley of the Seine, and the road to Paris via Bar-le-Duc, St. Dizier, and Troyes. This is the theatre of war of 1814, and also the road used by the Crown Prince after Froeschwiller, in 1870. But an invading army would have to take or mask all these entrenched camps, which would take a very long time, or else have his communications continually threatened.
The other road is that by Dun-Stenay, north of Verdun, passing through the defiles of Côtes-de-Meuse and the forest of Argonne to the open country round Valmy. But this country is extremely difficult for military operations on a large scale. It was used by the Duke of Brunswick in 1792.
The Germans confidently expected to overrun the whole of Belgium and to gain the French frontier before a single French corps could be concentrated to offer any serious resistance. They reckoned on two factors which have turned out the reverse of what they hoped. They relied on a partial break-down in the French mobilisation, especially on the railway lines. In this supposition they have been completely mistaken. Nothing so far has been so remarkable as the smooth working of the railway service, and, consequently, the rapid concentration of the French armies. The second factor on which the Germans relied was the readiness of the Belgians to see their country overrun by a swarm of invaders or else their inability to resist such an invasion. The quickest route into Belgium is to cross the Meuse at Liège, and from there to march south by the left bank along the Mons-Charleroi road, and to gain the French frontier between Maubeuge and Valenciennes. Of recent years the Germans have made every preparation for such a move. They have organised depôts for troops and collected large masses of stores, and have quadrupled lines at Aix-la-Chapelle, Malmedy, St. Vith, Bitburg, and Trèves. They can thus rapidly concentrate immense numbers of troops from Dusseldorf, Cologne, and Coblenz in front of Liège.
But the stubborn and unexpected defence of Liège has thrown all their plans for a direct advance into Belgium via the Liège-Namur line out of gear, and, to judge from the meagre reports which are coming through slowly, they have entrenched that line strongly, and are holding it on the left bank of the Meuse with the two corps which were so roughly handled while the bulk of their forces are preparing to cross the Belgian frontier further north on the line Maestricht-Roermonde, and to march on Brussels through the Duchy of Limburg. We read of constant cavalry engagements in this district and of partial defeats of the German troops, but these stories must not be taken too seriously, as the German cavalry is merely being used as a screen to cover the concentration of immense masses of infantry who will soon be making their presence felt.
Life at Brussels—French Advance—Capital removed to Antwerp
A striking description of life in and around Brussels at this time is given by Dr. Dillon:
Brussels is herself again. The delirious excitement which during the first days of mobilisation displayed itself in acts of frenzy has subsided. The inhabitants have adjusted themselves to the wearisome suspense and unpleasant surprises of a state of war. Shops that were shuttered a few days ago are open and doing a brisk business once more. The cafés are thronged inside and out. The boulevards are bright with streams of many-coloured humanity. The newspapers which dish up the same stories day after day are grabbed at by citizens eager to obtain the first news of the military movements.
The only striking differences one discerns between this and normal times affect the lives of the well-to-do classes. All the theatres, cinematographs, and other places of amusement are closed. Some of the principal hotels are turned into temporary hospitals. Public conveyances, whether cabs or taxis, can hardly be said to exist. Certain sorts of food which were formerly exported, such as peaches, grapes, and chickens, have hardly any market and are being sold at half prices. Flowers are withering on their stalks for lack of buyers. Artisans, such as electricians and plumbers, have vanished.
Notwithstanding these changes, added Dr. Dillon, the links with the cheerful life of a month ago had not yet been severed. The people of Brussels were still blithesome and self-confident, buoyed up by the sense of security imparted by the heroic conduct of their defenders and the consciousness of a right cause. As yet the unquiet temper of war had nowhere manifested itself, yet maimed warriors, homeless families, destitute women, orphaned children, claimed and received attention, and reminded the observer all too suggestively of the harvest of misery yet to be garnered in.
A couple of hours' drive out of the town took one to a world of grim realities and sinister contrasts. Over the country between Tirlemont and Saint Trond, but yesterday full of tame beauty, rich in cornfields and carefully tended gardens, the withering breath of the ruthless Moloch had already fitfully passed. As the traveller moved along the dusty road, catching a glimpse of an occasional farmhouse quivering in the distance through the heat of the August day, he might well feel beset by the vague dangers that might at any moment have started into concrete shape and ended his hopes and cares for all time.
As one approached the village of Orsmael at this time unmistakable tokens of desolation thrust themselves on the view. At first shattered panes of glass, then domestic utensils flung among the cabbages of the gardens or before the wrenched doors, greybeards with shrivelled faces moaning under the trees, women trembling and wailing plaintively, and still beholding as a mirage the scenes of horror which upset their mental balance. Here a couple of children prattling in subdued tones, there a mother leading three orphaned little girls from the still smoking ruins of their house into the wide world, and everywhere the loathsome soilure and squalor of war.