The First World War was an unprecedented disaster that shaped our modern world . Erik Sass is traverse the events of the state of war exactly 100 year after they pass . This is the 138th installment in the series .
August 5-12, 1914: Bloodbath at Liège
While the most enduring images of World War I come from the foresighted stop of trench war , the bloodiest phases were actually the short “ war of movement ” at the beginning and end of the conflict . On the Western Front , the first clash in August and September 1914 , known as the Battle of the Frontiers , resulted in breathtaking casualties : By former September , the French Army had suffered roughly 330,000 casualties , admit around 80,000 dead , while the much smaller British Expeditionary Force sustain around 30,000 casualties , closely half its full metier . German casualties were almost as eminent , top off 300,000 by the end of the first hebdomad of September ( include the First Battle of the Marne ) .
The Siege of Liège
The warfare of movement vex off to a slow start for the German Second Army , which had the unenviable charge of capturing the Belgian fortress complex at Liège . One of Belgium ’s principal industrial metropolis , Liège controlled the major rail and road crossings over the River Meuse , and was protected by a ring of 12 fortress build from 1889 to 1891 ; these were mostly subterranean , leaving only rotating , hard - armour ordnance gun turret exposed , and widely call up impervious to bombing by modern-day artillery .
Popular Mechanics via Wikimedia Commons
No one count on the novel , top - occult 42 - centimetre howitzer ( below ) , dub “ Big Berthas , ” developed for the German Army by Krupp in the final years before the warfare . The Big Berthas weighed 43 tons and arouse 1800 - pound shell up to eight miles . When the war began the Germans also had admission to two 30.5 - cm “ Skinny Emmas ” manufacture by Austria ’s Skoda words , which burn an 840 - pound eggshell up to 7.5 air mile .
Wikimedia Commons
But these huge guns were improbably challenging to move : After being disassembled , they had to be packed on particular track flatcars for transportation to the combat geographical zone , then pulled into position by giant tractors or scores of Equus caballus or oxen , then reassemble — a process command up to 200 men per shooter in the eccentric of the Big Berthas . To make things even more difficult , the Belgians dynamited a rail tunnel near at Herbesthal , so the guns had to be dragged over roads the rest of the direction .
So while the Germans were waiting for the siege guns to arrive , beginning on August 5 they mounted several ill - advised frontal ravishment and speedily discovered the advantage love by well - intrench defender ( above)—the main , menacing moral of the Great War . The Belgian garrisons , count around 40,000 , had connect the forts with hastily moil oceanic abyss studded at intervals with machine guns ( typically pulled by dog , below ) , which along with massed rifle ardor inflicted hideous casualties on German troop approaching in dense formation . One inhabitant of Liège , Paul Hamelius , tell a night attack :
historicalfirearms.com
Gladys Lloyd , an Englishwoman traveling in Belgium , recorded this account from a young Belgian who ’d been acting as a spy and messenger : “ ‘ This morning I have just amount from Liège … The German dead were pile up each side of my way , ghastly lolling corpses , one on the top of each other . ’ He commit his deal up higher than his straits . ‘ It was the most painful sight I have ever seen , and then the scent . ’ And the wretched spy is literally gruesome in the small town street . ”
Impatient with this dull progression , on August 7 Erich Ludendorff — a member of the general staff who was sent to the field because of his difficult personality , and who would go on to become one of Germany Army ’s most successful air force officer — staged a dare raid into Liège itself . After dashing into the metropolis Ludendorff strode up to the gate of the citadel ( an disused fort in the center of town ) and simply knocked on the room access , demanding its surrender , which he have . The declension of the citadel give the Germans control of the townsfolk , include the all - important bridge across the Meuse , which the Belgians probably would have dynamite before move back . Ludendorff ’s “ individual - handed ” seizure of the citadel quickly became a thing of fable , propelling him to the top of the short list of officers wait for army command .
Over the next few years , the Germans did come through in overwhelm several fort east of the city , but these gains came at outstanding cost and the remaining fort read no sign of the zodiac of give in . However the tide was about to turn against the Belgian protector : on August 12 the first of the 42 - centimeter military blockade guns last arrived , and afterwards that day the first scale fell on Fort Pontisse , pierce its 8 - infantry stocky concrete ceiling to explode in the intestine of the structure ( the shells were outfit with fourth dimension - delayed fuses ) . The wallop was spectacular , according to Irvin Cobb , an American writer working for The Saturday Evening Post , who later saw the aftermath of barrage in a theatre of operations at Maubeuge , France :
Cobb also met a German officer who described the essence on soldier in garrison that were barrage , noting that it “ rips their nerves to tatters . Some seem blunt and dazed ; others prepare an sharp hysteria . ” After the barrage , the officer went on ,
After these guns arrive at Liège , it was only a topic of metre .
Battle of Halen, German Atrocities
While 100,000 man from the German First Army were laying military blockade to Liège , German Uhlans ( cavalry ) pressed ahead into northern and fundamental Belgium to conduct a reconnaissance mission in force out , only to fit more Belgian resistance at the minuscule town of Halen , where they were hoping to insure a bridge over the Rive Gete . After Belgian applied scientist dynamited the bridge — only part destroying it — on August 12 the outnumber Belgian cavaliers dismounted and greeted the Germans who handle to scotch the span with massed rifle attack . The Germans made some progress , bring up field artillery and forcing the Belgians back into corn field west of the town , but eventually retreated after suffering about a thousand injured party , include 150 dead , with the Belgians losing a similar number .
Continuing Belgian resistance incense German soldiers , who were already on boundary thanks to warnings that Belgian civilians would engage in irregular warfare , summoning hair-raising memories of the unorthodox “ francs - tireurs ” who tormented Prussian troops in the Franco - Prussian War . In fact there is picayune evidence that Belgian civilians actually mounted armed resistivity , but that did n’t stop the Germans from seeing snipers everywhere , along with fair sex , small fry , and even priests cut up and bolt down bruise German soldiers . Walter Bloem , a captain in the German Army , described how rumors prime soldier head to the front to ask the worst :
In actuality , in at least some casing supposed franc - tireurs attacks were the result of well-disposed fire or Belgian regular forces firing from menage during street warfare . But whatever the trueness may have been , soldiers and officer at all grade of the German Army were convinced that civilians were shooting at them and answer with a serial of dreadful atrocities — corporate reprisals against the civilian population that permanently damaged Germany ’s picture around the humans , including in important impersonal countries such as U.S.
According to the prescribed Belgian story , the barbarity began on August 5 and then top out from August 18 and 23 , as German forces win through fundamental Belgium . The count includes 484 incidents that left 5,521 Belgian civilian dead and inflicted far-flung destruction , put out to the razing of entire villages ; hundred if not thousands of Belgian women were raped , and some of them by and by murdered . One of the most notorious incidents occurred on August 25 , 1914 , at Leuven ( Louvain ) , where German soldier massacred 278 inhabitants and burned the townspeople , destroying its noted medieval library , which contained thousands of priceless manuscript . Elsewhere the Germans killed 156 civilian at Aarschot on August 19 ; 211 at Andenne on August 20 , 383 at Tamines on August 21 , and 674 at Dinant on August 23 .
French Take Mulhouse, Abandon, Repeat
French strategy , as set forth in gaffer of the general faculty Joseph Joffre ’s Plan XVII , centre on a direct head-on onrush across the German frontier to recapture the “ lost responsibility ” of Alsace and Lorraine , annexed by Germany following its defeat of France in the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 - 1871 . Joffre designated two armies to dribble out this flack , with the First Army advance from the vicinity of Epinal and Belfort , and the Second Army advancing from Confederate States of Nancy . face them were the German Seventh Army in Alsace and the German Sixth Army in Lorraine .
Beginning August 7 , 1914 , the French First Army under General Auguste Dubail get ahead along a panoptic front , with the southern wing heading for Mülhausen ( Mulhouse in French ) in Alsace and the northerly flank moving in the direction of Saarburg ( Sarrebourg ) in Lorraine .
At first the southern attack in Alsace seemed to be go well , as the First Army ’s VII Corps captured Mulhouse on August 7 - 8 after meeting basically no immunity . Across France hoi polloi celebrate the liberation of Alsace , but the Alsatians themselves were a bit more skeptical — and rightly so . On August 9 German reinforcements arrived from Strasbourg , and the outnumber French had to pull away from Mulhouse . Indeed , injured party in the First Battle of Mulhouse were really relatively low , as it really was n’t much of a struggle , with both sides retreating before superior forces in turning .
Now Joffre sacked the commander of the VII Corps , General Bonneau — the first of many French commanders to be unceremoniously dump for miss “ élan ” and “ cran ” ( flavor and guts)—and replaced him with General Paul Pau , commanding a reinforced VII corps now function as the new - formed , main Army of Alsace . After a rather inglorious beginning , the French would return to the onset in Alsace on August 14 , leading to a 2nd abruptly - lived occupation of Mulhouse by and by in the calendar month .
Behind the Lines
During the other days of August 1914 , civilians living behind the note could only go for their breathing time , hanging on every parole of ( often mystifying or misleading ) official bulletin . government of all the warring Carry Amelia Moore Nation wasted no time found official censorship of newspapers — supposedly in guild to protect military secrets , but in world also to see public opinion by fiddle up victories and minimizing defeats .
Despite authorities attempts to form public judgement in favor of the war , many ordinary hoi polloi retain their ability to recollect critically and — patriotic intuitive feeling notwithstanding — were often vituperative in their view of officialdom , who they blamed for hang back them into the war . Princess Blücher , an Englishwoman married to a German blue blood , give Britain with her husband aboard the same ship as the German ambassador , Prince Lichnowsky , and recorded the attitude of some of her fellow passengers :
Similarly “ Piermarini , ” an anonymous correspondent who visited Berlin around this time , quote a German officer : “ Our USA has been a succeeder [ but ] … Our diplomats seem fussy making mistake after error ; we have mislay the sympathies of all countries on earth , even of those who were formerly our acquaintance . ”
Dreaming Awake
disregarding of what side they were on , a common touch expressed by soldier and civilians likewise was the sense of irreality bring by the state of war , which was often report as like living in a dream ( or , increasingly , nightmare ) . Philip Gibbs , a British state of war pressman deal the warfare in France , reached for a narcotising metaphor :
The dream was about to become more complicated : on August 12 the British Expeditionary Force began to bring down in France . Meanwhile the commanding officer of the French Fifth Army , Charles Lanrezac , warn top dog of the worldwide staff Joffre that German troops appear to be intrude on central Belgium , which meant they were heading much further west than expected , indicating an attempt to envelop Gallic forces from the tush . However Joffre brush off Lanrezac ’s request to move the Fifth Army Rebecca West to meet them — the first in a serial publication of calamitous decisions .
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