THE MORAL AND MILITARY EFFECT
When, on August 4, King Albert read his speech to the joint meeting of
the Belgian Chamber and Senate, it might well have been thought that
the darkest hour had come in Belgium’s long and troubled history. But
the King spoke with unfaltering resolve. Come what might, the Belgian
people would maintain the freedom which was their birthright. In the
moment for action they would not shrink from sacrifices. “I have faith
in our destinies,” King Albert concluded. “A country which defends
itself wins respect, and cannot perish.”
The speech echoed the feelings of a united nation. In the face of
peril, party was no longer known. M. Emile Vandervelde, leader of the
Socialists, accepted a post in the Ministry. Without hesitation, the
two Houses voted the measures of emergency proposed by the Government.
The announcement by M. de Broqueville, the Prime Minister, that German
troops were already on Belgian soil caused deep emotion, but the
emotion was not born of fear. It was the realisation of how priceless
is the heritage of liberty.
On that stirring day in Brussels, which witnessed the departure of the
King to join his troops at the front, the sentiment uppermost was in
truth “faith in the nation’s destinies.” Great Britain had sent her
ultimatum to Berlin in defence of Belgian rights. Not merely reservists
called to the colours, but volunteers in multitudes were anxious to
take up arms. Crowds besieged the recruiting offices. The public
feeling in the Belgian capital reflected the public feeling everywhere.
The mobilisation of the defensive forces of the country had proceeded
smoothly and swiftly. Though it was common knowledge that in no part
of Europe had the espionage system worked from Berlin become more
elaborate, the national spirit was but intensified. Then came news of
the fighting, and of the dauntless resistance offered by the garrison
at Liége. Later came the first of many German prisoners of war.
Mistakes and miscalculations undoubtedly entered into the
German disaster at Liége, and above all the mistake of grossly
underestimating the quality and efficiency of the Belgian forces. That
mistake was persisted in during all the attempts to storm the fortress.
It cost thousands of German lives. Not certainly until this war is over
will the extent of the disaster be really known. But that it was a
disaster of the greatest magnitude is beyond any question.
From the merely military standpoint, the shattering of three army corps
is a huge price to pay even for victory. But the shattering of General
von Emmich’s army accomplished nothing. It had merely proved that to
hurl men in massed formation against positions defended by modern guns
and rifles is folly. Elementary common sense, however, would enforce
the same conclusion. As the assaults upon Liége showed, elementary
common sense is not a strong point of Prussian militarism. Because
massed formations were used with effect by Frederick the Great, massed
formations were the one idea of some of his would-be venerators.
The moral effect was greater than the military. It brought down in
three days all that edifice of prestige which Prussian diplomacy,
Prussian espionage, and Prussianised philosophy had been labouring for
a generation to build up. To say that Europe gasped with surprise is to
state the effect mildly. The peoples opposed to German ambitions woke
as from a spell. The aspect of the war had changed.
Here was an army, part of the great Fighting Machine in which war was
presumed to be practically embodied as an exact science, beginning
a campaign with the blunder of assuming that men fighting for their
country were no better than half-trained mercenaries. The resistance to
the passage of the Meuse; the resistance offered to the troops sent to
seize the country south of Liége was treated as negligible. A general
of resource and experience would have reckoned on that resistance as a
certainty.
Neither Prussian strategy then, nor Prussian tactics, were the
perfection they had been taken to be. Both had broken at the first
test. Nowhere was the gravity of the moral effect better appreciated
than at Berlin. Henceforward the effort of Berlin was to efface it. In
that fact will be found the key to all the succeeding “severities” in
Belgium.
That in Berlin, at all events in official and informed quarters, the
surprise was as profound as elsewhere is proved by the fact that on
August 9, through the neutral channel of the Dutch Minister of Foreign
Affairs, the German Government made a second offer. The offer was in
these terms:--
The fortress of Liége has been taken by assault after a
courageous defence. The German Government regrets that as
a consequence of the attitude of the Belgian Government
against Germany such bloody encounters should have occurred.
Germany does not want an enemy in Belgium. It is only by the
force of events that she has been forced, by reason of the
military measures of France, to take the grave determination
of entering Belgium and occupying Liége as a base for her
further military operations. Now that the Belgian army has, in
a heroic resistance against a great superiority, maintained
the honour of its arms in the most brilliant fashion, the
German Government prays his Majesty the King and the Belgian
Government to avert from Belgium the further horrors of war.
The German Government is ready for any agreement with Belgium
which could be reconciled in any conceivable way with its
conflict with France. Once more Germany offers her solemn
assurance that she has not been actuated by any intention to
appropriate Belgian territory, and that that intention is far
from her. Germany is always ready to evacuate Belgium as soon
as the state of war will permit her.
Of course, the fortress of Liége had not been taken by assault,
though perhaps the Government of Berlin had been led to believe it
had. Coming from such a quarter the tribute to Belgian valour is
significant. Germany had fallen into a pit, and her “solemn assurance”
was not good enough to lift her out of it. The reply of the Belgian
Government was, a second time, an unhesitating refusal. Berlin must
take the consequences, and those consequences were serious.
The first necessity was to clear up the mess, and if possible to
conceal it; above all to conceal it from the troops who had to pass
over this same route. They must hear of nothing but victories.
Necessity for clearing up and concealment had a greater result in
delaying the German advance than even the successful resistance of the
Liége garrison.
Why, it may be asked, was the garrison withdrawn from Liége, leaving
only a force sufficient to man the fortifications? For that step there
were imperative reasons. To begin with, the defence of the city,
as distinct from the defence of the forts, had served its purpose.
It had not only delayed the German advance; it had inflicted grave
disorganisation. It was certain, however, that at the earliest moment
heavy German reinforcements would be brought up, and the defence
outside the forts overpowered by sheer weight of numbers. In the
violent fighting the garrison holding the trenches had suffered severe
losses, though these were light in comparison with the crushing
punishment they had inflicted. They formed, nevertheless, a body of
excellent troops still more than 20,000 strong. To have risked the loss
of these troops meant a reduction of the Belgian army in the field
which must seriously cripple its effective. The need of the moment was
a concentration of forces. Though the defence of Liége to the last was
important, still more important was the purpose which the Belgian army
was intended to serve throughout the campaign, and most important of
all the successful defence of Antwerp. Upon the defence of Antwerp hung
the nation’s independence.
While, therefore, the way was still open for retreat, Generals Bertrand
and Vermeulen, who had rendered conspicuous services and had proved,
like General Leman, that the Military School at Brussels is a nursery
of able and distinguished men, withdrew their forces and rejoined the
main army.
This measure was carried out with so much promptitude and secrecy that
the enemy, well-served as he was by spies, and in close observation
of the movements of the garrison, was not able to interfere. General
Leman remained to continue the defence of the permanent works. These
had been provisioned for a siege of at least two months.
Before evacuating the city the troops blew up all save two of the many
bridges which within the circle of fortifications cross the Meuse, the
Ourthe, and the Vesdre. At Liége, the Meuse divides. A considerable
district of the city is built on the island between the branches of the
river. The bridges left intact were a concession to public necessity,
but were those least likely to be of service to the enemy.
Destruction of the bridges greatly reduced the value of a hostile
occupation. The importance of Liége to the Germans as part of their
line of communications lay in command of the railways. These, however,
were dominated by the forts. So long, then, as the latter held out,
Liége, in any real military sense, was to the Germans valueless. In
view of the position of the Belgians it was therefore a well-advised
step to concentrate the strength of the defence on the works.
On August 8 and 9, the Germans before Liége were apparently quiescent.
But this seeming respite covered an unceasing activity. Masses of
wreckage mingled with dead bodies floating down stream bore testimony
to the severity of the struggle for the passage of the Meuse. As
rapidly as possible German engineers threw across the waterway beyond
the range of the Liége forts five floating bridges. The passage
secured, the enemy covered the country to the north with a screen of
cavalry, obstructing observation by the Belgian outposts and guarding
their bridge works against a surprise in force.
Evidently they were not certain that the departure of troops from Liége
might not be a ruse. Their severe handling had taught them caution.
Small bodies of uhlans stole into the city from the east on August
9. These, as usual, were men who had specially volunteered for the
service. Though they might never return, the ambition for the Iron
Cross is strong. They found the city and the entrenchments evidently
evacuated. No hostilities were offered.
Reports to the German headquarters of this state of things led to a
second demand for surrender. To secure protection for the defenceless
population a deputation of seventeen leading citizens sought an
interview with the German general. The deputation were seized as
hostages.
On August 10, German troops marched in without resistance. The city was
put under martial law and a “fine” of £2,000,000 imposed upon it. But
the occupation was a hollow triumph. Liége, as a military possession,
was a husk from which the kernel had been carefully withdrawn.
The defence, followed by the continued resistance of the forts, had
created a formidable tangle of difficulties. As the forts, by the use
of reinforced concrete, had been adapted to resist modern artillery
the shells, even of the 5·9 howitzers, made no impression upon them.
It was necessary to bring up from Essen the 28 centimetre howitzers,
and even the still heavier guns, 42 centimetre, specially made for the
prospective siege of Paris.
Needless to say, with the strategical railways to Aix already working
at full pressure, the transport of these heavy pieces played havoc
with the cut and dried time-table. There was the necessity, too, not
calculated for at this stage, of sending wounded to the rear, and
of replacing by fresh troops the battalions broken in the attempted
assault. To hurry troops to the front, lest the Belgians should move in
force upon the Meuse, was urgent. The sending forward of supplies was,
in consequence, badly hung up. The commissariat became for the time
almost a chaos.
If we sum up their situation at the end of the first fortnight of
the war we find that the Germans had accomplished little or nothing.
They had expected by that time to be close upon Paris. All they had,
in fact, gained was a passage across the Meuse. It is impossible to
overrate the military importance of this delay. During that fortnight
the mobilisation of the French had been completed without interruption.
At the end of it the British Expeditionary Force had been landed at
Boulogne. The calculated advantages of secret preparation which had
inspired the ultimata launched from Berlin were nullified. The first
principle of German strategy had failed.
Important as a subsidiary means of communication, the floating bridges
across the Meuse were in no sense adequate for the supply of such a
force as it was intended to send through Belgium to defeat the armies
of France and Great Britain and to seize Paris. Command of the railways
was indispensable. But without a reduction of the forts at Liége that
was out of the question.
The forts at Liége held out until August 19. The larger works were each
triangular in formation, armed with both heavy and quick-firing guns
mounted in steel revolving turrets. Three of these turrets were of the
disappearing type. On the discharge of the guns a turret of this type
falls out of sight automatically. By means of telescopic and reflector
sights, the guns can be “laid” for the next shot while the turret is
hidden from outside view.
To storm the forts, as had been proved, was not practicable. They had
to be broken up by the shells of the huge ordnance brought along for
the purpose, and mounted on massive concrete beds.
One by one the forts were broken up. They offered, however, an
unyielding resistance. Their garrisons knew that they were called
upon to sell their lives for the Belgian fatherland. None deserted
their posts of duty. There have been many acts of heroism in this war.
The defenders of the forts at Liége deserve an honoured place in the
memories of an emancipated Europe.
General Leman, who had taken up his quarters in Fort Loncin, was in
the fort when it was blown up by a German shell, which had found its
way into the magazine. He was saved by a signal act of bravery. “That
I did not lose my life,” he wrote in that affecting letter sent later
from his place of confinement in Germany to the King of the Belgians,
“is due to my escort, who drew me from a stronghold while I was being
suffocated with gas from exploded powder. I was carried to a trench,
where I fell.”
Most of the garrison were buried under the ruins, but the few survivors
risked themselves in this act of devotion. No better evidence could be
offered of the spirit of Belgian defence.
A German captain found the intrepid commander helpless and after giving
him liquid refreshment carried him as a prisoner into the city. The
defence of Liége, however, had fulfilled its purpose.