French airmen were extremely active on July 29, 1915. One flotilla bombarded the railroad between Ypres and Roulers, near Passchendaele, tearing up the track for several hundred yards. German bivouacs in the region of Longueval, west of Combles, also were shelled from the air, and German organizations on the Brimont Hill, near Rheims, served as targets for French birdmen. A military station on the railway at Chattel was shelled, and the station at Burthecourt in Lorraine damaged. Forty-five French machines dropped 103 bombs on munition factories and adjoining buildings at Pechelbronn, near Wissemburg.[Back to Contents]
PART III—THE WESTERN FRONT
CHAPTER V
SUMMARY OF FIRST YEAR'S OPERATIONS
The first anniversary of the war on the western front fell on August 2, 1915. It was on Tuesday, July 28, of the previous year that Count Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, had pressed the button in "the powder magazine of Europe"—the Balkans—by declaring war on Serbia.
For two days the world looked on in breathless, wondering suspense. Then, like a series of titanic thunderbolts hurled in quick succession, mighty events shaped themselves with a violence and a rapidity that staggered the imagination.
On July 31, 1914, "a state of war" was proclaimed in Germany; the next day (August 1) that country declared war on Russia; on August 2, 1914, Germany delivered her ultimatum to Belgium and invaded both France and Luxemburg, following up these acts with a declaration of war against France on the 3d of the same month.
Before the sun had risen and set again there came the climax to that most sensational week: Great Britain had thrown her weight into the scales against the Teutonic Powers. This occurred on August 4, 1914, the same day that the German frontier force under General von Emmich came into contact with the Belgian pickets before Liege.
After thirty-six hours of fighting the southern forts were captured and the city fell into German hands on August 7, 1914. It was not until the 15th, however, that General Leman, the Belgian commander, was conquered in his last stronghold, the northern fort of Loncin. When that fell, the railway system of the Belgian plains lay open to the invaders. Leman's determined stand had delayed the German advance for at least a week, and afforded an extremely valuable respite for the unprepared French and British armies.
The first drafts of the British Expeditionary Force landed in France on August 16, 1914. On August 7, 1914, a French brigade from Belfort had crossed the frontier into Alsace and taken the towns of Altkirch and Mülhausen, which, however, they were unable to hold for more than three days. Between August 7 and August 15, 1914, large bodies of German cavalry with infantry supports crossed the Meuse between Liege and the Dutch frontier, acting as a screen for the main advance. The Belgian army, concentrated on the Dyle, scored some successes against the Germans at Haelen, Tirlemont, and Engherzee on the 12th and 13th, but after the fall of Fort Loncin the German advance guards fell back and the main German right under Von Kluck advanced toward Brussels. On the 19th the Belgians began to withdraw to the fortress of Antwerp. Brussels fell to the Germans on the 20th. Von Kluck turned toward the Sambre and Von Bülow advanced along the Meuse to Namur. On the opposite bank (the right) of the Meuse the Saxon army of Von Hausen moved against Namur and Dinant, while farther south the German Crown Prince and the Duke of Württemberg pushed their forces toward the French frontier. Meanwhile, General de Castelnau, commanding the French right, had seized most of the passes of the Vosges, overrun upper Alsace almost to the Rhine, and had reached Saarburg on the Metz-Strassburg railway. On August 20, 1914, the Germans attacked Namur, captured it on the 23d, and demolished the last forts on the 24th. This unexpected event placed the Allies in an extremely critical situation, which led to serious reverses. The British force on the left was in danger of being enveloped in Von Kluck's wheeling movement; the fall of Namur had turned the flank of the Fourth and Fifth French armies; the latter was defeated by Von Bülow at Charleroi on the 22d; the pressure exerted by the armies of the Duke of Württemberg and the crown prince also contributed to render inevitable an immediate retirement of the allied right and center. The French army that had invaded Lorraine—a grave strategical blunder—had also come to grief. The Bavarians from Metz had broken its left wing on the 20th and driven it back over the frontier. De Castelnau was fighting desperately for Nancy on a long front from Pont-à-Mousson down to St. Dié. On the 24th the British line fell back to the vicinity of Maubeuge, where Von Kluck attempted to close it in. Sir John French frustrated the plan by further retiring to a line running through Le Cateau and Landrecies, August 25, 1914. After a violent holding battle during two days the whole British front had fallen back to St. Quentin and the upper valley of the Oise.