When, on August 4, King Albert read his speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and Senate, it might well have been thought that the darkest hour had come in Belgium’s long and troubled history. But the King spoke with unfaltering resolve. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom which was their birthright. In the moment for action they would not shrink from sacrifices. “I have faith in our destinies,” King Albert concluded. “A country which defends itself wins respect, and cannot perish.”

The speech echoed the feelings of a united nation. In the face of peril, party was no longer known. M. Emile Vandervelde, leader of the Socialists, accepted a post in the Ministry. Without hesitation, the two Houses voted the measures of emergency proposed by the Government. The announcement by M. de Broqueville, the Prime Minister, that German troops were already on Belgian soil caused deep emotion, but the emotion was not born of fear. It was the realisation of how priceless is the heritage of liberty.

On that stirring day in Brussels, which witnessed the departure of the King to join his troops at the front, the sentiment uppermost was in truth “faith in the nation’s destinies.” Great Britain had sent her ultimatum to Berlin in defence of Belgian rights. Not merely reservists called to the colours, but volunteers in multitudes were anxious to take up arms. Crowds besieged the recruiting offices. The public feeling in the Belgian capital reflected the public feeling everywhere.

The mobilisation of the defensive forces of the country had proceeded smoothly and swiftly. Though it was common knowledge that in no part of Europe had the espionage system worked from Berlin become more elaborate, the national spirit was but intensified. Then came news of the fighting, and of the dauntless resistance offered by the garrison at LiÉge. Later came the first of many German prisoners of war.

Mistakes and miscalculations undoubtedly entered into the German disaster at LiÉge, and above all the mistake of grossly underestimating the quality and efficiency of the Belgian forces. That mistake was persisted in during all the attempts to storm the fortress. It cost thousands of German lives. Not certainly until this war is over will the extent of the disaster be really known. But that it was a disaster of the greatest magnitude is beyond any question.

From the merely military standpoint, the shattering of three army corps is a huge price to pay even for victory. But the shattering of General von Emmich’s army accomplished nothing. It had merely proved that to hurl men in massed formation against positions defended by modern guns and rifles is folly. Elementary common sense, however, would enforce the same conclusion. As the assaults upon LiÉge showed, elementary common sense is not a strong point of Prussian militarism. Because massed formations were used with effect by Frederick the Great, massed formations were the one idea of some of his would-be venerators.

The moral effect was greater than the military. It brought down in three days all that edifice of prestige which Prussian diplomacy, Prussian espionage, and Prussianised philosophy had been labouring for a generation to build up. To say that Europe gasped with surprise is to state the effect mildly. The peoples opposed to German ambitions woke as from a spell. The aspect of the war had changed.

Here was an army, part of the great Fighting Machine in which war was presumed to be practically embodied as an exact science, beginning a campaign with the blunder of assuming that men fighting for their country were no better than half-trained mercenaries. The resistance to the passage of the Meuse; the resistance offered to the troops sent to seize the country south of LiÉge was treated as negligible. A general of resource and experience would have reckoned on that resistance as a certainty.

Neither Prussian strategy then, nor Prussian tactics, were the perfection they had been taken to be. Both had broken at the first test. Nowhere was the gravity of the moral effect better appreciated than at Berlin. Henceforward the effort of Berlin was to efface it. In that fact will be found the key to all the succeeding “severities” in Belgium.

That in Berlin, at all events in official and informed quarters, the surprise was as profound as elsewhere is proved by the fact that on August 9, through the neutral channel of the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, the German Government made a second offer. The offer was in these terms:—

The fortress of LiÉge has been taken by assault after a courageous defence. The German Government regrets that as a consequence of the attitude of the Belgian Government against Germany such bloody encounters should have occurred. Germany does not want an enemy in Belgium. It is only by the force of events that she has been forced, by reason of the military measures of France, to take the grave determination of entering Belgium and occupying LiÉge as a base for her further military operations. Now that the Belgian army has, in a heroic resistance against a great superiority, maintained the honour of its arms in the most brilliant fashion, the German Government prays his Majesty the King and the Belgian Government to avert from Belgium the further horrors of war. The German Government is ready for any agreement with Belgium which could be reconciled in any conceivable way with its conflict with France. Once more Germany offers her solemn assurance that she has not been actuated by any intention to appropriate Belgian territory, and that that intention is far from her. Germany is always ready to evacuate Belgium as soon as the state of war will permit her.

Of course, the fortress of LiÉge had not been taken by assault, though perhaps the Government of Berlin had been led to believe it had. Coming from such a quarter the tribute to Belgian valour is significant. Germany had fallen into a pit, and her “solemn assurance” was not good enough to lift her out of it. The reply of the Belgian Government was, a second time, an unhesitating refusal. Berlin must take the consequences, and those consequences were serious.

The first necessity was to clear up the mess, and if possible to conceal it; above all to conceal it from the troops who had to pass over this same route. They must hear of nothing but victories. Necessity for clearing up and concealment had a greater result in delaying the German advance than even the successful resistance of the LiÉge garrison.

Why, it may be asked, was the garrison withdrawn from LiÉge, leaving only a force sufficient to man the fortifications? For that step there were imperative reasons. To begin with, the defence of the city, as distinct from the defence of the forts, had served its purpose. It had not only delayed the German advance; it had inflicted grave disorganisation. It was certain, however, that at the earliest moment heavy German reinforcements would be brought up, and the defence outside the forts overpowered by sheer weight of numbers. In the violent fighting the garrison holding the trenches had suffered severe losses, though these were light in comparison with the crushing punishment they had inflicted. They formed, nevertheless, a body of excellent troops still more than 20,000 strong. To have risked the loss of these troops meant a reduction of the Belgian army in the field which must seriously cripple its effective. The need of the moment was a concentration of forces. Though the defence of LiÉge to the last was important, still more important was the purpose which the Belgian army was intended to serve throughout the campaign, and most important of all the successful defence of Antwerp. Upon the defence of Antwerp hung the nation’s independence.

While, therefore, the way was still open for retreat, Generals Bertrand and Vermeulen, who had rendered conspicuous services and had proved, like General Leman, that the Military School at Brussels is a nursery of able and distinguished men, withdrew their forces and rejoined the main army.

This measure was carried out with so much promptitude and secrecy that the enemy, well-served as he was by spies, and in close observation of the movements of the garrison, was not able to interfere. General Leman remained to continue the defence of the permanent works. These had been provisioned for a siege of at least two months.

Before evacuating the city the troops blew up all save two of the many bridges which within the circle of fortifications cross the Meuse, the Ourthe, and the Vesdre. At LiÉge, the Meuse divides. A considerable district of the city is built on the island between the branches of the river. The bridges left intact were a concession to public necessity, but were those least likely to be of service to the enemy.

Destruction of the bridges greatly reduced the value of a hostile occupation. The importance of LiÉge to the Germans as part of their line of communications lay in command of the railways. These, however, were dominated by the forts. So long, then, as the latter held out, LiÉge, in any real military sense, was to the Germans valueless. In view of the position of the Belgians it was therefore a well-advised step to concentrate the strength of the defence on the works.

On August 8 and 9, the Germans before LiÉge were apparently quiescent. But this seeming respite covered an unceasing activity. Masses of wreckage mingled with dead bodies floating down stream bore testimony to the severity of the struggle for the passage of the Meuse. As rapidly as possible German engineers threw across the waterway beyond the range of the LiÉge forts five floating bridges. The passage secured, the enemy covered the country to the north with a screen of cavalry, obstructing observation by the Belgian outposts and guarding their bridge works against a surprise in force.

Evidently they were not certain that the departure of troops from LiÉge might not be a ruse. Their severe handling had taught them caution. Small bodies of uhlans stole into the city from the east on August 9. These, as usual, were men who had specially volunteered for the service. Though they might never return, the ambition for the Iron Cross is strong. They found the city and the entrenchments evidently evacuated. No hostilities were offered.

Reports to the German headquarters of this state of things led to a second demand for surrender. To secure protection for the defenceless population a deputation of seventeen leading citizens sought an interview with the German general. The deputation were seized as hostages.

On August 10, German troops marched in without resistance. The city was put under martial law and a “fine” of £2,000,000 imposed upon it. But the occupation was a hollow triumph. LiÉge, as a military possession, was a husk from which the kernel had been carefully withdrawn.

The defence, followed by the continued resistance of the forts, had created a formidable tangle of difficulties. As the forts, by the use of reinforced concrete, had been adapted to resist modern artillery the shells, even of the 5·9 howitzers, made no impression upon them. It was necessary to bring up from Essen the 28 centimetre howitzers, and even the still heavier guns, 42 centimetre, specially made for the prospective siege of Paris.

Needless to say, with the strategical railways to Aix already working at full pressure, the transport of these heavy pieces played havoc with the cut and dried time-table. There was the necessity, too, not calculated for at this stage, of sending wounded to the rear, and of replacing by fresh troops the battalions broken in the attempted assault. To hurry troops to the front, lest the Belgians should move in force upon the Meuse, was urgent. The sending forward of supplies was, in consequence, badly hung up. The commissariat became for the time almost a chaos. If we sum up their situation at the end of the first fortnight of the war we find that the Germans had accomplished little or nothing. They had expected by that time to be close upon Paris. All they had, in fact, gained was a passage across the Meuse. It is impossible to overrate the military importance of this delay. During that fortnight the mobilisation of the French had been completed without interruption. At the end of it the British Expeditionary Force had been landed at Boulogne. The calculated advantages of secret preparation which had inspired the ultimata launched from Berlin were nullified. The first principle of German strategy had failed.

Important as a subsidiary means of communication, the floating bridges across the Meuse were in no sense adequate for the supply of such a force as it was intended to send through Belgium to defeat the armies of France and Great Britain and to seize Paris. Command of the railways was indispensable. But without a reduction of the forts at LiÉge that was out of the question.

The forts at LiÉge held out until August 19. The larger works were each triangular in formation, armed with both heavy and quick-firing guns mounted in steel revolving turrets. Three of these turrets were of the disappearing type. On the discharge of the guns a turret of this type falls out of sight automatically. By means of telescopic and reflector sights, the guns can be “laid” for the next shot while the turret is hidden from outside view.

To storm the forts, as had been proved, was not practicable. They had to be broken up by the shells of the huge ordnance brought along for the purpose, and mounted on massive concrete beds.

One by one the forts were broken up. They offered, however, an unyielding resistance. Their garrisons knew that they were called upon to sell their lives for the Belgian fatherland. None deserted their posts of duty. There have been many acts of heroism in this war. The defenders of the forts at LiÉge deserve an honoured place in the memories of an emancipated Europe.

General Leman, who had taken up his quarters in Fort Loncin, was in the fort when it was blown up by a German shell, which had found its way into the magazine. He was saved by a signal act of bravery. “That I did not lose my life,” he wrote in that affecting letter sent later from his place of confinement in Germany to the King of the Belgians, “is due to my escort, who drew me from a stronghold while I was being suffocated with gas from exploded powder. I was carried to a trench, where I fell.”

Most of the garrison were buried under the ruins, but the few survivors risked themselves in this act of devotion. No better evidence could be offered of the spirit of Belgian defence.

A German captain found the intrepid commander helpless and after giving him liquid refreshment carried him as a prisoner into the city. The defence of LiÉge, however, had fulfilled its purpose.