World War One

There’s A Long, Long Trail A-Winding

 
Photo of World War One commemorative ceremony at Ottawa's National War Memorial by Tom Douglas

 

The old soldiers, including a woman in her nineties, marched proudly down the Champs Elysées on that cold, bright day in November more than thirty years ago. Ramrod straight, arms swinging in unison, they kept perfect time to the martial music, eyes front.

The crowd, made up of Parisians as well as men, women and children from various parts of France – and a multitude of visitors from places around the world – broke into ecstatic applause as they spotted the bright red maple leaf on the banner held high by the white-haired veteran leading the marchers.

“Vivent les Canadiens!” someone shouted and the words ricocheted through the assembled throng like a bullet from a Lee-Enfield rifle. The French military band leading the parade broke into the opening bars of “O Canada” and tears of patriotic pride welled up in my eyes.

Among the marchers was Elizabeth – a nursing sister during World War One – who could drink the rest of the crowd under the table, belting back five mugs of Scotch and hot water as though it was camomile tea at a ladies’ church social.

There was Abe, a Newfoundlander, who still felt guilty about “letting the boys down” by having the flu and not being able to go “over the top” with them almost 70 years before. It didn’t matter that about nine out of ten of “the boys” were killed or wounded on that first day of the Battle of the Somme – he was still wracked with guilt.

For Fred, “marching” was a misnomer because he was actually being pushed in a wheelchair by his buddy Duncan. Fred had lost his leg at Passchendaele – the Third Battle of Ypres – and was a crusty old bugger who regaled the rest of the crew with his salty and seemingly far-fetched tales.

And at the tag end of the marchers, but keeping up despite his emotional problems, was Danny, the recluse of the group. The pilgrimage back to the killing fields of Northern Europe had been too much for Danny, who had witnessed terrible things as a young soldier on the Western Front. For most of the trip, all he did was sit in his hotel room and sob.

Elsewhere within this account of some of the social ramifications of World War One, we’ll hear more about these larger-than-life individuals. They’re all gone now, of course, but one of the proudest moments of my life was to be able to befriend them over seven days in my capacity as communications assistant to the Honorable Bennett Campbell, now deceased as well but at the time the Canadian Minister of Veterans Affairs.

In total, there were nineteen Canadian veterans of World War One in that special squad of marchers that had been invited personally by French President François Mitterrand to take part in the 1983 Remembrance Day ceremony at the Arch of Triumph.

The president had been delighted to hear that the old soldiers were on a Veterans Affairs Canada tour of Belgium and Northern France, including a visit to the Vimy Ridge Memorial. He had subsequently requested that they be his guests at the armistice ceremonies held every year since 1919 – except, not surprisingly, during the Nazi occupation of the French capital from 1940 to 1944.

Over the years, the events of 1983 faded from memory, but would flare up from time to time, especially when each November 11 rolled around. In recent times, as newspapers and websites began looking toward the one hundredth anniversary of World War One, the memory of Elizabeth and Abe and Fred and their comrades started flooding back. The stories they had related about the death and disease and destruction that this not-so-great war had visited upon them and millions of others began to take on new relevance.

One overriding thought was that I really couldn’t understand why supposedly rational people from so many so-called civilized nations had allowed such an insane conflict to happen. Nor could my wife Gail, whose keen interest in history had led her to write a book about the French Canadian explorer Étienne Brulé and another about Princess Diana’s feisty female ancestors dating back more than five hundred years.

Even though I had written a best-selling book, Valour at Vimy Ridge, depicting the epic World War One battle that had put Canada on the world map, I realized I knew very little about the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1914. And no matter how many books Gail and I pored over in our efforts to fathom the tangled web of events of 1914 to 1918, we ended up ever more confused.

Over several years, we visited as many battlefields and war cemeteries in Europe as time and opportunity would allow. We stood on battle sites where so many young Canadians, Americans, Brits, Australians and New Zealanders - as well as those in opposing armies - had paid the supreme sacrifice. We read with heavy heart the inscriptions on hundreds of headstones – cursing the cruel fate that had snuffed out so many men and women in the prime of their lives. After one particularly arduous and emotional trip, Gail offered the suggestion that she wasn’t worn out, she was warred out.

One positive result of our efforts was a growing admiration for the people of Belgium and Northern France who had lost everything in the war – their loved ones, their homes, their communities and their livelihood. Yet they picked up the pieces of their shattered lives at the end of that horrible time and rebuilt everything literally from the ground up. Rising from the Ashes is the sub-theme of this blog.

With the signing of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany found itself on the hook for huge reparation payments, much of which would be used for rebuilding the communities their aggression had brutally affected.

With the help of the countries’ tourist departments and others whose assistance is acknowledged elsewhere in this account, Gail and I visited a number of communities ravaged by war and rebuilt afterwards. The difficult job of trying to boil down more than four years of war on the Western Front into a readable – and understandable – first section of this blog fell to Gail. She literally spent months sifting through dozens upon dozens of books, magazine articles, websites, videos and newspapers, then picking the salient (no pun intended) information and weaving it into a narrative that even a reader with a casual interest in World War One could fathom.

Writers of history who have to rely on secondary sources – and sometimes even primary sources – for their facts run across a common problem. You can read five different books on a particular event and come away with five different – and widely variant – accounts of what happened. Every effort has been made to check and triple-check the particulars included herein. On the rare occasion when it was impossible to decide which source was correct, we have gone with the version that made the most sense under the circumstances. Readers who find errors in our research – and have verifiable proof that we’ve been wrong-headed – are asked to contact us so that we can correct the information.

It should be evident by now that both the authors are anti-war. However, we have the greatest respect for those who paid the supreme sacrifice, those whose lives were forever altered by the insanity that took place between 1914 and 1918 and especially those who rose above it all and got their lives back together.             

- Tom Douglas                                            

 

Black and white photo of WW1 vets courtesy Veterans Affairs Canada

Arch of Triumph photo by Tom Douglas

World War One: Insanity in a Nutshell

“In individuals, insanity is rare; in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” 

- Friedrich Nietzsche

         Map accessed from: http://maps.unomaha.edu/peterson/funda/MapLinks/EuropeOverview/kiv28.gif

This isn't exactly the blog we had set out to write. As lovers of history we had planned to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of World War One by writing about one particular aspect of that tragic time - the destruction and rebirth of cities, towns and villages on the Western Front.

It wasn't our intention to go into any great detail about the causes and horrendous effects of that less-than-great war. That approach, at the risk of laying down another bad pun, has been done to death. Rather, we wanted to focus on the indomitable courage and determination of the people of Belgium and Northern France who rebuilt their communities and their lives on the ashes of what was left after "the tumult and the shouting" had died.

We both have a bit of a historical track record. The male side of our husband-and-wife team of writers has been extremely fortunate over a long career to have met and written about an amazing number of heroes – men and women who fought bravely in one or both world wars, Korea and, more recently in Afghanistan. You can read all about it at http://tomdouglas.typepad.com/tom_douglas/books/

The historical focus of the other half of our team stretches further back into the dimness of time. One book chronicles the exploits of a French explorer, Étienne Brûlé, who, for better or worse, helped open up North America to European settlers. Another published work traces the female lineage of Princess Diana back more than five hundred years. More details are available at: http://tomdouglas.typepad.com/tom_douglas/gail_douglas_books/

We were excited about our new project. But as we immersed ourselves in the events of the years between 1914 and 1918, we became more and more appalled and confused by what we read. The expression: Stupid is as stupid does was popularized by the movie character Forrest Gump – and World War One, as you quickly learn as you sift through books, newspaper reports and a great array of websites, was a stupid war. It was planned by stupid people for stupid reasons and fought under the command of stupid officers by naively patriotic enlistees who were lulled into throwing away their lives by a stupid slogan: For King and Country, or an equivalently stupid cri de guerre on the opposing side – Gott Mit Uns. Unfortunately, it seems the king and whatever gods the combatants prayed to had, in the immortal words of singer/songwriter Don McLean “…caught the last train for the coast.” 

Okay, let’s be fair. Not all the officers should be tarred with this Gumpian condemnation. There were a few who showed flashes of brilliance in their command. There were others who risked, and in some cases ruined, their careers by arguing with the powers-that-be over insane or at the very least hastily-thought-out decisions. But the heroic actions of a few were far overshadowed by boneheaded decisions made by generals and their cadre of overfed and under-brained senior officers – many of whom had bought their commissions with daddy’s money and/or were still fighting a 19th Century war against 20th Century weaponry.

These contentions aren't going to endear us to the armchair generals who make a hobby – and, in some cases, a vocation – out of glorifying war. Anyone daring to shout out that the greedy empire-builders of yesterday – or today for that matter – come across as naked as the proverbial jaybird is all too often vilified and stood up against a wall of words to be shot at first light.

But it isn't the men and women who served bravely on the front lines that deserve our scorn. It's those megalomaniacs who ruled the various nations at the time as well as the industrialists who profited from the mayhem and the by-the-book generals who blundered at every turn who should be branded as the butchers that they were.

Our research has brought us to one conclusion as to why many people in general still consider the "killing fields of France" hallowed ground. There were so many battles and so many combatants over that four-year period that it is next to impossible to sort out in one's mind just what happened and why. No doubt the hounds of war would like to keep it that way. After all, how do you find fresh recruits for the next slaughter if they all buy into the belief that war is an insane exercise that merely advances the careers of the military nabobs and fills the coffers of the politicians and industrialists who feed off the gore? Yes, the land is sacred, but only because it has been anointed with the lifeblood of the betrayed.

And so, while we still call our attempt here to demystify the mare's nest of events that took place from 1914 to 1918 Rising From The Ashes and touch upon a number of the cities, towns and villages that rebuilt themselves materially and spiritually from the ground up after the cessation of hostilities, we have shifted gears a bit. With this account of our take on more than four years of senseless slaughter we have tried to simplify for the reader the complexities of that madness we have come to call World War One. George Santayana, whose famous line is often misquoted, actually said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Let it be understood that by poking holes in the myth that the world conflict of 1914 to 1918 was fought for noble causes by brilliant tacticians guided by principled politicians we are not disparaging the sacrifices made by the front-line troops who died by the millions for what, initially at least, they believed to be a just cause. Honoring the memory of those men and women – and the staggering number of civilians who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time in history – should be the focal point of the ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of what at the time was ingenuously called the war to end all wars.

In trying to demystify the complex and at times incomprehensible parameters of the First World War on the Western Front, we hope we have shown that it was no box of chocolates. If we fail to learn a valuable lesson from this unnecessary and evil clash of Imperial Egos, then we today are just as stupid as they were then.

While many of the illustrations in this blog are photographs taken by the authors, every effort to credit those sources for other material has been made. If credit is due another creator, please contact the authors at [email protected]                                                                                                                                             

- Tom and Gail Douglas

How An Obscure Teenager Set the World on Fire

“Assassination has never changed the history of the world.”

 – Benjamin Disraeli   

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie are about to take their fatal last ride      

If you were to conduct random on-the-street interviews asking people what caused the First World War, you might get a lot of blank stares, or perhaps the occasional head-scratch and a vague, “Umm, wasn’t it because some nutcase shot some royal dude in some town in Croatia or wherever?”

Oddly enough, that answer is almost right, at least as far as it goes. On June 28, 1914, a young Serbian fanatic, regarded by many as a “nutcase” did shoot a royal dude in the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not too far from Croatia in the Balkan Peninsula.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie both died of their wounds shortly after the attack. Although the double assassination set off a chain of events that culminated in The Great War, it wasn’t so much a cause of the global blow-up as a detonator that ignited explosives already planted throughout Europe. 

The continent had been relatively peaceful since 1871, when the end of the Franco-Prussian War marked the beginning of the Belle Époque – the beautiful era. Scientific and technological advances had brought improvements in endeavors such as food production, medical care, and transportation – making for a better quality of life for many European citizens. The visual and performing arts were flourishing, international trade and investments were booming, and general prosperity seemed likely for the foreseeable future.  

Yet a peek behind the lighthearted façade of Parisian music halls, Viennese ballrooms and Munich beer gardens reveals ominous shadows. 

As industrialization moved populations from farms to cities throughout the western world, laborers began to form unions to demand better pay and safer working conditions. Women were fighting to gain access to the ballot box, risking social ostracism, jail and vicious beatings to gain the right to vote. Extreme nationalism was spreading like a viral fever while religious and ethnic minorities were clamoring for independence from their imperial masters. Opposing political philosophies and movements were popping up everywhere, the shrill voices of their passionate leaders adding to the warlike atmosphere. 

By 1914, the European powers controlled well over three-quarters of the earth’s land surface as a result of aggressive colonization, with Britain leading the pack and protecting its interests through its powerful navy that had ruled the seas for centuries. Germany was trying to challenge the British naval dominance, with limited success. 

A fierce competition was in play as Britain and the continental powers jockeyed for economic and political control of Asia and Africa, including unexploited regions still up for grabs. Clashes among nations were inevitable, and, although many dangerous situations had been smoothed over by careful negotiation, residual bitterness and resentment were festering behind the practised smiles of embassy meetings. War was beginning to tempt some ambitious leaders as a way to settle once and for all who would end up as top dog. 

A lethal component of this unstable mix was the modern weaponry being developed by profit-motivated manufacturers who knew how to start an arms race and keep it going, to the point that military spending by the major powers of Europe tripled between 1870 and 1914. With each empire trying to build a better fighting machine than its rivals, conscription of young men eighteen and over was introduced in all the major nations except Britain in order to increase the size of the armed forces. 

This edgy atmosphere led to formal agreements and informal “understandings” among the nations of Europe, ratcheting up the tension almost to the breaking point. By the summer of 1914 the starting lineups preparing for war consisted of the British, French, and Russian Triple Entente (known as the Allies once war began) ranged against the German-Austrian-Italian Triple Alliance (later known as the Central Powers). Italy, however, opted out of the conflict in 1914 and in 1915 joined the Allies.

Since a lot of influential people were convinced that some kind of European conflict was inevitable, a self-fulfilling prophecy seemed to be in the works. But if one particular realm could be said to have started World War One, the finger would have to be pointed at Austria-Hungary.

In 1908 Austria had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, despite the rage their action had aroused among people of Slavic descent throughout the Balkan Peninsula and Russia, the Habsburg Empire still had its eye on getting control of the neighboring Kingdom of Serbia. But the Serbs had their own plans, namely to free Bosnia from Austria and unite with it in a future Pan-Slavic Empire. 

Austria was looking for a pretext for war with the Serbs when a tubercular nineteen-year-old named Gavrilo Princip handed it to them by being in the right place at the right moment to shoot the royal Austrian couple as they rode through the streets of Sarajevo in an open-topped car during a state visit. 

The Austrians were understandably outraged by the killing of their future emperor despite the fact that the archduke wasn’t particularly popular at home or anywhere else. They claimed that the secret pro-Slav military society, The Black Hand, had orchestrated the assassination, and accused the Serbian government of being behind this reactionary group. The Serb leaders denied having anything to do with the crime while promising to investigate it and punish the perpetrators. 

After nearly a month of political wrangling within the Austrian government and some patently insincere attempts to end the crisis peacefully, Austria made sure it had Germany’s full backing and then issued Serbia an ultimatum on July 23 with demands the Serbians were almost guaranteed to reject. The most draconian of these was that Serbia would give the Austrians the authority to do whatever they deemed necessary – within Serbia – to suppress any activity they considered subversive.

Since no self-respecting nation was likely to agree to that kind of condition, the Serbians were expected to turn down the obvious set-up, giving the Austrians the chance to play victim and claim that their only recourse was to declare war on its long-time nemesis as an act of self-defence. Russia would be off the hook as a would-be rescuer if Serbia were to be seen as the aggressor, and Russia’s allies in the Triple Entente could ignore the whole scuffle. Austria could get away with a limited war against a much weaker enemy and enjoy a speedy victory before the world realized anything unusual was happening in that obscure part of the world. Serbian problem solved, Austro-Hungarian Empire expanded.

But the Serbians didn’t follow the Austrian game plan. They accepted all the terms except the demand that would effectively hand their country’s independence to Austria on a platter, and suggested that even that point of contention could be left to international arbitration.

It was a clever checkmate attempt on Serbia’s part, but it didn’t work. The Austrians rejected the Serbian counter-offer out of hand, deciding they had enough justification for declaring war, hang the consequences. After all, they had Germany’s diplomatic “blank check” in their back pocket. What could go wrong?

Events began to move at warp speed. Citizens who had been lulled into enjoying an outstandingly beautiful summer without paying attention to such mundane matters as the machinations of politicians began to sit up and take notice as each day brought disaster a step closer. Keeping tabs on the sequence of war declarations, warnings, ultimatums, and more war declarations became an international spectator sport, a bit like watching a skilled pool player in action, with the cue ball caroming around with seeming abandon, sinking one ball after another.

On July 28, exactly a month after the assassination of their archduke, Austria declared war on Serbia. The very next day Austrian gunboats showed up on the Danube and started bombarding the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

Russia began mobilizing its forces on July 30 for a conflict with Austria. On the last day of July the Germans warned the Russians to desist or else. At the same time they sent a message giving France twelve hours to declare themselves neutral. France basically told them to get lost, though they used slightly more formal diplomatic language. Russia widened its mobilization process to prepare for war against Germany as well as Austria.

On August 1 Germany formally declared war on Russia, and a day later “requested” safe passage for its troops to march through Belgium on their way to attack France, adding a few dire threats about the unpleasantness to come if the Belgians didn’t cooperate.

On August 3 King Albert I of Belgium turned down the German request, so Germany declared war on Belgium and upped the ante by including France on its We’re-Going-To-Get-You list. Early the next morning troops in field grey swarmed across the border into Belgium and started carrying out their threats with dreadful efficiency.

 That night the British got into the act and declared war on Germany. The sputtering fuse had finally reached the powder keg and all hell broke loose.

 Everyone but a prescient – and pessimistic – few insisted that the conflict would end by Christmas. And it did. It just wasn’t Christmas 1914.

This Wikipedia photo of nine kings who attended the funeral of England's King Edward VII in 1910 includes his successor King George V (seated middle front), Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II (standing behind King George) and Belgium's King Albert 1 (second row extreme right). Four years later, England and Belgium would be at war with Germany.

Photo of Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria

Public domain map accessed from wikimedia.org

Le Petit Journal photo is displayed at the Musee de la Grande Guerre in Meaux France

Display of weaponry is part of the collection at the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Peronne, France

Adversaries at a Glance

 

“If you do not seek out allies and helpers, then you will be isolated and weak."

- Sun Tzu: The Art of War

Tom Douglas photo of display of the opposing World War War forces at the Musee de la Grande Guerre in Meaux, France

This website’s focus is on the embattled areas of Belgium and Northern France, where the antagonists were chiefly the Germans against the Belgians, French, and British, along with combatants from the colonies of those nations. However, the list below shows how many other regions of the world were drawn into the conflict.

The Central Powers

• Germany, Austria and Italy:  The Triple Alliance. Italy was only a nominal partner and declared its neutrality in 1914. It switched its allegiance to the Allies in 1915.
• Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
• Bulgaria

The Allies

• Russia, France, and Britain: The Triple Entente
• Colonies of France
• Colonies of Britain
• Belgium
• Serbia
• Montenegro
• Japan
• Italy
• Portugal 
• Romania
• Greece
• United States
• Brazil 
• China
• Liberia

Belgium: The Pawn on Chessboard Europe

“Never consider as neutral any place from whence an attack is allowed to be made.”
 - Horatio Nelson

 

  The Dogs of War cartoon is on display at the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Peronne, France

Belgium in 1914 was supposed to be a neutral country. According to an agreement made in 1831 and reconfirmed several times since then, its position on the sidelines was to be defended in perpetuity by Europe’s Great Powers – Britain, France, Austria, Russia and Germany.

All five countries had been thoroughly displeased in 1830 when the Belgians decided they no longer wanted to be part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, an entity the Great Powers had created after the defeat of Napoleon back in 1815. 

For reasons of their own, none of the gang of five chose to send in troops to force the Belgians back into the Dutch fold. Instead they dispatched delegates to a conference in London to determine the conditions of an independent Belgium’s existence. One of those conditions was permanent Belgian neutrality to create a buffer zone that might help preserve the continental balance of power.

The Belgians, who had never intended to surrender their right to defend themselves by force of arms, were annoyed enough to resist the pressure to sign on. Eventually, though, they gave in, telling themselves that if existing in a state of perpetual neutrality as a convenience for the superpowers was the price of independence, such as it was, then so be it.

Unfortunately, in 1914 they found out the hard way that a convenience could become an inconvenience at the drop of a spiked helmet.

The London Times, in its issue of October 12, 1914, had the following to say on the subject of Belgium’s forced nonalignment.

"The last and greatest difficulty was the neutrality imposed upon Belgium against her will. A more fatal gift was never presented to any state. It prevented her from combining with the Netherlands for the defense of their common, inseparable interests; and, worse than that, it made it impracticable for Belgium to enter into any conversation or arrangement, military or other, which would insure to her the rapid and effective support of her English friends."

In other words, if trouble appeared to be on the way, Belgium had to wait until it hit them before asking Britain for help.

Due to its strategic location on the English Channel and its borders with The Netherlands, France, and Germany, the region that is now Belgium was a favorite arena for recurring wars among European nations for centuries, whether or not the Belgians’ own interests were involved.

As far back as the Roman Empire, when Julius Caesar was leading his legions in the conquest of Gaul, he spoke highly of the Celtic tribe of the Belgae, calling them “the bravest of them all.” Nevertheless, his admiration didn’t keep him from doing his level best to exterminate every last one of them.  

So many fierce clashes between the armed forces of other countries have taken place on Belgian soil throughout the centuries that it’s been nicknamed “The Cockpit of Europe.” And even the most history-challenged among us know that Napoleon Bonaparte literally met his Waterloo in Belgium, leaving the verdant farmlands south of Brussels littered with mangled bodies and soaked with the blood of Europe’s finest.

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 both belligerents toyed with the idea of using Belgium as an invasion route. Although they each backed off because they were wary of the probable British reaction, the possibility of having foreign troops bullying their way through their territory made the Belgians decide they at least had the right to build up their internal defences. They ordered the construction of rings of fortresses around the vital port of Antwerp in the Flemish-speaking region of Flanders and around the industrial cities of Liège and Namur in Wallonia, the French-language region of the country. The Wallonian cities and their environs were rich with natural resources, factories and skilled workers, all of which Germany had designs on.

Liège straddled the MeuseRiver close to both the Dutch and German borders, while Namur was farther up the river, closer to the French frontier. An invader would have to get past these two armed strongholds to penetrate the rest of Belgium and move on to France.

For centuries the communities nestled in the deep valleys of the Meuse had been protected by citadels on the high cliffs above them, but the new fortresses took over the job and were widely considered to be impregnable. And perhaps they were – when they were first built.  

After the near-completion of the forts the fear of invasion gradually subsided and other concerns took precedence over defence. The rifle trenches and earthworks between the forts were never finished according to the designer’s specifications, leaving gaps an enemy force could slip through. The fortresses themselves gradually fell into disrepair, weapons arsenals were inadequate, and the army was relatively small and poorly equipped. 

In short, after decades of peace in Europe the Belgians were letting down their guard and hoping for the best while their neighbors were building up their military might and preparing for the worst. 

Display of badges at the Musee de la Grande Guerre in Meaux, France just east of Paris

 

The Rivers of Belgium and Northern France

“The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. " 

- Voltaire

The bridge at Dinant, Belgium, where Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle was wounded, spans the Meuse River 

                                                                                                                                                - Photo by Tom Douglas

 It takes only a brief glance at a list of World War One battles to note what an important role the rivers of the region played in the unfolding of events.

Some battles are actually named for the rivers where they were fought, such as The Somme, The Marne, The Aisne and the Yser. Other battles are named for communities built beside and charged with protecting strategically important waterways. For centuries, imposing stone citadels and fortresses were the dominating feature of countless riverside towns and cities of Belgium and France, and many such edifices can be visited today.

In addition to their importance in peacetime for transportation, waterways during a war can present a natural barrier to an invading army, which of course is why some of the most determined battles were fought over bridges that spanned a vital river or canal, and why many bridges were destroyed by defenders as a last resort to halt the enemy advance. Armies frequently had to create “pontoon” or temporary floating bridges, also sometimes called “boat” bridges as they looked like a line of rowboats holding up wooden planks. 

A bridge over a canal tributary of the Somme River with the Amiens Cathedral as a magnificent backdrop  

                                                                                                                                                      - Photo by Tom Douglas

 

 

The Drumbeat Goes On

 “They want peace, but they want a gun to get it with.”   

  - Will Rogers

Germany's Schlieffen Plan and France's Plan XVII

Germany’s leaders had good reason for making war plans as the 20th century dawned. While harboring visions of an empire of unprecedented glory, they kept having cold-sweat nightmares of enemies closing in on them. 

To the west was France, still bristling over its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71, waiting for a chance to take back its lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

On Germany’s eastern border was Russia – already one of the largest empires in the history of the world – eager for more territory and smarting from recent humiliations. The Japanese had given them a drubbing in 1905 in territorial disputes in Manchuria and Korea. And, in 1908, Czar Nicholas II had blinked first in a showdown with Germany and Austria over the latter’s annexation of Bosnia. The Czar and his military leaders were getting ready to stand their ground if challenged again.      

And Britain? In spite of their alliances and backroom commitments, there was really no telling what they would do in the event of war on the continent, and they weren’t saying.

Germany felt increasingly claustrophobic, but at the same time saw its own military strength increasing as its progressive armaments industry kept coming up with new and improved weaponry.  

Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 until his retirement in 1906, decided that a simultaneous war with France and Russia was unthinkable. Not only would such a two-front war leave Germany’s forces hopelessly outnumbered by the combined troops of its enemies, but the logistical problems would be staggering.

What Germany needed, Schlieffen concluded, was a plan. He began designing what became known as the Schlieffen Plan as far back as 1895 and, by 1905, had come up with a detailed strategy that was adopted as Germany’s official blueprint for war with France and Russia. 

The first step in the Schlieffen Plan was to make sure the Germans would be ready to pull on their hobnailed boots at a moment’s notice. And Germany would choose the moment.

Intelligence reports told Schlieffen that Russia would need at least six weeks to get its act together, what with the vast territory its troops would have to cover before even reaching the German and Austrian borders. As Schlieffen saw it, the Germans simply had to knock out the French in those six weeks, pummeling them so thoroughly they’d never rise again to fight another day. At that point Germany’s military machine could be rushed to the Russian border to polish off the Czar’s troops.  

The key to the whole operation was to catch France by surprise, not only with rapid German mobilization but with the direction of German attacks. 

Schlieffen was certain France would adhere to an offensive rather than a defensive strategy and would concentrate its troops on its eastern border to make a bid to reclaim Alsace and Lorraine. In terms of German offensive action, Schlieffen wanted his armies to avoid that mountainous and heavily fortified region of France. He would send only a holding force to the Franco-German border to keep the French busy and, even better, lure them eastward into a German trap.

Meanwhile, five of his armies (in military parlance, a country’s land forces can be comprised of several armies) would march into France by way of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, crossing into Belgium over a narrow strip of Dutch territory called the Limburg Appendix. 

Three armies would spread throughout Belgium and from there into France. The right wing of the First Army would head westward along the Channel coast, then south and to the west of an undefended Paris, encircle the capital and force its surrender. The First Army would then swing east to join the other German forces, cutting off the French lines of communication and finally moving eastward toward the German border. The French forces there would be caught between German lines and, with France’s communications disabled, the whole country would be rendered helpless. 

That was The Plan, and it looked good on paper. Its Achilles Heel was that its success depended on lightning speed, no hitches, and no game-changing curves thrown at the German commanders by the enemy.

Three curves hurled at them as soon as the war began were the fierce resistance of the Belgians, the speedy mobilization of the Russians, and the immediate entry of Britain into the conflict, at least in part to defend Belgian neutrality. The Germans had come to regard the 1839 neutrality agreement as “a mere scrap of paper” that the British surely would never go to war over, especially at a time when they were busy dealing with Irish demands for Home Rule.

Big mistake.  

The French had also been plotting their strategy for many years. The latest version was Plan XVII, largely designed by General Joseph Joffre. When war did come along, Joffre was Commander-in-Chief of the French forces, and since Plan XVII was his baby he was stubborn to a fault about sticking to it.

His plan didn’t allow for dealing with a German invasion of France through Belgium and Luxembourg. Exactly as Schlieffen had predicted, Joffre’s focus was on a strong offensive push into Alsace and Lorraine, where he was certain the Germans would make their stand. Even when his generals pointed out to him that the real action seemed to be unfolding in Belgium, Joffre’s response until the eleventh hour and looming defeat was a classic don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts obstinacy.

One of the ethereal foundations of Joffre’s strategies was a mysterious force he identified as the élan or fighting spirit of the French soldiers, which was supposed to carry them to victory whatever the odds. They would mount their offensive and never let up until the enemy was defeated. Unlike most fairy tales, this one would have anything but a happy ending.

For starters, it was a lot to expect from soldiers whose uniforms were blue and red leftovers from the 19^th Century that would make easy targets on the battlefields and in the forests of the Ardennes, whose weapons were outdated and outclassed by German arms, and whose bayonet charges into enemy machine-gun fire would be nothing short of suicidal. 

Schlieffen died in early 1913 but his strategy was still the German military bible in 1914 except for the march through Dutch territory. His successor, Helmuth von Moltke, decided that he didn’t want to add The Netherlands to Germany’s fast-growing enemies list. Besides, he knew that if Germany violated Holland’s neutrality the British navy would blockade the Dutch ports on the Channel, which Germany needed to keep open for receiving essential imports. He decided to stick with Luxembourg and Belgium as his gates of war.

In choosing what he regarded as two militarily-ineffectual countries for his launch of the Schlieffen Plan, Moltke expected little or no trouble from those quarters. He was in for a few surprises.

Display case featuring the busts of 'Alsace' and 'Lorraine' are at France's Meaux Museum of World War One as is the drawing of French soldier in outdated uniform 

 

The High Price of Honor

“We are a country, not a road.”

  - Belgium's King Albert I

Visitors who arrive in Dinant, Belgium by train are greeted by this memorial to the nation's hero, King Albert I                                                                                                                                                          - Photo by Tom Douglas

 

By the terms of Belgium’s perpetual neutrality, the country’s soldier-king Albert I wasn’t free to ask France and Britain for military assistance until that neutrality was violated. He sent requests for assistance to his allies as soon as Germany declared war on his tiny, ill-prepared nation, but the German invasion was so fast there was no way French and British troops could get there until a lot of damage had been done. 

As commander-in-chief of the Belgian army, the king began mobilizing his forces and strengthening the country’s defences, hoping to hold back the invaders until the desperately needed help arrived. At the very least he wanted to funnel the Germans straight down into France near the German border. His first duty, as he saw it, was to protect his own people.

Although he knew his army of about 117,000 men would be outnumbered, he apparently didn’t realize that the odds would be something like ten to one against him.  

The Germans, two of their armies having taken control of the tiny, unarmed Duchy of Luxembourg without a fight on August 2, had expected the same lack of push-back from Belgium. They were shocked and infuriated by the rebuff they received.

The German First, Second and Third Armies poured across the Belgian border on August 4, initiating the Schlieffen Plan with a ferocity that stunned the tiny nation and the world. Any show of real or imagined civilian resistance along the routes set out in the Schlieffen Plan was treated as a hostile act deserving of brutal punishment.

German reprisals were sanctioned and often ordered by commanding generals, who claimed the right to control the occupied population with the utmost severity. Any German soldier who tried to resist these vengeful orders found himself treated almost as harshly as his designated enemy.    

The Kaiser’s troops entered the village of Verviers southeast of Liège, headed straight for the town hall and tore down the Belgian flag, replacing it with a German banner. After declaring martial law, they started requisitioning supplies and billeting soldiers with a shocked and hostile populace.

Units of troops and cavalry made a foray to capture Visé on the northeast side of the Meuse near the border of The Netherlands. They shelled the town, set fire to houses and public buildings, and executed civilians for having the audacity to fight back. 

German cavalry troops crossed a temporary bridge on August 8 and advanced to a spot just south of Tongeren, where they began attacking the Liège defenders from the rear. They moved into Tongeren itself but the local militia unit and a company of armed bicyclists drove them back, and although they recaptured the town the next day the shocked cavalry moved a little more warily from then on, causing further delays in their plans. But now they had revenge on their minds.

Heading north, the Germans made their way to Haelen on the River Gette, a natural line of Belgian defence west of Liège. There they were in for another surprise. A Belgian cavalry unit, along with more bicyclists, ambushed and defeated them on August 12 in a clash that entered Belgium’s folklore as “The Battle of the Silver Helmets,” named for the German cavalry headgear left on the battlefield.

But the Belgians still hadn’t connected with their French allies and the British hadn’t arrived yet, so the Germans made steady progress, capturing one village after another until, on August 18, they returned to Haelen and quickly took it. They crossed the Gette, forcing the Belgian troops to retreat further north or risk complete encirclement in front of the Flemish city of Leuven (Louvain in French), King Albert’s military headquarters.

Continuing to resist the German advance even as they retreated, the Belgians held the enemy up at the town of Aarschot on August 19 for several hours before being forced again to withdraw. 

Once in control of Aarschot, the Germans marched the Belgian prisoners, mostly wounded men, to the bank of the River Demer where they shot them in cold blood. They chased down the few who managed to escape that fate and tossed them into the water, leaving them to drown. The victors then turned to the town itself, where they pillaged homes, set them on fire, and executed 150 citizens. Their rampage continued for the next three days, during which they razed three more towns. 

Throughout most of this period Liège and its forts had kept doggedly fighting a battle against impossible odds.

 

 

 

The Monstrous Guns of August

"God fights on the side with the best artillery.”  

– Napoleon Bonaparte

 

 

A panoramic postcard view of Liège before World War One

 

As soon as the Belgians had begun preparing for the inevitable German invasion, soldiers had started to arrive in Liège to increase the size of its garrison. They tramped smartly along the wide streets, practised their regimental parades in the squares, hustled to set up machine guns near the bridges, and commandeered civilian motor cars and horse-drawn carriages. They even took the dogs that pulled milk carts through the town and led them off, tails wagging innocently, to be hitched to gun carriages.

Workers by the thousands had been brought in to join the men who had been taken from their regular jobs to dig rifle trenches and construct the unfinished and neglected earthworks between the forts surrounding the city.

Foreign refugees from all over the region were making their desperate way toward the railway station at Liège, hoping to find virtually non-existent passage to their home countries.

Green spaces within the city were crowded with cows and pigs driven in from outlying fields to keep them out of German hands. Crowded, ill-fed, and frightened, the cattle lowed plaintively in their enclosures as they began to sicken and die.

Fear of starvation set off a run on stores, while rumors of Belgian banknotes becoming worthless started a near-riot outside the banks as customers waited for hours to convert their money to safer currency. When the angry mob became too unruly the civil guard called in firemen to turn high-pressure hoses on them.

The main body of the German force eventually reached Liège’s eastern fortifications and attacked in the early hours of August 5.

The Liège fortresses were built on high ground, six on either side of the Meuse, and were defended by a garrison of 70,000 soldiers.

When the first fort held out against the artillery barrage and the Germans suffered heavy casualties, their commander changed tactics. He called in two Zeppelin airships to drop bombs on the city, a shocking new kind of attack and a grim foreshadowing of the air raids of later battles, later wars.

On August 7 a group of German soldiers slipped through an undefended gap between the forts to enter and capture the city. Once Liège had surrendered, pamphlets were distributed to spell out to the citizens what to expect under the occupation, what their rights were, and how they should behave toward the occupiers. The Liègeois would need this information until November 1918, as would Belgians in communities throughout the country since German troops ultimately occupied all but a tiny area of their country on the English Channel coast.

During those years Belgium was stripped not only of its food and medicines, but its industrial assets – not only machinery and essential parts but whole factories from foundation to roofs, all transferred to Germany along with mineral resources and raw materials. Even Belgian workers were deported to German labor camps where they spent their war surrounded by barbed-wire fences as they worked as slaves for their enemy.

In early August of 1914 the fortresses on the western side of Liège still stood ready to stop the enemy advance, so the Germans decided it was time to send for the heavy artillery developed in recent years, including the mammoth Krupp-made howitzer nicknamed Big Bertha. The Liège fortresses hadn’t been built to withstand that kind of firepower.

Big Bertha and other new artillery had to be transported in sections to the battle area and reconstructed there, so it took until August 12 to set them up. But once the shells began whistling through the air toward the forts from unprecedented distances and exploding on their targets with a destructive power never before experienced or even imagined, the remaining fortresses crumbled like sand castles at high tide. On August 16, the white flag was raised and General Gérard Leman, the Belgian commander who’d had both his legs crushed under debris from the collapsing fortifications, was carried unconscious from the ruins where he and his men had made their last stand.

Liège later received the French Légion d’honneur in recognition of its stubborn resistance in 1914 – resistance that gave the British Expeditionary Force a little more time to arrive on the continent and provided a chance for the French divisions fighting the Battles of the Frontiers along the French-German border to reach the beleaguered Belgian forces.But despite the delay, as of August 16 the Schlieffen Plan was still on track. 

  Liège has risen from the ashes

 

The Endless Gray Line

“No longer was it regiments of men marching, but something uncanny, inhuman, a force of nature like a landslide, a tidal wave, or lava sweeping down a mountain.”

– Richard Harding Davis, American journalist, reporting from Brussels 1914

   German troops enter Brussels in 1914. Image access: www.historyplace.com

While the Germans were battering away at the Liège forts, the general mood in Brussels was one of cockeyed optimism, even when news of the fall of one fort after another filtered back to the capital, and refugees started arriving with tales of burning villages and mass executions. The French and British forces were on the way, people kept saying. Rescue was close at hand.

Then word came that on August 19 the enemy had captured Leuven, an uncomfortably short distance away to the east of Brussels.

And still the people of the capital carried on with unassailable confidence. Their mayor vowed that the civil guard would fight the invader right to the heart of the city if necessary.

King Albert had retreated with his troops to Antwerp, as had the Brussels government ministers. From there the king sent orders on the night of August 19 that Brussels was not to defend itself.  To fight the invader would cost countless lives, do irreparable damage, and end in certain defeat.

The mayor, Adolphe Max, reluctantly obeyed, disbanded the civil guard, and sent out special constables to make sure no individual citizens would attempt the kind of resistance that could earn them the acts of vengeance being suffered elsewhere in the country. 

On August 20 Max formally surrendered Brussels to the German First Army, and the demands of the conquerors immediately began. Staggeringly high war indemnities were levied with only limited time periods to cough up the cash. Requisitions for food and other supplies for the invading troops were so enormous the mayor protested that his people would be reduced to a state of famine. His protests fell on deaf ears, and eventually his attempts to stick up for his city earned him a one-way trip to a German prison, where he spent the rest of the war before returning home in 1918, hailed as a hero.       

Observers who were in Brussels on August 20 were astonished by the sheer numbers of German troops moving through the streets of the city, their perfect discipline, and the efficiency of their entire war machine. The procession went on hour after hour, as if the line of soldiers, guns and supply carriages would never end.

The people lining the streets seemed to be in shock, according to an American woman who had left a panic-stricken Paris only to end up in Brussels for the duration of the war. “The dazed amazement in the faces of that watching throng might have moved a devil to tears, “ she wrote in a 1919 book about her experiences, “or awakened rage in the heart of an angel – so silent and helpless they appeared before the mighty and pitiless force advancing through the stunned city.”

The rescue the Belgians had been counting on had failed to arrive. 

In The Grip of Madness

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” 

– Voltaire

  The destruction of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium included the loss of irreplacable manuscripts.       

   The Catholic University was rebuilt after the war through world-wide donations. (Color photos by Tom Douglas)

 

After the fall of Liège, the German armies heading southwest to lay siege to the nine forts at Namur set up their heaviest artillery right away.

The Belgian garrison at Namur was determined to hold out until the French armies stationed across the River Sambre farther to the southwest could arrive. But, as the bombardment of the forts began, the bulk of the German forces attacked the French at Charleroi to keep them diverted from Namur. Only one infantry regiment was dispatched to Namur, not enough to make a difference.

On August 23 Namur was close to collapse. Its garrison decided to evacuate and the citizens became refugees as they fled for safety. The Germans entered the city that night and the remaining forts surrendered soon afterwards.

The French at Charleroi, hearing of the fall of Namur, began a general withdrawal from the Sambre, while the German troops continued on their path of rampant destruction.

The German Third Army’s next stop was Dinant, a tiny gem of a town in the Upper Valley of the Meuse River, about forty kilometers south of Namur.  Tucked up against the bottom of a high, sheer cliff, Dinant relied for protection on The Citadel. Then, as now this walled fortification at the top of the precipice loomed over the town, the river, and the 13^th Century Collegiate Church of Notre Dame with its iconic 16^th Century bell tower. Close to the church stood the main bridge that would allow the Germans to cross the river and proceed toward France.   

The German soldiers were tired, hot and frazzled. They’d fought their way through the Meuse Valley since crossing into Belgium at the beginning of the month. Commanded to carry out a policy of intimidation against resisting civilians, they had learned to obey the officers who ordered them to take reprisals or suffer the consequences.  And they clearly believed the terrifying myths they’d been told about Belgian snipers, saboteurs, and ordinary citizens supposedly capable of visiting unspeakable abuses on wounded German soldiers if they had the chance.

The French Army’s 33^rd Regiment, regarded as one of the best fighting forces in the country, had been sent to Dinant to check the German advance after the fall of Liège and Namur. But they were badly outnumbered, and the units holding The Citadel had been wiped out in a surprise attack from the plateau behind the stronghold. Caught in a tunnel that had turned out to be not an escape route but a dead end, the soldiers displayed their legendary fighting spirit as the Germans advanced on them. But all the élan in the entire French army couldn’t save them in the fierce hand-to-hand fighting that left every one of them bayoneted to death.

With The Citadel captured, the next German move was to cross the Meuse, but the men of the 33^rd fought hard to stop them. Ultimately pushed back by the greater numbers of German forces, the French soldiers blew up the bridge as they retreated.

The Germans began repairing the bridge but suddenly shots rang out and the beleaguered soldiers immediately decided they were being attacked by civilian snipers hiding in nearby houses. They rounded up nearly 700 townspeople of all ages and both sexes and executed them on the spot, with one of the victims said to have been a three-month-old baby. Then the all-too familiar frenzy of pillaging and burning began, and by the time it was over much of Dinant was a smoking ruin.

Two days later the university town of Leuven, occupied since August 19 by units of the German First Army, would meet the same fate. For several days the occupation of the town had been relatively peaceful, but on August 25 German units encamped at the rear of the city were attacked by Belgian soldiers making a sortie from Antwerp, trying to support the approaching French and British forces with a kind of wounded-bird tactic meant to draw off some of the enemy troops. 

The German soldiers panicked and withdrew into Leuven itself, causing confusion among the units already stationed within the city. Gunshots were heard and a rumor flew through the ranks that the Allies had launched a major attack. By the time the Germans realized the rumor was false their authorities decided, without evidence, that Leuven’s citizens had started it. According to the story concocted by German officers, the townspeople had risen up against the occupiers in tandem with the Belgian army’s assault – one that they’d been waiting for as their cue to open fire. 

Five days of retaliation followed. Five days of pillaging and burning, of executions, deportations, and roads filling with refugees trying to escape from soldiers running amok through the quiet, genteel home of academics, retirees, and students.  

By the time the sacking of Leuven ran out of steam on August 30, a reported three hundred of its citizens had been killed, including the mayor, the university rector and all of the town’s police officers. Priests and nuns, professors and civic leaders were shot or shipped off to German labor camps and prisons. The lucky few who had escaped the town had joined the throngs of refugees from other devastated communities, trying to make their way to safety without knowing where they might find it.

Half of Leuven’s houses, shops, public buildings and cafés had been put to the torch, and in the middle of the night of August 25 to 26 the ancient library of the Catholic University of Leuven was set on fire with the use of gasoline and incendiary pastilles. More than 200,000 volumes were burned, including irreplaceable Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts and books printed before the 16^th Century.

The irony was that before the war, professors in Leuven had admired Germany and had sent their best students there for advanced studies. German technicians had installed new metallic bookshelves in the library. German-speaking societies had sprung up among the students.

And German soldiers, carefully taught to despise and fear their former friends, destroyed it all in a matter of days.

The world, already appalled by the news from Dinant, reeled after hearing what had happened in Leuven. Americans, among other so-far-neutral people, expressed particular outrage that a town devoted exclusively to higher learning had been reduced to ashes. In time the Americans would play an enormous part in righting that wrong.

The Daily Chronicle, a British newspaper, described the destruction of the library as war “against posterity to the utmost generation.”