A Short History of the Great War | Page 9

inadequately mobilized
and equipped, and was only intended to clear away an opposition which
was not expected to be serious. The Belgians fought more stubbornly
than was anticipated; and aided by Brialmont's fortification of Liège,
although his plans for defence were not properly executed, they held up
the Germans for two days in front of the city. It was entered on 7
August, but its fall did not give the Germans the free passage they
wanted; for the forts on the heights to the north commanded the railway,
and the Germans contented themselves with bringing up their transport
and 11 2 in. howitzers. Brialmont had not foreseen the explosive force
of modern shells, and two days' bombardment on the 13th-15th reduced
the remaining forts, in spite of their construction underground, to a
mass of shell-holes with a handful of wounded or unconscious
survivors. The last to be reduced was Fort Loncin, whose gallant
commander, General Leman, was found poisoned and half-dead from
suffocation. He had succeeded in delaying the German advance for a
momentous week.
No more could be done with the forces at his disposal, and the German
masses of infantry were pouring across the Meuse at Visé, towards
Liège by Verviers, up the right bank of the Meuse towards Namur, and
farther south through the Ardennes. The German cavalry which spread
over the country east and north-east of Brussels and was sometimes
repulsed by the Belgians, was merely a screen, which defective
air-work failed to penetrate, and the frequent engagements were merely
the brushes of outposts. Within a week from the fall of Fort Loncin half
of Belgium was overrun and the real menace revealed. Belgium was
powerless before the avalanche, and its only hope lay in France. But the
French Army was still mobilizing on its northern front, and its
incursions into Alsace and Lorraine did nothing to relieve the pressure.
The Belgians had to fall back towards Antwerp, uncovering Brussels,

which was occupied by the Germans on the 20th and mulcted in a
preliminary levy of eight million pounds, and leaving to the
fortifications of Namur the task of barring the German advance to the
northern frontiers of France. Namur proved a broken reed. The troops
which paraded through Brussels with impressive pomp and regularity
were only a detail of the extreme right wing of the invading force; the
mass was advancing along the north bank of the Meuse and
overrunning the whole of Belgium south and east of the river. On the
15th an attempt to seize Dinant and the river crossing above Namur
was repulsed by French artillery; but there was apparently no cavalry to
follow up this success, and the Germans were allowed to bring up their
heavy howitzers for the bombardment of Namur without disturbance. It
began on the 20th, and, unsupported by the Allied assistance for which
they looked, the Belgians were panic-stricken; on the 23rd the city and
most of the forts were in German hands though two resisted until the
26th. The Germans had not, as at Liège, wasted their infantry in
premature attacks, and with little loss to them, a fortress reputed
impregnable had been captured, the greater part of the southern Belgian
Army destroyed, and the provisional plan of French defence frustrated.
The fall of Namur was the first resounding success of the Germans in
the war.
Its loss was not redeemed by the French offensive in Alsace and
Lorraine. On 7 August a weak French force advanced through the
Belfort gap and, finding still weaker forces to oppose it, proceeded to
occupy Altkirch and Mulhouse, while a proclamation by General Joffre
announced the approaching liberation of the provinces torn from France
in 1870. It was a feeble and ill-conceived effort to snatch a political
advantage out of a forbidding military situation. German
reinforcements swept up from Colmar and Neu Breisach, and on the
both the French were back within a few miles of the frontier, leaving
their sympathizers to the vengeance of their enemies. More legitimate
though not more successful was the French thrust in Lorraine. It had
other motives than the political: it would, if pushed home, menace the
left of the German armies in Belgium and disturb their communications;
and a smaller success would avert the danger of a German advance in
Lorraine which would threaten the right of the French on the Meuse.

Accordingly, Generals Pau and de Castelnau, commanding the armies
of Alsace and Lorraine respectively, ordered a general advance on the
10th. At first it met with success: the chief passes of the Vosges from
Mt. Donon on the north to the Belfort gap were seized; counter-thrusts
by the Germans towards Spincourt and Blamont in the plain of
Lorraine were parried; Thann was captured, Mulhouse was re-occupied,
and the Germans looked like losing