Conquest of Liège (1914)
| date | 4th to 16th August 1914 |
|---|---|
| place | City of Liège or the forts surrounding the city |
| output | German victory |
| consequences | strategic development of the German 1st and 2nd armies west of the Meuse, fall of the Belgian Gette position on August 18th, retreat of the Belgian army on Antwerp, occupation of Brussels on August 20th |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
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| Troop strength | |
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initially: 6 reinforced infantry brigades, a further infantry regiment and three cavalry divisions, together approx. 25,000 infantry , 8,000 cavalry , 124 guns additionally brought in after August 8th: parts of 6 infantry divisions of the VII, IX. and X. Army Corps, siege formations of the 2nd Army |
25,000 infantry men (3rd Infantry Division and parts of the 4th Infantry Division (15th Infantry Brigade )) 4,500 garrison and fortress troops approx. 12,000 militia troops ( Garde civique ) fortress artillery up to 21 cm |
| losses | |
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up to and including August 8, 5,300 dead and wounded |
a total of around 20,000 dead, wounded and prisoners |
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The capture of Liège was the first major offensive operation of strategic importance carried out by German forces during the First World War . The rapid occupation of the important Belgian road and rail junction of Liège (French: Liège, ndl. Luik) was planned as a coup and should open the way to the western bank of the Meuse for the bulk of the German 1st and 2nd armies . The operation against Liège - like the entire German war plan - was conceptually very risky, led to unexpectedly high losses and almost failed because the number and resilience of the defenders had been considerably underestimated by the German general staff . Massive reprisals against the Belgian civilian population occurred in connection with the fighting over Liège.
History and planning
In his memorandum of December 1905 (see Schlieffen Plan ), the Chief of the General Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen , envisaged waging a future war against France in violation of Belgian, Luxembourg and Dutch neutrality. The Belgian fortresses on the Meuse - Liège and Namur - should only be blocked as part of the advance by the German "swing wing", but not necessarily taken.
Schlieffen's successor, Helmuth von Moltke , refused to include the Netherlands in the German deployment area for military and economic reasons. The resulting extreme narrowing of the routes of advance, especially in the area of the crucial armies of the extreme right wing, made it imperative to take the city of Liège and the forts surrounding it as quickly as possible, simply by opening the road and rail connections via Liège the appropriate pace of the German deployment across the Meuse was to be ensured.
In 1911 Moltke noted in a memo:
“As inconvenient as it is, the advance through Belgium must take place without violating the Dutch territories. It will essentially only be feasible if Liège is in our possession. This fortress must therefore be taken immediately. I think it is possible to get hold of it by a coup d'état. (...) Taking a modern fortress by hand stroke is unlikely to have an example in the history of war. But it can succeed and must be tried, because the possession of Liège is the conditio sine qua non for our advance . "
Preparations for the raid-like occupation of Liège had probably been going on since 1908. The equipment for the troops planned for the coup was made available in depots near the border. General staff officers camouflaged as tourists repeatedly explored the terrain. In 1911 they also included the chief of the General Staff's deployment department, Erich Ludendorff . The German planners estimated the expected strength of the enemy at around 6,000 field troops and 3,000 men in the civic guard .
The fighting strength of the Belgian troops - disqualified as “praline soldiers” by German staff members - was considered low on the German side. In principle, the plan was to enter the city of Liège after a brisk approach over the (supposedly) unpaved, on average several hundred meters wide gaps between the outer forts, and to force the citadel there to surrender. Thereupon, so Moltke's assumption, the outer forts would also capitulate - if they weren't taken by surprise at the first collision.
In fact, however, the number of troops commanded by General Gérard Leman, who was commissioned by the Belgian king to defend the fortress on August 4, 1914, after the mobilization was quickly completed on August 5, was almost 40,000 men. The German attack group (11th, 14th, 27th, 34th , 38th and 43rd Infantry Brigade (IB) and the 2nd , 4th Infantry Brigade (IB), which had been advancing from the staging areas near Aachen , Eupen and Malmedy since the morning of August 4. and 9th Cavalry Division (KD)) was quantitatively clearly inferior.
course
August 4th to August 7th
The commanding general of the X Army Corps , General von Emmich , to whom the attack force was subordinate, was to break through the line of the outer fort with his troops on the night of August 5th and occupy Liège. The advance on Liège was hampered by numerous road blocks and sporadic Belgian resistance in the densely populated area, criss-crossed by hedges and fences, but went according to plan until the evening of August 4th. Only the outermost right wing (34th IB, parts 2nd and 4th KD) had to vacate the initially occupied Visé , as the place was shelled by the artillery of the Liège forts. On August 5th, the troops should move into the starting positions for the coup. On the northern flank, the 34th Infantry Brigade crossed the Meuse after some difficulties at Lixhe (district of Visé) . The other brigades also generally reached the designated positions. The Belgian resistance encountered in the process - an unauthorized attack by parts of the 27th Inf. Brig. The defenders collapsed under the fire on Fort Barchon - but made it clear that a "surprise" of the enemy was no longer to be expected. A parliamentary sent by Emmich to the fortress received the answer from Leman: "Frayez-vous le passage."
The night advance, which began late in the evening of August 5th, ended in bloody disaster. The 34th IB, which was supposed to advance to Liège between the forts Liers and Pontisse, became involved in fierce house-to-house fighting in and near Herstal and was stuck in the face of Belgian counter-attacks. Parts of a battalion of hunters that had penetrated Liège were completely wiped out. By morning the brigade had lost nearly 1,200 men. Brigade commander von Kraewel decided to give up the untenable position and on the morning of 6 August ordered the retreat to the right bank of the Meuse. The 27th IB encountered a closed wire barrier in its supposedly unobstructed advance strip between the Maas and the forts Evegnée and Barchon . Because of Belgian flank fire, a wild shootout developed in which the German columns partially shot at each other. This brigade also withdrew to the starting positions after daybreak. The 11th IB was able to take the village of Romsée against fierce resistance. From the same, however, she withdrew because of the incessant flank fire from the forts Fléron and Chaudfontaine. The attack columns of the two brigades (38th and 43rd IB) set up on the south flank either got mixed up in the woods around Fort Boncelles, were involved in local fighting, or were left lying in front of the fort with great losses. Lack of ammunition and Belgian counter-attacks led to a general retreat on the morning of August 6th. In the middle section of the attack strip, the 14th IB started at 1 a.m. Von Emmich and Oberquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, who was seconded as an observer by the High Command of the 2nd Army, were with this brigade. After the brigade commander, Major General Friedrich von Wussow , and the new commander of the 27th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Krüger, had died in the Belgian defensive fire, Ludendorff took over command of the formation. After taking the village of Queue-du-Bois at noon on August 6, the brigade managed to break through to the right with the 27th Infantry Regiment reduced to half combat strength (on August 2: 2291 men) and a battalion of the 165 Infantry Regiment The banks of the Meuse opposite Liège. The two bridges over the river were undamaged and were secured by the Germans towards evening; the city itself was initially unoccupied. The cut off German federation curled up.
On the morning of August 7th, Emmich decided to allow Liège to be attacked across the Maas bridges by the troops of only 1,500 men left. This actually suicidal decision led to a surprising success. In the city and its citadel, the German troops came across only a few hundred stragglers and stragglers - to their great amazement - Leman had already ordered the evacuation of the Liège citadel and the departure of the 3rd Infantry Division the day before, as he had ordered the enclosure of the city and the Feared of loss of this association. In view of the course that the fighting had taken up to this point in time - and in view of the actual balance of power on the ground - this is considered a military mistake that brought the Germans to their goal of taking the fortress of Liège. However, the situation for the German troops initially remained precarious, as the 14th IB was practically locked in the citadel and the 11th IB, which moved up on the evening of August 7, with the also significantly reduced infantry regiments 20 and 35, occupied the northern edge of Liège had, were no longer capable of sustained defensive or even aggressive actions; the two brigades formed a westward defensive front in the days that followed. None of the twelve forts of the Liège fortress had been conquered or surrendered after the city fell. Obviously, such a thing could not be forced with the available forces. As long as it stayed that way, German control over the city of Liege was also useless.
General von Emmich reported to Berlin on August 7th that he had "captured Liège". On the same day Ludendorff returned to the headquarters of the 2nd Army in Aachen in a requisitioned car. For their work near Liège, both were awarded the order Pour le Mérite by the emperor .
August 8th to August 16th
On August 8th, the commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army, Colonel General Karl von Bülow , transferred the command of the cavalry general Karl von Eine to command of the forces led by Emmich and all other forces brought up to defeat the Liège forts ( VII. , IX. And X . Army Corps). One ordered the cessation of the loss-making frontal attacks on the forts, ordered the fortress ring to be closed to the north, east and south-east and waited for the announced heavy siege artillery.
Meanwhile, the new situation led to the fall of the first outer works on August 8th: The commander of Fort Barchon believed his position to be untenable when German troops suddenly appeared from the direction of Liège and attacked the vulnerable rear of his facility - he capitulated in the late afternoon after Parts of the fort had been stormed. On the evening of August 11th, Fort Evegnée was forced to surrender due to a pooled fire from the existing brigade artillery . The heavy and heaviest siege artillery arrived on the afternoon of August 12th finally brought about the decision. Under the fire of the Škoda and Krupp cannons, all forts between Liers in the north and Embourg in the south of the fortress ring surrendered by the evening of August 14. On August 15, the western forts that were still holding were shot at and attacked by infantry. Here, the received Fort Loncin - as already Chaudfontaine - a direct hit into the ammunition chamber whose detonation caused this system to the collapse of the structure.
About 350 Belgian soldiers died as a result; Leman, who had been in this fort since August 6, was taken unconscious in German captivity.
On the morning of August 16, the two remaining forts Hollogne and Flemalle also displayed the white flag.
Results and consequences
Overall, the German leadership achieved the objectives pursued with the operation, despite the “coup d'état” that failed according to military criteria. However, the effort in manpower and resources required for this, as well as the losses suffered, were far greater than had been calculated in advance. The Aachen – Liège railway line was already fully operational again on August 15th , which in the semi-official German war history was still rated as "very advantageous" years later. The continuous transport of the main forces of the 1st Army made possible by this and their rapid development led to the collapse of the Belgian Gette position between Halen and Tirlemont ( Battle of the Gette on August 18/19), the retreat of the Belgian army to Antwerp and the Fall of Brussels on August 20, 1914. The assessment, occasionally found in the works of English- and French-speaking historians, that the battle for Liège had delayed the German advance by a few days, was denied by German authors with reference to the General Staff files. The issue is still being debated. Belgian and French publications assume a delay of up to ten days, and British publications up to four days.
The conquest of Liège and the fall of the fortress of Namur, which was brought about a short time later according to a similar pattern, shook the conviction of many leading military officers that fortifications built according to modern principles alone are sufficient to stop an attacking army permanently. Liège and Namur demonstrated the relative helplessness of the crews as soon as close support by mobile field troops was withdrawn from them.
The legitimacy of the Belgian civil resistance to the German invasion was largely denied by the German commanders. Alan Kramer and John Horne attribute this primarily to the fact that the German interpretation of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations had some peculiarities. Prior to the war, senior officers were expressly advised that Article 2 of the HLKO, which guaranteed non-military combatants a minimum level of protection, “did not correspond to the German view”, as “the door and gate are opened here to the Franksireur war”. Numerous field commanders understood this as authorization to ascribe Belgian fire attacks on column heads and cavalry patrols to supposed " franc tireurs " - a reminiscence of the French irregulars of 1870/71 - and to respond with arbitrary mass shootings of civilians, deportations, looting and the burning of entire towns . In addition, there were cases of panic - often triggered by self-fire - in which German soldiers took action against Belgian civilians who were nearby. In all cases it was ignored that German field criminal law also provided for at least a formal hearing before a field court and the presence of an independent defense lawyer. Horne and Kramer see in the "willingness to act ruthlessly against civilians" an essential peculiarity of the German warfare in the summer of 1914. By August 8 - within four days - in the Liège area in places like Battice , Visé, Warsage, Micheroux, Retinne , Soumagne and Mélen killed nearly 850 civilians and burned over 1,300 buildings. A total of 5521 civilians were deliberately killed in Belgium within a few days. The German action may have contributed to the confusion between members of the paramilitary Guard Civique, manned by reservists, whose uniforms consisted of blue coats and top hats, and armed civilians.
An air raid on Liege by the German Zeppelin Z VI at 3 a.m. on August 6 (the bombs killed nine civilians) was of no relevance to the course of the fighting, but it marked the beginning of the era of this previously unknown type of warfare.
literature
- Reichsarchiv (ed.): The border battles in the west (The World War 1914 to 1918, Volume 1) . Berlin 1925.
- Holger H. Herwig : The Marne, 1914. The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World . Random House 2009, ISBN 978-1-4000-6671-1 . Paperback edition 2011, ISBN 978-0-8129-7829-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv (ed.), Die Grenzschlachten im Westen (The World War 1914 to 1918, Volume 1), Berlin 1925, p. 109 (footnote 1).
- ↑ See The Battles and Skirmishes of the Great War 1914–1918. Source work according to the official names compiled by the Great General Staff, Berlin 1919, p. 2.
- ↑ See Herwig, Holger H., The Marne, 1914. The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World, New York 2011, p. 108 and Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 117.
- ↑ See Herwig, Marne, p. 112.
- ↑ See Herwig, Marne, p. 117.
- ↑ Helmut Otto; Karl Schmiedel (ed.): The First World War. Documents. Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, 4th edition Berlin 1983, p. 33.
- ↑ See Otto, Schmiedel, Documents, p. 46 f.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 71.
- ↑ See Otto, Schmiedel, Documents, p. 47.
- ↑ See Otto, Schmiedel, Documents, p. 45.
- ↑ See Herwig, Marne, p. 105 f.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 108.
- ↑ See Otto, Helmut, Schmiedel, Karl, The First World War. Military History, 3rd, completely revised and supplemented edition Berlin 1977, p. 51.
- ↑ See Otto, Schmiedel, Documents, p. 46.
- ↑ See Otto, Schmiedel, Documents, p. 47.
- ↑ See Herwig, Marne, p. 108.
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 109.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 110.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 111.
- ↑ Something like : " Find your way." See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 111.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 112 f.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 113.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 114.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 115.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 115 f.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 116 f.
- ↑ On the allegations against Léman see Léman, Gérard (ed. By Georges Hautecler), Le Rapport du général Léman sur la défense de Liège en août 1914, Brussels 1960, pp. 25 ff., 86 and passim.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 118.
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 118 f.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 118.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 119.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 119 f. as well as battles and skirmishes, p. 2.
- ^ Belgique Forts de Liège Aout 1914
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 120 and John Keegan: The First World War. A European tragedy. Reinbek 2001, p. 134 f.
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 120.
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 120.
- ^ Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, pp. 214 ff., 240 ff.
- ↑ See, for example, Herwig, Marne, p. 117.
- ↑ “The operations had so far been carried out completely according to plan; A comparison of the operation maps drawn during peacetime on the basis of deployment instructions with the actual course of operations shows that, for example, they were carried out on the right wing and beyond Brussels exactly as had been assumed during the preparatory work for peace under favorable circumstances. "Reichsarchiv , Grenzschlachten, p. 255.
- ↑ Herwig, Marne, p. 347.
- ^ Keegan, World War I, p. 135.
- ↑ Quoted from John Horne , Alan Kramer: Deutsche Kriegsgreuel 1914. The controversial truth , Hamburg 2004, p. 225. (Original: German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial . Yale University Press 2001, ISBN 0-300-08975 -9 ).
- ↑ See Ernst Stenzel: The warfare of German imperialism and international law. On the planning and preparation of German imperialism for barbaric warfare in the First and Second World War, illustrated by the prevailing views on the laws and customs of land warfare (1900-1945) , Military Publishing House of the GDR 1973, p. 34.
- ↑ Horne, Kramer, Kriegsgreuel, p. 255.
- ↑ Herwig, Marne, p. 108 f., P. 112. A literary arrangement can be found in Ludwig Renn : Krieg. Postwar , 3rd edition Berlin-Weimar 1974, pp. 16, 20 f., 33 f., 40 f.
- ↑ Horne, Kramer, Kriegsgreuel, p. 121.
- ↑ Münkler, Herfried,: The Great War: the world 1914 to 1918 . 4th edition Rowohlt-Berlin-Verl, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-87134-720-7 , pp. 119 ff .
- ↑ See Herwig, Marne, p. 110.
- ↑ See Reichsarchiv, Grenzschlachten, p. 115.