Ten Days in August E-Book

Terence Zuber

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 599

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

In August 1914 the German main attack was conducted by the 2nd Army. It had the missions of taking the vital fortresses of Liège and Namur, and then defeating the Anglo- French-Belgian forces in the open plains of northern Belgium. The German attack on the Belgian fortress at Liège from 5 to 16 August 1914 had tremendous political and military importance, and yet there has never been a complete account of the siege. The German and Belgian sources are fragmentary and biased. The short descriptions in English are general, use a few Belgian sources and are filled with inaccuracies. Making use of both German and Belgian sources, and supported by tactical maps, this book for the first time describes and evaluates the construction of the fortress, its military purpose, the German plan and the conduct of the attack. Previous accounts emphasise the importance of the huge German 'Big Bertha' cannon, to the virtual exclusion of everything else; Ten Days in August shows that the effect of this gun was a myth, and reveals how the Germans really took the fortress and thus set the scene for perhaps the most destructive conflict in history.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Sources

1 Mission

2 Approach March

3 Attack

4 14 Brigade Breakthrough

5 7 August

6 The German Artillery Takes Liège

Epilogue

Appendix: The Testimony of Abbé Madenspacher

Copyright

Acknowledgements

This book would probably not have been possible without the support of Daniel Neicken, who lives near Liège. On hearing of my project, he was kind enough to approach me and offer to assist in obtaining source materials. He was of inestimable help and I cannot thank him enough. Dan bears no responsibility for the conclusions I have drawn.

I conducted much of the research while at the University of Würzburg, thanks to the hardworking and efficient interlibrary loan section.

I received invaluable support from West Virginia Northern Community College, especially the librarian, Janet Corbett and the dean, Larry Tackett.

Once again, Heather Wetzell drew the maps.

Sources

All the records of the German units that fought at Liège were located in the military archive at Potsdam, which was destroyed by a British firebomb raid on the night of 14 April 1945, two weeks before the end of the war. The principal German sources will therefore be the German infantry and artillery regimental histories as well as Das Ehrenbuch der Deutschen Schweren Artillerie (The Book of Honour of the German Heavy Artillery).1

There are two German monographs concerning the attack on Liège. Lüttich-Namur (Liège-Namur), book one of the series Der Grosse Krieg in Einzeldarstellungen (The Great War in Individual Campaigns).2 The purpose of this series was not to present a scientific military history, but to explain the course of the war in general terms to the German soldiers and populace. Work was begun in the fall of 1917, and Lüttich-Namur was published in 1918. It is ninety-six pages long and hardly goes below regimental level. Sketch 2, showing the attack routes of the German brigades at Liège, is frequently reproduced. It is practically worthless concerning the siege itself. It also contains numerous errors. The heroic deeds of a member of the Guard Foot Artillery Regiment were mentioned prominently, and the regiment was supposed to have taken heavy casualties.3 In fact, the story is pure invention, the Guard Foot Artillery Regiment was never engaged at Liège.

Ernst Kabisch began the war commanding an infantry regiment in Lorraine, but was wounded at the beginning of September. He was then chief of staff at increasing levels, and commanded a brigade and a division. His Lüttich (Liège) is more an apologia for the attack, along with his recommendations which would have made the attack more effective, than it is military history.4 It is about 180 pages long but surprisingly quite general: his discussion of the attack and the siege contain no tactical details; it also contains numerous errors. However, Kabisch does make some interesting judgements.

The German official history, Der Weltkrieg, contains a short (nine-page) and accurate summary of the infantry attack on the night of 5–6 August.5 But it too, makes errors, for example putting a German 38cm mortar at Liège, which never happened.6

The Belgian Army historical records concerning 1914–18 were in two railcars which were destroyed in a fire at the rail station in Dunkirk on 25 May 1940. All that survived concerning Liège is ‘a short and completely inadequate summary’.7 The after-action reports of all the fort commanders were also destroyed. The Belgian 3rd Division (3 DA) post-war chief of staff, Colonel De Schrÿver, ‘probably’ used the historical records in his 1922 book, La Bataille de Liège, but we can’t be sure, because De Schrÿver unfortunately did not cite his sources.8 De Schrÿver’s book is the most complete Belgian source, with 258 very dense pages, but he did not include any tactical maps.

Laurent Lombard wrote a series of five monographs on the battle at Liège in the 1930s. Lombard was a high school teacher who lived near Liège and was involved in the Belgian resistance in both world wars, escaping execution in the Great War only because he was under-age. Lombard’s strength is in his description of Belgian tactical operations and tactical maps, which are far better than those of the German regimental histories. Lombard looked at all the published work in both French and German, but did not use the Belgian archives. His use of the German sources is selective and tendentious. His prose is far too wordy, emotional and florid. His description of the battle from the Belgian point of view is invaluable, but has to be treated very carefully. His judgement is unreliable, influenced by intense Belgian patriotism and his ignorance of tactics.

An important and brutally honest source concerning the fortifications at Liège is the highly-detailed 800-page Belgian official history, Défense de la Position Fortifiée de Namur en Août 1914.9 Robert Normand published Défence de Liége, Namur, Anvers en 1914 in 1923.10 A French engineer officer, his book contains a technical description of the fortresses, which, however, missed some very important factors concerning armament and tactical defensive capabilities. Its account of the battle is largely a translation of the German Lüttich-Namur and Ludendorff’s memoirs, but does include some valuable snippets concerning Belgian operations.

One of the most valuable sources is the report of the Belgian commander, General Leman.11 Leman pulled no punches, and his critique of the state of the pre-war Belgian Army and the fortress of Liège is scathing.

Emile Joseph Galet’s Albert, King of the Belgians in the Great War (translated by Major General Sir Ernst Swinton)12 is very informative concerning the pre-war Belgian Army and Belgian strategy and is also the only detailed source on the Belgian Army in English. Du Haut de la Tour du Babel (From the Summit of the Tower of Babel) by the 1914 Belgian Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Selliers de Moranville, is an excellent source concerning Belgian strategy in the two months before the war and the significance of the attack on Liège.13 Another useful source is B. Duvivier/B. Herbiet, Du Rôle de l’Armée de Campagne et des Fortresses Belges en 1914.14 The modern guidebooks to the individual forts are frequently valuable gems.15

One of the few accounts of the battle in English is C. Donnell, The Forts of the Meuse in World War I.16 Insofar as the German Army is concerned, Donnell is completely unreliable. Rather than use German sources (he did not, and apparently doesn’t speak German), he invented ‘facts’ about the German equipment and operations out of whole cloth. His most egregious absurdity is that on the night of 5–6 August the Germans took 42,712 casualties, unlikely since only about 25,000 German infantry were attacking. Donnell attributes to the Germans 28cm guns that they never had. In total, 457 shells were fired by I/ Foot Artillery 9 against Chaudefontaine. Donnell also says that the Germans were firing 2–300 shells an hour, and so on, including a pencil drawing of German infantry being overrun by Belgian cavalry.17

German time was an hour ahead of Belgian time: 0900 German time was 0800 Belgian time. Where confusion might arise, German time is listed as (G), Belgian as (B). Times stated are, however, generally approximate.

Notes

1. F.N. Kaiser (ed.), Das Ehrenbuch der Deutschen Schweren Artillerie (Berlin: Kolk, 1931).

2. Marschall von Bieberstein, Lüttich-Namur (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1918). Bieberstein was a Rittmeister (cavalry captain) and at Liège an assistant adjutant in 14 ID. Stalling was the publisher of the influential Deutsches Offiziersblatt (German Officers’ Journal).

3. Bieberstein, Lüttich-NAMUR, 52.

4. E. Kabisch, Lüttich. Deutschlands Schicksalschritt in den Weltkrieg (Berlin: Schlegel, 1934).

5. Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg I (Berlin: Mittler, 1925) 108–117.

6. Weltkrieg I, 119.

7. G. Leman, Le Rapport du général Leman sur la defense de Liège en août 1914. (Brussels: Palais des Acadêmes, 1960). Notes 16 and 25 by the editor of General Leman’s report, Major Hautecler.

8. Colonel De Schrÿver, La Bataille de Liège (Liège: H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1922).

9. Ministère de la Défense Nationale – Etat-Major Général de l’Armée. Section de l’Historique. Défense de la Position Fortifiée de Namur en Août 1914 (Brussels: Institut Cartographique Militaire, 1930).

10. R. Normand, Défense de Liége, Namur, Anvers en 1914 (Paris: Fournier, 1923).

11. Leman, Le Rapport du général Leman sur la defense de Liège en août 1914 (Brussels: Palais des Acadêmes, 1960).

12. E.J. Galet. Albert, King of the Belgians in the Great War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931).

13. Selliers de Moranville, Du Haut de la Tour du Babel (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1925).

14. B. Duvivier/B. Herbiet, Du Rôle de l’Armée de Campagne et des Fortresses belges en 1914 (Bruxelles: l’Institut Cartographique Militaire, 1928).

15. Christian Faque, Henri-Alexis Brialmont. Les Forts de la Meuse 1887–1891 (Les Amis de la Citadelle de Namur, 1987). L. Ruther, Fort de Loncin (Ans: Front de Sauvegarde du Fort de Loncin, 2009). Ruther is the administrator of the ‘Front to Safeguard the Fort de Loncin’. Comite de Sauvegarde du Patrimonie Historique du Fort de Hollogne, Le Fort de Hollogne dans la Position Fortifiée de Liège en 1914 (No publisher, no date).

16. C. Donnell, The Forts of the Meuse in World War I (Oxford: Osprey, 2007).

17. On page 41, Donnell captions a picture with ‘Civilians flee as German troops cross the border into Belgium.’ The troops and civilians are, however, moving in the opposite direction, so if the civilians are ‘fleeing’ they’re fleeing into Germany. The occupants of the nearest automobile appear to be in a pleasant discussion with some German Jäger.

1

Mission

Siege Warfare

Shortly after the Napoleonic wars the increasing range and effectiveness of siege artillery had forced engineers to abandon the bastioned trace, exemplified by Vaubaun, and construct detached forts some distance from the point to be defended, frequently but not always a city. The detached forts would be linked by field fortifications – trenches – dug at the commencement of hostilities, if not somewhat before. This was called ‘arming’ a fortress. The detached forts would serve as strongpoints for the defence. The attacker would concentrate his main point of effort against what he considered a weak point. The attacker would have to engage three forts: one in the centre (the main point of attack) and the forts on each side that would provide supporting, and ideally flanking, fire for the centre fort. The defender would move additional forces, particularly artillery, to reinforce the threatened area. Fortresses like Metz had massive parks of mobile and semi-mobile 15cm heavy howitzers and long-range 10cm and 13cm cannon, backed up by full munitions bunkers, with which to conduct a protracted artillery duel at the decisive point.

Each major fortress was provided with a dedicated infantry reserve to occupy the trenches in the intervals between the fortresses and to conduct counterattacks to eliminate enemy breakthroughs – in German terminology the Hauptreserve. In 1914 each of the six major fortresses on the Western Front – Metz, Strasbourg, Verdun, Toul, Épinal and Belfort – had an entire reserve infantry division. In Metz this division (33 Reserve Division – RD) was particularly strong, including a Bavarian active army brigade (BDE) and an entire 15cm heavy howitzer regiment. These divisions were permanent parts of the fortress garrisons and would leave only if there was no threat to the fortress. Having left, if a threat materialised, they would return to the fortress.

The attacking artillery would attempt to suppress the defending artillery, destroy both the forts and the infantry in the intervals between the forts, and move his approach trenches and artillery forward observers (FOs) closer to the defensive works. Again, primarily using artillery fire, the defender would attempt to destroy the attacking artillery and infantry.

Fortress warfare doctrine anticipated the trench warfare that set in almost immediately on the Western Front.

To prevent a stalemate, it was essential to surround the fortress and cut it off from being reinforced and resupplied. Nevertheless, it had to be assumed that the siege of a first-rate fortress, even if cut off, would go on for months and consume vast numbers of heavy artillery shells.

In 1881 the French held a siege exercise against Verdun.1 This was surely a mix of map exercise and staff ride – it is unlikely that troops were involved. The siege army was six divisions strong, and employed 460 heavy guns, three pioneer battalions and a large equipment park. The attack was directed at two of Verdun’s detached forts, which held out for three months. It took another month to breach the city wall. Some 450,000 shells were expended.

Siege warfare doctrine against a fortress with detached works was uniform in all west-European armies, and was unchanged through 1914, in spite of improvements in both fortress armour and siege artillery.

By the Franco-Prussian War, the permanent fortress faced a crisis: the introduction of highly accurate rifled artillery, whose conical shells replaced cannon balls, and swung the scales in favour of the besieger. Rifled artillery could pick out the firing ports of the defenders’ guns and silence them. The besieger could also walk shells across the walls of the fortifications and cause entire masonry walls to collapse. The guns had sufficient range to reach beyond the detached forts and engage the wall of the fortress (enceinte) directly.

An additional complication arose for the Belgians. In 1874 the French chambers approved the initial credits for Séré de Rivière’s famous system of fortifications on France’s border with Germany, which, based on the four great forts of Verdun, Toul, Épinal and Belfort, would make a direct German attack on France unlikely, if not impossible. Together with the increasing size of the French and German conscript armies, it appeared less and less likely that the next Franco-German war, widely anticipated by all of Europe, would be fought on their common border, which was also restricted by the Vosges mountains. The likely Franco-German battlefield was Belgium.

A further complication was presented by the discovery of high explosives around 1883, which could disassemble masonry fortifications in short order. Fortresses now had to be moved below ground, protected by a deep layer of concrete and earth, with the guns protected by iron and steel.

History of Belgian Fortifications2

Belgium became independent in 1830 and her borders were finalised in 1839. The first defence plan was drawn up between 1847 and 1851. The most important military decision was that Antwerp was to be transformed into an entrenched camp and the base of operations for the field army. Small fortresses were maintained all over the country. Based on these fortifications, the Belgian Army would conduct a delaying action against the invader, retreating to Antwerp if necessary. In 1859 Antwerp was designated the national redoubt. In 1876, given the increase in artillery capabilities, the first line of defence of Antwerp was pushed south.

The entire Belgian fortress system – Antwerp, Liège and Namur – was the work of the Belgian fortress engineer, Henri Brialmont. He was born in 1821, the son of Laurent Brialmont, a Belgian general officer and, for a short time in 1850–51, the Belgian Minister of War. Brialmont was commissioned in the engineers in 1843. In 1855 he made an inspection trip to the ‘New Prussian system’ of fortresses, which, breaking with Vaubaun’s bastioned trace, inaugurated the system of detached forts and entrenched camps, and was deeply impressed. His rise from major (1861) to major general (1874) was rapid. In 1875 he was named inspector general of fortifications and the corps of engineers.

Brialmont’s contribution to fortress engineering was to move the entire installation below ground and encase the guns in armoured turrets.

Liège and Namur: Mission

The dominating terrain feature in eastern and central Belgium is the Meuse River, an unfordable water obstacle which extends 70km from the Dutch border at Lixhé to the fortress of Namur.

Liège is located at the confluence of the Meuse, a significant obstacle 140m wide, the Ourthe and the Vesdre.3 In 1914 it was an industrial city, the centre of Belgian arms manufacture, with 164,000 inhabitants, in a very strongly Walloon (French) portion of Belgium. On 27 June 1887 the Belgian government charged Brialmont with fortifying Belgium against both a French and a German attack. Namur would block the famous ‘Trouée de l’Oise’ between the Sambre and the Meuse. Liège would block the choke point between the Dutch border and the Ardennes.

Liège and Namur would replace fortresses constructed at these sites by the Dutch between 1816 and 1825, which the development of rifled artillery in 1860 had rendered obsolete. The new fortifications would therefore consist of a ring of detached forts encircling the city. At Liège this eventually meant twelve detached forts from 6,000–8,750m from the city centre and from 1,900–6,350m apart. The fortress perimeter would extend about 60km.

Liège, forts and towns.

Liège, distances.

On 2 March 1887, General Pontus, the minister of war, explained the concept of the forts to the chamber of deputies:

Belgium has less to fear from an attack against its independence than a violation of its territory necessitated by the strategic interests of one of the belligerents […] [crossing] either the lower Rhine or the north of France, utilising the Meuse as the route across Belgium […] since we are obligated to defend the access to this route, it is necessary to give our army bridgeheads. In a word, the Meuse must be fortified.

Which Pontus identified as Namur and Liège, and to a lesser degree Huy, which were at once population centres, communication chokepoints, and important river crossings. On 7 July Pontus said:

Suppose that a war breaks out between our two powerful neighbours and consider how the Germans and the French might violate Belgian neutrality.

In the first case, the German northern army or right wing would assemble at Aachen and, given our hypothesis, direct the greater part of his forces towards the Sambre–Meuse and the valley of the Oise, attempting to take in the rear the French forces concentrated between Verdun and Stenay to block the German centre armies massed between Metz and Thionville.

It must be recognized that the chances of success for the strategic movement of the German right wing increase with the speed of its movement. If Namur and Liège are not fortified, the excellent communications along the Meuse allow the invader to move under optimal conditions along the most direct routes, while detaching forces to protect his right flank against the Belgian army in Antwerp. If this movement succeeds, not only is the way to Paris open to the Germans, they will have at their disposal a railhead 160 kilometres from the capital.

If, however, the line of the Meuse is fortified, the German forces could not march on a single route – a marching German corps is 24 to 28 kilometres long and under these conditions it would be impossible for a second German corps to follow the first. They would be forced to march all their forces north of the Meuse, or march on both banks.

In the first case they would cross the river by violating Dutch territory. To provide a route of march for each corps they would have to extend into the interior of our country. This flank march past the Meuse fortifications on the one hand and the Belgian army [in Antwerp] on the other would become exceptionally dangerous if a French army, coming to our support, was able to reach Namur. This converging movement [towards Verdun] would take too long and one can expect that it would fail.

If the German army decided to march on both banks of the Meuse the dangers are greater yet. The two halves would be separated by the Meuse fortifications, unable to unite, and risk defeat in detail.

The same considerations apply to a French invasion. Under this hypothesis, the objective of the French army would be to cross the Rhine between Cologne and Wesel and advance across the north German plain to Berlin. Once again, the line of the Meuse is the shortest and most advantageous route.

If Liège and Namur are not fortified, the French forces concentrate at Maubeuge and Givet and the march of the French columns on both banks of the river would be executed under the best strategic conditions from the point of view of speed and mutual support.

If, however, the line of the Meuse is fortified, the French army would be based at Lille, Valenciennes and Maubeuge, crossing the Meuse north of Liège and violating Dutch neutrality. This would be most dangerous, for a German army would stand on their left flank while Namur and Liège would menace the right, and these bridgeheads would facilitate the intervention of a German army assisting Belgium.

The situation would be no better for the French army if it advanced on both banks of the Meuse, separated by the fortifications.

These are the most probable hypothesis; it would take too long to consider all of them. I will limit myself to the situation in 1870, the only time that the Belgian army has mobilized. Our army deployed beyond Namur in the Ardennes. If one of the belligerents had moved into Belgium and pushed us back, our line of retreat would have been through Namur to Antwerp. Namur would have been called on to play the role of bridgehead […] A Belgian army might hold the line of the Meuse while waiting for support from the other belligerent.

In the face of a new war between France and Germany, Liège and Namur, properly fortified, will have a capital importance for Belgium.

Défense de Namur said that Liège and Namur would have three strategic/operational functions:

First, as blocking positions, depriving the invader of roads, rail lines and bridges. Défense de Namur said that the individual forts at Liège and Namur were therefore located to perform their principal function, which was to block the all the roads. De Schrÿver agreed.4 General Pontus said:

After the enemy has broken through [the field fortifications in the intervals between the permanent fortifications] he can take possession of the city, but what advantage does that give him? Will he be the master of the routes of communication? Will his strategic advance be facilitated? Obviously not. He must first take the forts, and the immediate arrival of the Belgian army, or the army of the friendly power, or both, will place him in a critical situation.

As Défense de Namur and De Schrÿver both point out, there was no intention to even seriously defend the intervals. The permanent garrison was weak (garrison of the forts plus a regiment of overage fortress infantry at Namur and one or two at Liège, with no artillery worth the name) was not sufficient even to stop a coup de main.

The only way the individual forts could be defended is if they were supported by the field army, so here we encounter the fundamental contradiction between fortress doctrine, which called for a field force to support Liège, and the impossibility of providing such a force. If the Belgian Army tried to defend Liège against the Germans, or Namur against the French, the only likely outcome would have been the destruction of the Belgian Army. Belgium’s neutrality prevented it from conducting defence co-ordination with either power, to bring a relief army to either fortress. In the event, in 1914 the French had no interest in sending an army to relieve Liège.

Second, Liège and Namur were to serve as bridgeheads, permitting the garrison or the field army to cross from one side of the Meuse to the other, even if in the presence of the enemy. Brialmont described the fortifications as ‘a double bridgehead’.

Third, as bases for manoeuvre, permitting the Belgian Army to take positions and conduct offensive and defensive operations on both sides of the Meuse. The French fortress engineer, Normand, said the Belgians did not have a manoeuvre army capable of using it properly against a formidable German opponent, which reduced the forts to inert defence, which could hardly be successful. The forts could, however, also facilitate such operations by the army of the friendly power, with which the Belgian Army could co-operate. Du Rôle de l’Armée de Campagne et des Fortresses Belges said that Liège and Namur provided both the Belgian Army, and other friendly armies, a means of manoeuvring on both banks of the Meuse.

This is an important point, and one that is never recognised. Liège, Namur, and other ‘entrenched camps’ like the four great French fortresses of Verdun, Toul, Épinal and Belfort, and the German forts at Metz and on the Vistula, had an offensive mission. They provided a secure offensive springboard to screen and support attacks by army-sized units, especially against enemy flanks and rear. Liège could be used to support an attack into northern Germany as well as against the flank of a German advance into the Ardennes, and the Germans were well aware of this fact, as shown by the fact that they continually modernised Fortress Cologne.

In all three cases there is an explicit statement that the isolated forts had to be supported by a field army; indeed, two of the three reasons for building the forts were to assist the manoeuvre and operations of a field army.

The Belgians had another, more logical, reason for building Liège and Namur. In the late 1880s, when the fortresses were planned and constructed, a Franco-German battle in Belgium was considered by European military opinion to be likely, but it would take place in the Ardennes, south of the Meuse. It must also be remembered that 1888–89, when the fortresses were being built, were the years of the Boulanger crisis, with the French war minister openly talking of revanche.

In the 1890s neither Germany nor France were strong enough to send major forces north of the Meuse. Schlieffen did not even consider an advance in the Ardennes until 1897, and then only to reject it because the Germans did not have enough troops.5Du Rôle de l’Armée de Campagne et des Fortresses Belges said that Liège and Namur would also deny the invader use of the Meuse valley, forcing him to remain south of the river, and preventing central Belgium from becoming a battlefield. By making an advance north of the Meuse risky, and an advance on both sides of it impossible, the actual mission of Liège and Namur was to keep the opposing armies in the lightly-populated Ardennes Forest south of the Meuse, out of the Belgian plain north of the river and away from the centres of Belgian population and industry. This was for the Belgians a best-case scenario.

We therefore encounter a fundamental inconsistency between siege warfare doctrine, which demanded a large force of infantry and mobile artillery to hold the intervals, and Belgian resources. At Fortress Liège, as we shall see, doctrinal defence of the intervals required 60,000 men and hundreds of heavy guns. The Belgian command knew full well that such a force would never be available. It would require the entire Belgian field army just to hold the national redoubt at Antwerp, leaving nothing for Liège and Namur. In thirty years, the Belgians never made any attempt to resolve this inconsistency.

In the event, this would result in the Belgians adopting the worst possible solution to the problem. They made no preparations to defend the intervals or to support the forts with the field army. Then, at literally the last minute, they committed a completely inadequate and woefully unprepared force to try to hold the intervals. After one night of combat, they withdrew that force, leaving the practically defenceless individual forts on their own.

The Forts

Work commenced in 1888 and was mostly concluded by 1892, with the armoured searchlights being installed in 1893 and 1894. The construction of Liège and Namur were seriously over budget. The cost was originally estimated at 24 million francs, but rose to 73.5, and as a consequence Brialmont was forced to resign in 1892. It seems that the willingness of the Belgian parliament to pay for serious defensive preparations was exhausted, for there were no serious improvements in Belgian defensive arrangements until immediately before the Great War.

The concept of the individual forts was fourfold:6

• The forts needed to keep the attackers at a distance sufficient to prevent them from observing or bombarding Liège and Namur. Both cities were in defilade in the valley of the Meuse.

• The forts must be within medium artillery range from each other, to provide mutual support.

• The forts had to command their zone of action with artillery fire, particularly the intervals between the forts.

• The cost of the forts had to stay within budgetary constraints. Brialmont therefore did not construct small permanent works in the intervals between the forts.

Brialmont established two criteria for his forts:

• The artillery had to be armoured, protected by cupolas of iron and steel, and proof against the heaviest existing siege artillery.

• The routes of communication and troop quarters had to be protected by concrete and a deep layer of earth.

Brialmont did not leave this to guesswork7. He conducted firing tests with shells containing 30kg and 60kg of dynamite fired from a howitzer at 2,500m range against a concrete arch 2.5m thick. Nine direct hits at the same place were necessary to achieve penetration. Given that siege artillery had to be horse-drawn, the largest practical siege gun was a 21–22cm howitzer weighing 3,000 to 3,500kg. Brialmont therefore decided to protect his forts with 2.5m of Portland cement (but not reinforced with rebar) covered by 3m of earth. The forts would be below ground level, only the gun turrets/cupolas rising slightly above it.

Brialmont constructed four types of forts (see fort sketches). At Liège there were five large triangular (Barchon, Fléron, Boncelles, Loncin, Pontisse) four small triangular (Evegnée, Hollogne, Lantin, Liers), one large quadrangular (Flémalle) and two small quadrangular (Chaudefontaine, Embourg). The triangular fort was favoured in principle, for reasons of economy: it had the minimum number of flanks to be protected. The salients were numbered from the gorge, left to right. The most endangered salient, number II in the triangular forts, was called the principal salient. In rectangular forts the principal salient faced the enemy.8

The fort proper consisted of a central citadel protected by concrete, which contained most of the armament and fire control, including magazines, ventilators, a petrol generator and cisterns fed by rainwater. In a large fort there were two armoured turrets, each with two 12cm cannon, one turret with two 15cm cannon and two cupolas each with a single 21cm howitzer. Behind the 15cm turret was a searchlight in a disappearing turret, with a range on a clear night of 2 or 3km (sources differ). During the day it served as an observation post. There were also four more disappearing turrets with a fast-firing 5.7cm cannon, two in front of the citadel and one at each of the angles at the base. In a small fort there was only one 21cm howitzer cupola and three 5.7cm fast-firing cannon turrets.

The heavy artillery (12cm, 15cm, 21cm) was slow firing, using black powder shells and black powder charges.9 On the night of 5–6 August, Fort Pontisse fired a salvo every three minutes against German infantry directly to its front.10 The 5.7cm also employed black powder. This technology had been obsolete since 1883. When these guns fired, the enormous clouds of black powder smoke would blind observation from the fort of the fall of shell. In addition, some of this smoke was sure to work its way back into the fort. Défense de Namur said that the effectiveness of the black powder shells was ‘insignificant’. Maximum effective range for the 15cm was 8,500m, for the 12cm, 8,000m. The commander of Fléron, Mozin, said that the maximum effective range of the main gun armament was 7,500m;11Défense de Namur also said that the theoretical maximum effective range of the heavy artillery shell was irrelevant: due to the clouds of smoke generated by the black powder charge and the great variations in the point of impact, it was difficult to observe the fall of shot beyond 1,500m.

Which brings up the question of fortress gunnery, which is never addressed. Until the advent of smart munitions at the end of the twentieth century, the first artillery rounds never hit their targets. Problems of actually identifying the target accurately on the map (and the gun’s firing chart), barrel wear, temperature, wind, humidity and varying ammunition, meant that the first round always missed. An observer would have to see the fall of the shot and then adjust fire onto the target. The most common method of fire adjustment was ‘bracketing’. The first round landed beyond or short of the target. A large correction would be made, so that the second round landed on the opposite side of the target, which was now ‘bracketed’. The third round split the difference. Frequently corrections would have to be made for deflection left to right in addition to range. For this reason a four- or six-gun battery would usually adjust fire with one gun: when this gun landed on target, the entire battery would fire several rounds ‘for effect’.

At Liège the forts all had preplanned targets, which were numbered, a common practice for artillery or mortars. But since the forts were surrounded by a heavily-inhabited area, there was no way that they could have ‘shot in’ their preplanned targets, that is to say, fired live rounds to determine if the calculations were correct. By 1914 the guns were 25 years old, during which time they had never fired live ammunition, and since they were firing inherently inaccurate black powder, the forts’ first rounds in any fire mission would have been wildly inaccurate. It would have often been difficult to see where the shells had landed. Belgian accounts, which frequently speak of first-round direct hits by entire salvoes, are a fantasy.

The 12cm and 15cm turrets were based on the same model, similar to turrets in warships, a cylinder 4.8m in diameter with an armoured roof of 20cm of iron between two sheets of steel each 2cm thick. Around the turret proper was another ring of six curved sheets of hardened iron, 35cm thick at the top, 24cm at the bottom, called the avant-cuirasse. The turret occupied a hole lined with concrete, 8m deep, on three levels. These were not disappearing guns, but the turret was mounted on rollers. The turret was capable of turning 360 degrees. Gross movements were made in the lower level, delicate movements on the gun; the turret restricted the ability to elevate the weapon and so prevented it from firing at its maximum range. All of the turret mechanisms, gun direction and elevation, ammunition supply, loading and ventilation, were hand-powered.12 It had a twenty-five-man crew. There were eight men in the turret: a turret commander, who was an officer or non-commissioned officer (NCO,) a gun captain and three gunners for each gun. On the intermediate level was the assistant turret commander. On the bottom level and the central gallery were sixteen men: an NCO, a corporal, six men to operate the turret training mechanism, two on the ventilator, two on the ammunition hoist, four for the ammunition supply. There were four different types of ammunition: explosive shells of normal iron or hardened iron; steel; shrapnel and canister.

The 21cm howitzer was protected by an armoured cupola (not a turret) sitting on two steel columns. (This is a technical distinction and for the sake of simplicity we will call all the gun positions on the citadel ‘turrets’.) The armour rested directly on the avant-cuirasse and had to be lifted slightly in order to be turned in the direction of fire. The howitzer and cupola weighed 39 metric tons (39,000kg). At the time of the construction of the fort (1888) it was one of the most powerful pieces of artillery in existence, firing a 91kg shell 6.9km, as well as shrapnel. The howitzer crew was made up of an NCO howitzer commander and four men on the upper level; on the lower level a corporal, two men on the ventilator, two on the ammunition hoist and two on the ammunition supply.

To direct fire, the fort had observation posts connected with telephones: for Fort Loncin the bell towers of the churches at Alleur, Ans-Sainte-Marie, Loncin and the towers of the châteaux of Awans and Waroux. The fort also received information from patrols, including a group led by Corporal Polain in a requisitioned automobile.

For each 21cm howitzer there were 200 explosive shells and 300 shrapnel, for the 15cm and 12cm guns, 230 explosive, 20 canister and 300 shrapnel. For a large fort this comes to 4,300 shells, not a great deal considering that the forts contained the only heavy artillery Liège possessed, and would have to carry the entire load if the Germans launched a deliberate attack or began a formal siege.

The forts were protected by a dry ditch from 7–10m across and 5–8m deep. The gorge (entrance) and counterscarp were vertical and revetted with concrete. The scarp had a 4 in 5 slope of earth covered with spiked plants. Between the ditch and the armoured citadel was the grassy terreplein.

To provide flanking fire of the two lateral (Λ) sides of the ditch there were two 5.7cm fast-firing cannon in casemates in the counterscarp. Each of the casemates was two stories high. The cannon were mounted on the ground floor, but, if their field of fire was blocked by debris, could be moved to the second storey. If the gorge was bastioned (indented at the entrance), then flanking fire was provided by two cannon in one-storey casemates in the flanks of the bastion. If the gorge was straight, there was a casemate in the gorge counterscarp. At the other end of the ditch was a ‘backstop’ to smother the shells and prevent damage to the walls. There was also a casemate and cannon above the access gate, firing down the access ramp. There were also four disappearing 5.7cm turrets topside on the large forts, three in the small ones. The gun crew consisted of an NCO gun commander, three-man crew and two ammunition handlers. The guns could fire at a rate of thirty-six rounds per minute. In a large fort there were four two-gun casemates, a single-gun casemate and four single-gun turrets, thirteen fixed 5.7cm guns; in a small fort ten. The 5.7cm turrets had 10cm of armour. There were also mobile 5.7cm stored in the counterscarp. The turrets for the searchlight were protected by 10cm of cast steel sandwiched between two 4cm sheets of steel.

In case of infantry attack the fort’s infantry company and some of the artillerymen would man a parapet behind the ditch, a feature so old that even Vaubaun would have had no trouble recognising it.

By 1914 the forts’ defences against infantry attack were completely obsolete. When the forts were planned there were no machine guns (MGs). The German Army did not make widespread use of MG until 1909. In an attack on a fort the MG was particularly effective against defending infantry behind the parapet, the 5.7cm turrets and the fort's observation posts (OPs). Prior to the introduction of the French Lebel 1886, infantry rifles were single shot and fired low-velocity black powder. The Lebel was magazine-fed and fired a smokeless round with far higher muzzle velocity and therefore greater range and accuracy. The standard German rifle was introduced in 1898 (hence the designation Karabiner 98, K98). Infantry defending the parapet was now likely to take significant casualties. To make matters worse, many of the forts were poorly sited, with dead ground just beyond the glacis, and over time civilian dwellings had been built in close proximity to the forts, offering attacking infantry cover, concealment, and offensive strongpoints.

As Défense de Namur said, ‘The ventilation [of the individual forts] was not assured […] they were not very hygienic’. The forts were extremely humid, from condensation on the cold concrete walls and rainwater seeping through cracks in the concrete. In peacetime, the garrison lived in barracks on the glacis behind the gorge, which were burned down at the beginning of hostilities.

The forts were equipped with a 20hp gas generator, which supplied power to the searchlight, to spotlights in the fosse and limited illumination in the interior. Ventilation was supposed to have occurred by opening the windows into the rooms of the scarp and counterscarp. In wartime these were closed with armour plate. This did not prevent gas from exploding shells and the Belgian black powder charges from entering the fort, and there was no means to blow the gases back out. The turrets had hand-pumped ventilators, which were both ineffective and extremely tiring. Several forts had a few electric ventilators. At Fléron the fire direction centre and machine room had power ventilation. The complete ventilation system planned by Brialmont was not installed, for reasons of economy.

The fort’s own barracks were in the scarp at the rear of the fort, the food storage, kitchen, bakeries and latrines and such in the counterscarp. They were located here to keep unpleasant odours from the living quarters. This would have been perfectly suitable, had these been connected to the main fort by underground passages, but for reasons of economy they were not. When the fort came under bombardment, the citadel was cut off from the counterscarp facilities, including the food and kitchens, but especially the latrines, and the smell of excrement from some 300 or more men filled the armoured citadel. There were apparently two small latrines in the citadel, but these were inadequate, and may have overflowed or been broken. When access to the main latrines was lost, extemporaneous latrines needed to be made out of buckets and such.

The sole means of direct communication between the forts, or with the HQ, was an overhead telephone line to the main city telephone exchange.

In peacetime, the fort artillery crews and infantry and a few engineers were active-army. The artillerymen of each fort were organised into a battery, recruited from the surrounding area. The infantry company was also equipped with mobile 5.7cm cannon that could fire from positions topside. The glacis was covered with barbed wire.

On mobilisation, the fort artillery batteries were brought to full-strength –five Officers (OFF) and 317 enlisted men (EM) for the large forts, five OFF and 269 EM for the smaller forts) from reservists of the classes of 1912 to 1906. The older artillery reservists went to the mobile artillery batteries. The infantry platoon numbered one OFF and 82 EM. Each fort also had two doctors and several stretcher bearers.

In 1914 the only unit of the Liège mobile reserve was an active-army engineer battalion. On mobilisation Liège and Namur were each assigned four regiments of fortress infantry, to construct and hold field fortifications to defend the intervals between the permanent forts. The fortress infantry regiments were made up of the oldest age groups of the militia (reservists) comparable to Territorial troops in other armies. Generally, the fortress infantry regiments were composed of three battalions of four companies, each company with an authorised strength of three OFF and 260 EM, plus a fortress MG company, total authorised strength of fifty OFF and 3,150 EM. This remained a fond wish: the fortress regiments never came to anywhere near this strength and the MG companies were not formed.

Liège Obsolete

Once built, the Liège forts were frozen in amber. There were no MG positions. In 1914 there was not a single MG in either the fortifications or fortress regiments at Liège.13 The concrete was not reinforced. The compound iron and steel armour was hopelessly outdated by 1914. In 1891 the American engineer, H.A. Harvey, introduced ‘cemented’ armour heated in contact with carbon – which was then cooled with water – giving it a hard face. The plate was then annealed, giving it a tough back.14 7½in of Harvey armour provided the same protection as 12in of compound (iron and steel, as in the Belgian fortresses), or 15in of wrought iron. In 1896 Krupp improved on the Harvey method with a steel alloy, requiring only 5½in of armour. Harvey and Krupp steel, and reinforced concrete, provided some protection against modern high-explosive armour-piercing shells; Liège’s compound armour and unreinforced concrete did not. Moreover, as we shall see, the German introduced a mobile, more effective and highly accurate 21cm mortar.

Modern fortifications adapted to the increased effectiveness imparted by high-velocity smokeless powder, and the most modern fortress in 1914 was Metz; indeed Metz was arguably more effective than the Maginot fortifications.15 The distinguishing characteristic of Metz was the use of widely dispersed I-Werke, company-sized infantry strongpoints constructed out of reinforced concrete. Rather than a parapet, the infantry defences consisted of blockhouses (bunkers) and Schnecken, concrete foxholes. In the fall of 1944 Georgie Patton found to his dismay that the I-Werke were tough nuts to crack

Normand doubted that Liège was capable of withstanding a serious siege, nor did he think that the Belgians were prepared to conduct one. There was no munitions arsenal, nor narrow-gauge rail line to resupply the forts. Normand’s evaluation was:

Liège was a great fortified camp16 composed of a number of blocking forts which were in fact isolated and unable to support each other. They could not place flanking fire on the intervals between the forts, which constituted a single, discontinuous line of uncertain effectiveness. The forts themselves were vulnerable from the rear. The forested and hilly Meuse valley contained considerable dead ground, which could not be covered by the very small number of howitzers available. The entire area, plateaux and ravines both, was covered by very large trees which limited visibility. Ravines even provided avenues of approach to the front and sides of several forts (Chaudefontaine, Embourg, Flémalle, Barchon). Some of the artillery forward observation posts were placed up to two kilometres in front and could not be protected. On the contrary, the plateau from Pontisse to Hollogne was completely open.

For all the vast expenditure in providing protection for the forts, their offensive firepower was insufficient: a ‘large’ detached fort had only four 12cm guns, two 15cm guns and two 21cm howitzers, all of mid-1880s vintage. The guns were flat-trajectory weapons and quite worthless against the predominant siege weapon, the 21cm mortar, which would fire from a defilade position. If the Germans launched a doctrinal attack against three fortresses, Liège would have to conduct the artillery duel with at the very most six 21cm howitzers. In 1914 the Germans brought up two 21cm regiments – thirty-two 21cm mortars, all a generation newer and far more accurate than the mortars Liège had been designed to face.

If the Germans had foregone an attaque brusquée and begun a doctrinal siege attack on the 11th day of mobilisation, Liège would not have held out much longer than it did in 1914 (as Namur did not). The fortress would have been cut off by an entire German cavalry corps. The defending heavy artillery would have been outnumbered five to one. The German infantry would have launched well-prepared attacks that would have blown through any resistance the fortress infantry tried to put up with little trouble.

Liège was incapable of performing its mission.

General Leman

As of 1911, the Governor of Liège was given operational control over 3 DA (Division d’Armée – Infantry Division) and Namur 4 DA. In the beginning of February 1914 the commander of the 3 DA, the 3 DA conscription area, and commandant of the Liège fortress was General Gérard-Mathieu-Joseph-Georges Leman. Major Hautecler, who served under General Leman as the fortress artillery officer before and during the battle and then was with Leman in captivity, and published Leman’s after-action report in 1960, wrote that General Leman was ‘one of the most attractive figures in our [Belgium’s] military history.’

Leman was born at Liège on 8 January 1851, had entered the Belgian Army as a lieutenant of engineers, first in his class at the military academy, in 1872.17 In Leman’s entire career he had never commanded troops, but served in various capacities at the military academy. Leman began as a tutor in military construction and fortification, then taught geology, construction and architecture. He wrote widely, including one article on resistance of materials that was brought out as a second edition in 1910 and a third in 1926. From 1894 to 1899 he fought and won a scholarly battle with General Tilly on the best method of teaching infinitesimal calculus. In 1899 he became the director of education and reinforced the scientific emphasis of study, requiring chemistry and physics in the entrance examination. In 1905 he became the commandant of the military academy. In his notes on Leman’s report, Hautecler says that Leman emphasised science ‘to the detriment, it appears, of the purely military. In addition, Leman saw everything in terms of mathematics’. Leman wrote:

When one decides to erect a fortress, the principal consideration is the length of time that it must resist; the second is the strength of the garrison […] the fundamental principle then: to the last shell and the last loaf of bread. Siege warfare is a problem for industrial engineering.

‘These phrases’, said Hautecler, ‘were entirely characteristic: Leman took no account of the individual, his wavering morale and weaknesses. Confronted with the realities of commanding a fortress in the face of the enemy, he would have to modify them, though continued to apply them to his own person’.

On 31 December 1913 the commander of 3 DA died suddenly. The war minister recommended to the king that Leman replace him. Leman objected to the war minister that he had never commanded troops and that appointing him commander of 3 DA was a mistake, ‘At the end of my career a brusque and complete change’. He also did not understand why the commander of 3 DA was at the same time commandant of Liège: these two positions, in his mind, should have been separate.

Leman’s designation to command in Liège was strongly criticised. The journal Belgique Militaire wrote on 1 February 1914 that:

[Leman was] two years from mandatory retirement and it would seem more advantageous to leave him at the head of the military academy, where he had already passed 34 years of his career, rather than confer on him an active command, where he must familiarize himself with everything. We regard with considerable apprehension the appointment of technical officers, who have never had the least tactical experience, to command our divisions and brigades.

Brialmont had been impressed by Leman and gave him his first position in the military academy as a tutor. Together with Leman’s experience as an instructor of fortification, construction and architecture, then as commander of the fortress, Leman must be considered to be one of the most knowledgeable officers in the Belgian Army concerning Fortress Liège.

Leman began his report with a startling assertion: Liège’s forts had been designed to resist 21cm black powder artillery. This directly contradicts other sources which either state outright or strongly imply that Brialmont had protected Liège against the far more destructive high-explosive shells. Leman immediately followed this with a second startling revelation: that the fort’s artillery also fired black powder charges and shells.

Leman calculated that for each 4km of front the permanent fort’s artillery provided an average of 3 12cm and 2 15cm guns and 1.5 21cm mortar. Each of these had 500 shells. Leman did not carry his analysis further, but this was not enough artillery and shells to conduct a successful duel with the attacking artillery: on this 4km front the Germans would deploy at least one modern 21cm mortar regiment with sixteen mortars, and perhaps two. Moreover, the siege guns, now firing smokeless powder, would be defilade and hidden, and the fortress artillery would never find a target, while the location of the fortresses was a matter of public record.

According to European siege doctrine the fortress mobile artillery was to reinforce the fort’s artillery at the main point of the enemy attack. The Belgians had at least made an attempt to provide the national redoubt at Antwerp with mobile siege artillery: 132 12cm guns (Krupp, Model 1889) and 96 15cm howitzers (Krupp, 1887 and 1890), providing 2.5 guns per kilometre of front. This material was completely obsolete by 1914, heavy and firing black powder charges, but at the least it shows that the Belgians recognised the necessity for mobile field artillery.18 The mobile artillery at both Liège and Namur was so obsolete and ineffective as to call into question the military value of the two fortresses.

Leman gave a detailed description of the mobile artillery reserve, all but the 7.5cm once again firing black powder, ‘114 worthless old pieces which I mention only for the record’:

12 15cm cast iron (!) guns with 500 shells per gun

8 12cm steel guns, model 1862 (!) with 300 shells per gun

16 8.7cm guns with 195 shells per gun

12 8.7cm howitzers with 500 shells each

48 8cm guns, Model 1862 (!) with 200 rounds each

18 7.5cm guns with 439 rounds each.

The 7.5cm horse guns and 8.7cm guns were Krupp Model 1877, had been issued to the field army between 1887 and 1890, replacing the 8cm and 9cm guns. They were slow firing (a shell a minute) with black powder charges and shells. The maximum effective range against infantry was 3,000m; total maximum effective range, 5,000m. Both were withdrawn from the field army in 1905, when the rapid-firing Krupp 7.5cm was adopted. The 7.5cm guns had been retrofitted with brakes on the wheels, and not recoil brakes, which nevertheless kept the gun relatively stable and increased the rate of fire to four shells a minute, and also with smokeless powder and high-explosive shells. There was no change in the 8.7cm guns.

The 8.7cm howitzers were adopted in 1900 specifically to engage dead space at Liège and Namur and entered service in 1904. They still fired black powder, 3 rounds per minute, maximum effective range 3,800m. The 8.7cm and 7.5cm guns and 8cm howitzers were not only obsolete, but were field-gun calibre and worthless in a siege artillery duel. Given the age of the guns, the condition of the ammunition had to be suspect, if not outright dangerous.

The 15cm guns were cast iron, the 8cm guns and 12cm guns were model 1862, all from the era of the US Civil War, which says all one needs to know. The 8cm had been withdrawn from the field army in 1890, twenty-four years previously.

All of these guns had to fire direct lay, which meant they would be visible to their targets, and the black powder would give their positions away. Only the 7.5cm had a gun shield, which meant that the crews had a very short life expectancy in combat.

These antiquated guns were to form twenty-four batteries, but only four of these had any officers and twenty had none. Leman noted that he therefore had no artillery with which to defend the intervals or conduct the artillery duel: the completely inadequate fortress artillery was on its own.

Leman said that Liège never had much value as a fortress because it was constructed on the basis of incorrect principles. He said that he had no need of pointing this out: it was perfectly well understood. The individual forts were never designed to be defended independently; the protection for the rear was only 1.5m thick, the other fronts 2.5m. Liège had always been intended to serve as a double bridgehead. The forts were to support each other and serve as strongpoints for the field fortifications that were to be constructed in the intervals.

The first major weakness at Liège was that these intervals were ‘inconceivably weak’, often with more than 3,500m between forts, ‘enormous gaps in which the artillery of the forts was impotent’ and which made up two-thirds of the defensive perimeter.

The second major weakness was that the forts were so poorly located on the ground that (except for Lantin, Loncin and Hollogne, all located on the west side of Liège) their immediate field of fire extended only 600m. Especially on the side facing Germany there were deep valleys which led directly up to the glacis ‘as though the enemy had dug them to provide a covered avenue of approach’. This situation was aggravated by the fact that, when the forts had been constructed, a military zone 600m around the forts had been created, which forbade the construction of permanent buildings or modification of the terrain. Over the course of time these restrictions were not observed.

Third weakness: in order to conduct the long-range artillery duel, the forts needed artillery observers 3,000m from the defensive line. These had to be located in fortified positions just as strong as the forts themselves. None such were ever constructed.

Fourth weakness: once the forts were besieged, they immediately became uninhabitable. The kitchens and latrines were not located in the armoured citadel, but on the opposite side of the rear fosse. It was too dangerous to cross the fosse when the fort was under fire (the sole exception being Loncin). The principal cause for the fall of the forts, according to Leman, was the fact that the air inside the citadel was made foul, indeed unbreathable, by the excrement of 300 to 400 men.

The fifth weakness, ‘perhaps the most serious of all’, was the lack of an enceinte around the city. In this, the Germans agreed with Leman. Such an enceinte would have served as a rally point for the troops in the intervals, as well as have prevented an attacker from penetrating the line of forts and then bombarding them from the rear. Leman said that the very nature of the ring of forts around Liège implied an enceinte around the city. Once inside the city, the attacker was secure: it was unthinkable that the governor would have fired on the citizens of Liège. To make matters worse, the citadel in Liège should therefore have been reinforced and modernised, to provide the governor with a secure headquarters. Instead, the citadel was demilitarised.

Leman then returned to the fact that Liège was designed to resist 21cm mortars firing black powder shells. Not only were the Germans now using much more powerful high explosives, but Leman, like many other Belgian sources, was convinced that the Germans had 28cm mortars on a wheeled chassis capable of defeating 4–5m of concrete, double that at Liège, and said as much in a report concerning the reorganisation of the military academy to the war minister on 28 May 1913. He did so based on a report by General Deguise concerning Russian firing tests at Otchakoff on the Black Sea in October 1912, in which 15cm fire prevented a Cockerill turret, similar to the ones at Antwerp, from rotating, while 28cm fire collapsed the concrete and made the guns unserviceable without, however, penetrating the steel cupola. Leman said that everyone who read the report could no longer have the least confidence that the Belgian forts would stand up to such fire. The only hope was that the guns would not be mobile enough to follow the German troops closely, or that they would be employed against French fortresses rather than Liège. Leman said that he went to great lengths to keep the garrison ignorant of the fort’s vulnerability, lest their morale collapse.

The Problem of Defending Liège

Given that Liège was made up of twelve detached works on about a 50km front, and that the prevailing fortress warfare doctrine called for the employment of both infantry and artillery to defend field fortifications, it would seem axiomatic that the Belgians would be prepared to conduct just such a defence. The Germans certainly assumed that the Belgians would. It comes as a considerable surprise that the Belgians prepared for no such thing.

The Belgian Chief of Staff in 1914, Selliers de Moranville, said that a garrison of 60,000 men, or 1¼ men per metre of front, would have been required to defend the perimeter of Liège, which he said was 49km long, 21km of that on the west bank of the Meuse.19 In 1913 he said the garrison consisted of 8,000 men from the oldest age groups. While headquartered in Liège, 3 DA was not part of the garrison, and 8,000 overage men were clearly incapable of offering a serious defence of the intervals between the forts. Sixty thousand men would have amounted to half of the Belgian field army. A defence of Namur would have required a somewhat smaller number, but according to Moranville the national redoubt at Antwerp by itself required the entire field army. The three great Belgian fortresses looked formidable, but the Belgians had failed completely to raise the forces necessary to hold them.