THE GERMAN TIDAL WAVE
Whether or not the operations just described had in the estimation of
the German commanders fulfilled their purpose cannot be decided, but
is at least open to doubt. Not only in the more serious fighting but
in the numerous smaller skirmishes and unceasing affairs of outposts
the losses to the invaders, were it really known, would probably
appear surprising. The losses fell mainly upon their cavalry, and
most of all upon their uhlans. A perfect cloud of these raiders had
swarmed over the country, and had made themselves hated by acts of
cruelty and pillage. They were most of all the agents of the Terror.
Of the nineteen regiments of them in the German army, some fourteen
seem to have been employed in Belgium. At the end of ten or twelve
days the larger part of this force were either killed, wounded, or
prisoners. No doubt can be entertained that they were turned out to
live upon the country. They lived badly; were entrapped right and left;
revenged themselves by acts of outrage; but waged against an enraged
and unjustly ruined people what was in fact an impossible contest. The
policy of sending out roving bands in a country as populous as northern
Belgium was an absurdity.
Up to the point now reached the German campaign in Belgium had been
one consistency of gross mistakes. Almost incalculable damage had
been done; murder and rapine were rampant; but anything like a firm
conquest, or the first steps towards it, was as far off as ever. It is
notable that after his exploits in Belgium the uhlan fills a very minor
part. Eastern Belgium had to no small extent become his grave.
So far the operations had enabled the Belgian army to inflict
heavy losses while remaining itself intact. And now appeared a new
factor--the advance of the French into Belgian Luxemburg. The Belgians
still held Namur and the two bridges over the Meuse at that point. It
was possible, since the Germans had seized Huy, that they would move in
force upon Dinant, and, crossing the river above that place, attempt a
diversion in the rear of the Belgian positions, in conjunction with a
second effort to cut the Belgian army off from its base at Antwerp.
To prevent this the French crossed the Meuse and occupied Dinant. By
the time they arrived the anticipated German movement had already
begun. In part the French advance was directed to feeling the strength
and disposition of the enemy in the Ardennes with a view to their own
plans, but it was also directed to assist the Belgians in holding up
the hostile march westward.
The result of these opposing movements was, on August 15, a sharp
collision. An effort on the part of the Germans to cross the river
above Dinant was thrown back by the French. With a greatly superior
force the Germans advanced against the town prepared to carry it by
assault.
In describing the assault Mr. Granville Fortescue states that the
Germans moved up a strong body of light infantry supported by mountain
batteries. The French had established themselves on the outlying hills
and in the ancient citadel, a rocky mass on the south bank of the
Meuse, commanding from its summit a view of the river for many miles in
either direction. The attack was determined and some of the outlying
positions were carried by assault. French reinforcements, however,
were brought up and the positions retaken.
In the town, defended by a French regiment of the line, barricades
had been thrown across the streets. The bridge was fortified by wire
entanglements, and held by an infantry detachment with a mitrailleuse.
The picturesque old place, sheltering under the high limestone cliffs
on one side of the river, and struggling up the wooded hillside on the
other, was subjected to a hot bombardment. As the shells tore through
roofs and walls the inhabitants sought refuge in their cellars.
Following an obstinate fight, the Germans had won the crest of the
cliffs above the old town, and under cover of a heavy artillery fire
had stormed the citadel. The town and bridge, however, were still held.
Further French reinforcements, with guns, cleared the Germans off the
cliffs. From that position the French gunners in turn bombarded the
citadel. One of their first shots cut through the flagstaff and brought
down the German colour hoisted upon it.
Thus the first assault upon Dinant was beaten off, though not without
serious casualties to the defending force. Renewing the attack next day
with larger forces the Germans succeeded in gaining the town on the
east bank of the river which here runs nearly north and south. The part
of Dinant on the opposite bank remained in the hands of the defenders,
who commanded the passage across the waterway.
In possession of the old town a resolute attempt was made by the
enemy to force the passage. Two divisions of cavalry, one of them the
cavalry of the Prussian Guard, 8,000 strong, with several battalions
of _jaegers_, and maxim companies engaged in this operation. While
infantry lined the positions on the east bank, and artillery opened
a bombardment from the citadel and cliffs, the cavalry dashed across
the bridge _en masse_, opening a way for the _jaegers_. In the steep
streets and from behind garden walls in the new town an obstinate
battle raged. It was determined by the onset of a division of French
chasseurs, who drove the Germans in flight down to the margin of the
river. The bridge became a mass of struggling fugitives, stumbling
over fallen horses and men. To save themselves, those cut off threw
themselves into the water. Many in the confusion were drowned.
From Namur the French remained masters of the west bank, and at Namur
the Belgians still possessed an important bridge-head. The Allied
forces too held their positions from Namur across the country through
Gembloux and Louvain to beyond Diest. But behind this dyke opposed by
the Allies the grey-green flood of invasion was steadily rising making
ready to burst through, and with apparently irresistible mass and
momentum to cover with its devastation the rich fields of Belgium and
the fair land of France.
On the face of things it looked as though the enemy had been taught
caution. In front of the Allied lines stretched a No-man’s Land 10 to
15 miles in breadth. No Germans were met with nearer than Ramillies. In
the intervening desolation, amid the hideous squalor of war, occasional
terrified peasants, old men or widowed women, fled into hiding places
at the distant approach of strangers, friend or foe.
Brussels had begun to regain breath. Though theatres, picture-houses,
and other places of public entertainment were closed, and the busy
traffic of the boulevards had shrunk to a rare and occasional vehicle,
the shops, closely shuttered during the first days of the Terror, had
reopened, and _cafés_ were thronged with crowds eagerly debating the
latest news.
When, on Monday, August 17, the Government removed from Brussels to
Antwerp, it was realised that grave events were impending. All had
been in readiness for removal for some days. At the Palais de Justice
the courts and registries were closed and seals placed on the doors.
Measures had been taken for the protection of the nation’s priceless
art treasures, and to meet all emergencies. The Government issued
a reassuring proclamation, exhorting the public to confidence, and
expressing the resolve at all costs to safeguard the country’s freedom.
Despite the deep anxiety of the moment, the public spirit remained
firm. There was no trace either of disorder or of panic.
It was known that so long as the forts at Liége continued to fight the
German advance could not begin. Notwithstanding the efforts of the
Germans to cover their preparations with the closest veil of secrecy,
the Belgian Government was kept well informed. Liége had become for
its remaining inhabitants a prison. As a precaution the invaders had
divided up the city by street barricades. Every approach to the place
was closely patrolled. At night the only sounds were the heavy footfall
of Prussian patrols, along streets where ruined houses showed the gaps
made by shell fire, or over quays past bridges whose _débris_ was
heaped in the rivers. Many houses were doorless, but all were dark and
silent. Nevertheless, news leaked through the German lines, and when on
August 18, having silenced all but two of the forts, the German advance
began, neither the Belgian Government nor the Belgian commanders were
left in any uncertainty. The spirit and resource which had baffled
all the energy of Spain, still baffled all the power of Prussianised
Germany.
A strange spectacle was presented by that seemingly countless and
endless host as it defiled along every main road leading to the
north-west. No words can adequately picture the movement of an army,
or rather a combination of armies, totalling nearly three-quarters
of a million of men. The effect is too vast, and it might well be
asked what human power could withstand such a multitude welded by an
enormous labour of organisation into a machine of destruction and
death. Onward it flowed, like the tide sweeping through the channels of
a shore, ready to burst upon obstacles in angry breakers, but breakers
of fire. Lines of lances moved among its forest of bayonets. Endless
trains of guns and automobiles, field kitchens, field bakeries, huge
wagons bearing pontoons and drawn by long teams of horses, ponderous
caissons, camp equipment, portable smithies, rumbled successively past.
The dust rose from the hot roads and floated over the deserted and
trampled fields. Sabres and bayonets flashed back the August sunlight.
And for hour after hour the mass rolled on, seemingly without end.
Not since the days of Attila has Western Europe been offered such
a spectacle; nor has it been paralleled since the Gothic hordes
rolled through the Alps on to the plain of northern Italy. The Goths
were barbarians. These, their descendants, had the resources of
civilisation, but applied to the same hopes and aspirations--dominion
and the vision of material riches; inspired by the same belief in their
own unconquerable prowess; impelled by the same conviction of their
inborn right as the earth’s most valiant to possess and to rule the
sunny lands held by cowards and degenerates. It is a profound mistake
to assume that the philosophy of a Treitschke is anything new. It is as
ancient as Germany. Ever since the wild swamps, and sandy plains and
gloomy forests of central Europe became the home of a prolific people,
who win from them a hard and penurious livelihood, that people have
dreamed of the countries to the west and south where the beauties of
art speak of the resources of the soil, and where no dark and frozen
winter binds the year.
Twelve army corps traversed the Belgian plain. A corps of the German
army is made up on a war footing to 63,000 men. The total of this vast
host could not therefore have been far short of 700,000 even allowing
for losses. Commonly, an army corps is spoken of as though it were
inconsiderable. An army corps, however, is a complete army, and a huge
body of men.
Though it might look complex, and was indeed a triumph of machinery,
the plan of the advance was simple. The right flank was covered by an
overwhelming mass of cavalry. It was estimated that there were 65,000
out of the 83,000 sabres of the German army in that truly formidable
column. The rest advanced in three main columns heading for the roads
between Brussels and Namur. It was the intention to push right on
to the French frontier before the French could assemble there in
sufficient strength to stem the onset. A host of this magnitude would
take two days and a night to pass any given point. The distance between
the van and the rear was half the breadth of Belgium.
One reason, it is now evident, for the German incursion into Limburg
was a clearing of the country between Liége and Maastricht in order
unobserved to muster their troops and transport for the great trek.
The military situation immediately following the general advance was
interesting. Probably it has given rise to more misunderstanding than
any other phase of the war.
In the declaration, already alluded to, issued by the Belgian
Government on its removal to Antwerp the statement was made that
“pursuit of the aim assigned to the Belgian troops in the general plan
of campaign predominates over everything.... What is going on at our
gates is not the only thing to be thought of. A strategic movement
conceived with a well-defined object is not of necessity a retreat....
There is at the present time no necessity for letting ourselves be hung
up. To do so would be to play into the hands of the Germans.”
Why pursuit of the aim assigned to the Belgian troops predominated has
been pointed out. What was the strategic movement with a well-defined
object?
In their dispositions for the advance the Germans had placed their
main force of cavalry, and a great strength of mobile guns on their
right in order that that wing might execute a rapid flank attack on
the Belgian army, and if possible envelop it. So far as was known the
Belgian lines still extended from Diest through Aerschot and Louvain to
Wavre. They certainly did until the night of August 17. But during that
night they were rapidly and secretly changed. The left was extended
eastward beyond Diest, and the right withdrawn so that the army in its
new situation occupied entrenched positions along and behind the Dyle.
In these positions it was well prepared successfully to resist a force
vastly superior in numbers, and in any event was within easy distance
of the outer forts of Antwerp.
To mask this change of front, a slight covering force was left
at Louvain, and some cavalry was thrown forward for purposes of
observation as far as Tirlemont.
On August 18, this cavalry came into contact with the uhlans forming
the advanced front of the German columns. They promptly fell back
towards Louvain, and after a show of opposition before that place
retired upon Malines.
The Germans believed that Louvain was still held in force, and opened
a bombardment. After their experience of Belgian ruses, they did not
venture to enter the city until some hours later.
To the Belgians this gain in time was essential. Since it had been
necessary to occupy the old lines until the last possible moment,
the change of front had not been altogether completed when the
rapidly moving right wing of the vast invading host threatened in
part to frustrate it. An army with its impedimenta and guns cannot be
transferred from place to place in a moment and one part of the Belgian
force had a distance to cover of nearly 20 miles.
At all costs, therefore, it was necessary to hold up the German
movement. That was not easy because the uhlans and armed motors spread
themselves out along all the roads and by-roads in a broad fan-shaped
formation covering many miles of country. Nevertheless, the stratagem
at Louvain proved successful. Three regiments of infantry, a corps
of guides and the 3rd and 9th, with a cavalry division deceived the
enemy into the belief that they were the covering troops of a much
larger force, and he drew up to deploy for battle. As was inevitable,
the Belgian force employed suffered somewhat severe losses. It was
indeed a devoted piece of service, but it served its purpose. When the
Germans advanced in battle order against the assumed Belgian lines they
found them deserted, and must have experienced some of the feeling of
treading on a missing stair.
Beginning with outpost operations on August 18, the battle of Louvain,
as it has been called, was continued during August 19 and 20. On the
one hand, there was the fighting between the Belgian troops already
referred to, detailed to hold up the right of the German advance;
on the other, there was an attempt by the Germans along the front
from Diest to Aerschot to turn the left of the new Belgian position.
Along the centre, to aid the attempted turning movement, a formidable
artillery duel developed.
The troops before Louvain, some 20,000 strong, carried out with
brilliant gallantry the tactics most effective in such a situation.
Retiring under all the cover available whenever the pressure of
numbers became too threatening, they seized every opening afforded
for a counter-attack, and by these alternative advances and retreats
reduced the forward progress of the enemy to a minimum. The Germans
found themselves obliged to search every position with their artillery,
before throwing forward their skirmishers, and finally advancing masses
of infantry. With an intimate knowledge of the country the Belgians
enticed them into the most difficult places, and then suddenly swept
back and dislodged them. By the time reinforcements had been brought
up, the enemy found the position evacuated.
So from hour to hour the struggle went on, along roads, through woods,
behind hedges and ditches, with furious rushes and counter-rushes
of infantry, and dashes of cavalry; the air filled with the puffs
and smoke of bursting shrapnel, the boom of battle travelling slowly
over the countryside like a laggard thunderstorm with its lightnings
chained to earth. To what an extent skilful troops may arrest the
advance of a hostile force enormously greater in numbers has been many
times exemplified in warfare. The Germans employed their overwhelming
superiority in cavalry and machine guns with the greatest energy. They
had to deal, however, with elusive yet bold and persistent enemies.
In this part of Belgium, the country is perfectly flat. There are no
hillocks to assist observation. Information by airmen was rendered
unreliable by the rapid movements of the Belgian forces. Literally the
invaders had to grope their way, imagining that the main army was in
front of them. Beyond the narrow horizon the danger lurked, but exactly
where, it was hard to say.
The most serious effort on the part of the invaders was to throw a
large force towards Antwerp. Against the strong position held by the
Belgians and their change of front the effort failed. The assumed
Belgian left wing had become its centre. Strongly posted as that now
was with a deep river in front and a great fortress in the rear the
position made an attack too costly to be pressed. Half at least of the
whole mighty German host would have been necessary to force it. That,
however, would have thrown the programme into confusion. The artillery
duel went on from daylight to darkness, but the Belgians showed
themselves unshakable. All the efforts of the invaders to throw troops
over the Dyle were beaten off with heavy loss. Finally, the Germans
were compelled to pass on, leaving the Belgian main army a still
unbeaten menace.
The military considerations which dictated the Belgian strategy may be
readily made clear. Since the base of the army was Antwerp, where it
had all its supplies and munitions, the first essential was not to be
cut off from that base. An army defending its native country, and among
its own people may, so far as foodstuffs are concerned, be said to be
at home anywhere, but it cannot in modern warfare fight without shells
and bullets, and when those it brings with it are exhausted its power
as a present-day fighting force is at an end. No army can encumber
itself in the field with more than the munitions it immediately needs.
It has consequently to keep in touch with its reserve stocks, or, in
military phrase, to keep its line of communications open.
That to a general in command is as important as victory. Indeed, a
victory gained if it left the communications cut would be illusory.
A second consideration, not less essential, is that of not fighting in
such a position that, in the event of being compelled to retire, the
army, in order to save its communications, must pass across the front
of the victorious force. Irreparable defeat would almost certainly be
the result. Fighting in a situation of that kind is known as fighting
with the front of the army turned to what should be its flank, or in
military phraseology is a “front to a flank” position. It is one of the
purposes of strategy to manœuvre a hostile force into such a position
whenever possible.
As the Belgian army was disposed up to August 17, it stood “front to a
flank,” and if it had fought in that situation it must, owing to its
inferior numbers, have been surrounded, or been compelled to fall back
upon or beyond Brussels, so that its communications with Antwerp would
have been cut off. It must consequently, whatever the bravery of its
officers and men, have been compelled in a few days either to lay down
its arms or to be annihilated.
Possibly the Germans thought that it meant to remain where it was for
the purpose of covering Brussels, and that sentimental rather than
military reasons influenced its movements. As a fact, this seeming
incompetence was a ruse, designed to induce the Germans to throw
their main force forward in the direction of Brussels rather than in
the direction of Antwerp. The latter place, if they had been ably
commanded, would have been made their first objective. Seizure of
Antwerp would have settled the business. They fell, however, blindly
into the trap laid for them, and blundered on towards Brussels only to
discover, too late, that they had been left with the shadow, but had
lost the substance.
In any event, for the Belgians, save in a position of complete security
to have offered battle to an army more than six times as numerous,
with a crushing superiority of some 2,000 guns would simply have been
throwing the lives of brave men away to no purpose. Decidedly the
King of the Belgians was not the man to “play into the hands of the
Germans.”