There is, of course, another side to the story. Although the Allies had to retire, the retirement was carried out in good order. German prisoners bore flattering testimony to the accuracy of the British firing, and it was admitted that the invaders had lost very heavily—so heavily, in fact, that they could not proceed with their advance for a day or two. Furthermore, there was no particular reason why, at this stage, the Allies should have wished to assume the offensive at all. They were not driven out of their original defensive positions; they merely failed, by their forward movement, to dislodge the Germans, who were greatly superior to them in numbers. The net result of the fighting was that the Allies had simply to abandon their offensive—an offensive which does not appear to have been included in their original plans. In the official statement already quoted there was a passage saying: "On the orders of General Joffre our troops and the British troops took up positions on the covering line, which they would not have left had not the admirable Belgian effort enabled them to enter Belgium." Commenting on this, Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett said:
The only deduction one can draw from this is that these operations were never included in the pre-arranged plan of campaign, and that they were only undertaken on the supposition that Namur, isolated and surrounded by the enemy, would be able to offer the same prolonged resistance as Liège, which would give the Allies time to advance in strength and occupy the triangle formed by the junction of the Sambre and the Meuse. The unexpected fall of this fortress at the very apex has now forced General Joffre to fall back on his original line of defence along the French frontier.
As will be seen from telegrams quoted in the course of the following pages, German cavalrymen made a series of raids through northern Belgium, and took possession of Ghent and Bruges, even penetrating as far as Ostend. These raids, similar to many others in the central and southern parts of the country, were carried out—the Germans admitted it officially—with the aim of terrorising the civilian population. It appears to be a German belief—quite erroneous!—that when the civilian population is terrified by raids of this nature it brings pressure to bear on the Government to "stop the war." On August 26th, in order to check further German advances of this kind along the coast, a large force of British marines took possession of Ostend.
As moral effects count for as much in war as the effects of accurate marksmanship or the "pounding" of siege guns, it should be stated that the Belgian resistance did more than delay the German advance. It had an effect which, in this war, was of even greater importance. For forty years all Europe had been brought up to believe in the invulnerability of the German army. The mere threat of German intervention was enough to turn the scales in favour of any proposals which were being urged by German diplomats. It almost became an accepted axiom of diplomacy and war that the Germans would always win and that their opponents would always lose. Certainly the Germans, and above all the Prussians, lost no opportunity of impressing this fact upon the world at large. To a supreme belief in themselves they added a disdainful arrogance of the rest of mankind which was, for an extraordinarily long period, found effective and impressive.
The atmosphere which this attitude brought about, the atmosphere of terror which had enveloped Europe for so many years, was swept away, once and for all, by the Belgian army at Liège. Such was the awesome feeling inspired by the mere name of Germany that we should have hardly been surprised to see the Belgians turn tail and throw down their arms without firing a shot. What did happen we all know. The forts, which the Germans expected to capture in a few hours, were still holding out after twelve days. In the field, small forces of Belgians time and again cut up forces of Germans out-numbering them by three or four to one. In some outpost engagements, on a scale which would have entitled them to be called battles a century or so ago, the invaders were beaten back time after time—cavalry, infantry, and artillery were equally ineffective against the Belgian arms. It was only by sheer weight of numbers that the Belgians were forced back into Antwerp, and even then they preserved their ranks intact and were ready, after a few days' rest, for a further onslaught.
The importance of this great moral change should be emphasised. The German army will never again represent invulnerability; it will stand rather for pure savagery. Reference has already been made to the raids undertaken by German cavalry for the purpose of terrorising the civilian population. As the telegrams in this volume will show, intimidation did not stop at mere raids, fuss, and noise. Inoffensive civilians were shot on the slightest provocation; houses were looted; villages burned; women and even young girls outraged; boys battered to death with the butts of rifles—and all this was done, not because the men got out of hand and "saw red"; but systematically, because the invaders wished to terrorise the civil population. When this statement was first made it seemed incredible—the methods of the Huns or the Tartars in the twentieth century. Some refutation, some attempt at refutation, from the German side was awaited. It did not come. Instead there came an admission of the truth of the allegations which had been accumulating for several days.
After the outbreak of war it was customary for the German "wireless" stations to send out war "news" at Nauen or Norddeich. This was picked up by the Marconi Company and given out to the English Press. The "news" was usually exaggerated and in many cases utterly mendacious. But hidden away at the end of a batch of these messages which reached London on August 27th was to be found an appalling paragraph, which, in the course of a very few lines, admitted publicly and officially the terrible charges of barbaric savagery that during the preceding days had compelled the Belgian Government to appeal to the judgment of the civilised world.
Special stress must be laid on the official character of this confession, because it is notorious that nothing can be transmitted from the German wireless stations under war conditions without the express sanction and approval of the Berlin Government.
The statement in question is as follows: