of counter-battering the enemy's siege artillery depended wholly on the strength of the armour and concrete protecting the distant-defence guns while the power of guarding the inter- vals, and firing into the rear of any opponent who had penetrated them, was conditional on the freedom of action of certain guns which, however, were as fully exposed to neutralizing and de- molition fire as the rest. The passive strength of the fort, and practically that alone, was supposed to guarantee that the guns it protected would be available for fire in any direction on all necessary occasions, and it was therefore a fact of great impor- tance that this strength was calculated as against attack by 21- cm. howitzers only. In Brialmont's time, and indeed at the time of the construction of the latest forts, this calibre was regarded as the heaviest available for mobile siege trains. But in 1914 this was no longer the case. Though the Germans suc- ceeded in keeping secret the existence of their very heaviest siege guns, it was well understood that calibres above 21 cm. could figure in any modern siege, and it was known that Aus- tria-Hungary possessed road-mobile howitzers of 30-5 cm.
Beginning from the N.E. and proceeding clockwise i.e. by S. to W. the names and positions of the forts were as fol- lows. From the right bank of the Meuse below Liege, to the Vesdre: Fort Barchon near the Maestricht road, Fort Evegnee, Fort Fleron on the Aachen road, Fort Chaudfontaine overlook- ing the Vesdre valley; between the Vesdre and the Ourthe: Fort Embourg; between the Ourthe and the upper Meuse: Fort Boncelles. On the left bank of the Meuse in a semicircle from W. to N.E.: Forts Flemalle, Hollogne, Loncin, Lantin, Liers, Pontisse, the last-named crossing its fire with Barchon. The garrison commanded by Lt.-Gen. Leman consisted (orig- inally) of the III. Army Div. reinforced by one brigade, 12 fortress battalions, 4 fortress artillery battalions, one engineer battalion, and the local Julde Civique equivalent in strength to rather less than a battalion. The bridge of Vise and Argenteau, N. of the fortress, was held by a detachment of the 3rd Div. The Germans brought up, for the storming attack, 65 brigades and 5 Jager battalions at peace strength. At this stage, the siege artillery was still in process of mobilization and it was hoped to master the fortress without it. The commander of the siege troops, designated as the " Army of the Meuse," was Lt.-Gen. v. Emmich. An important part of his task was to enable the cavalry divisions of Gen. v. der Marwitz to traverse the Meuse between Liege and the Dutch frontier, at or near Vise. The flooding of the Belgian plain, and the reconnaissance of the Belgian field army disposition by this cavalry, was in fact almost as essential a preliminary to the deployment of the German I. and II. Armies W. of the Meuse as was the capture of Liege itself. Von Emmich advanced over the frontier on Aug. 4 with the 34th reinforced Bde. and the 4th Cav. Div. on Vise; the 27th Bde. formed Fort Barchon, the i4th Bde. formed the interval Evegnee-Fleron, the nth Bde. between Fort Fleron and the Vesdre, the 38th and 43rd Bdes. between the Vesdre and the upper Meuse (chiefly on the Ourthe), with the gth Cav. Div. on the left rear screening the enterprise against possible interference from French cavalry in the Ardennes. Two mobile 21 -cm. mortar batteries prepared to act against Barchon and Evegnee as required; and such light artillery as was available was, in the main, told off to keep the forts under neutralizing shrapnel fire. All artillery was put under cover, and in the sequel the forts were practically unable to find targets. On both sides, it is evident from what followed, nervous tension was high and uneasiness great. The Belgians in evacuating the foreground had blocked roads and blown up bridges, and the German advance, especially that of the transport, was laborious. On the 4th, owing to these obstacles, the 4th Cav. Div. reached the Meuse at Vise only very little in advance of the infantry. Finding the passage held by Belgian infantry, the cavalry forded the Meuse at Lische, just short of the Dutch frontier; the Belgians thereupon fell back on Liege, but destroyed Vise bridge before doing so. The German cavalry with the leading troops of the 2yth Bde. thus spent the night of the 4th and sth astride the Meuse, but as their troop train could not be
got forward, the movement came to a standstill on the 5th. Meanwhile the other brigades advanced in their respective sectors, employing the daylight of Aug. 5 in driving back Belgian advanced troops on the various roads. After dark, the six brigades, formed in five columns, set out on the evidently desper- ate enterprise of storming the intervals. The procedure was practically uniform the brigade advanced, well closed up, in fours along the road, detaching to right or left a company or two to occupy the attention of the adjacent fort by a false attack. In some columns a battery or more of field guns or field howitzers was inserted, near the head. One regiment of the 27th Bde. (which had 3) was deployed on the Barchon- Evegnee front to demonstrate and to cover the positions of the 2i-cm. batteries, which themselves had the role of neutralizing rather than battering these forts. Of the five storming columns two were repulsed, two penetrated but then withdrew, and only one reached its objective. In all cases fighting was heavy and confused, and on the German side it was marked by very severe losses in brigade and regimental commanders. Two of the five major-generals and five colonels out of eleven were killed, a proportion perhaps never equalled in the later history of the war. A colour of the 8pth Mecklenburg Regiment was captured by the Belgians. Yet by 8 A.M. on the 6th Gen. Leman had ordered the evacuation of the E. bank of the Meuse and of Liege itself, by all troops not forming part of the fort garrisons. To understand this strange result, the fortunes of the different storming columns must be followed in detail, and a brief account of the movements of each is therefore given here.
The most important sectors, from the point of view of the attack and of the defence alike, were the northern (or Fort Pontisse-lower Meuse-Fort Barchon) and the southern (or Ourthe-Fort Boncelles-upper Meuse). To each of these Von Emmich allocated two brigades, while on the eastern sector (Fort Barchon-Fort Chaudfontaine) the intervals Evegnee- Fleron and Fleron-Chaudfontaine were to be attacked by a brigade each. On the N. side, the 34th Bde. and a Jager battal- ion, moving W. of the Meuse from the positions above Lische occupied on the 4th and 5th, successfully broke in between Fort Pontisse and Fort Liers, but became entangled in the dark in the villages beyond. Resistance was stiff, the brigade column broke up into four or five units attacking the discernible objec- tives, and the whole swerved eastward into Herstal and the area behind Fort Pontisse instead of pursuing the Liege direction. One party of Jagers reached Liege and penetrated to Leman's headquarters in broad daylight, partly through being mistaken by the inhabitants for the British troops that, rumour said, were on the way to relieve the city. After a momentary fierce fight the intruders were disarmed. The German, but not the Belgian official, account mentions also the inroad and subsequent sur- render of a whole battalion of the 8gth Regt. The main body of the 34th Bde. had meantime been counter-attacked in and about Herstal by part of Leman's general reserve, and had retreated in confusion to Lische, where most of the troops with- drew E. of the river. The next column, 27th Bde., moving down the Vise-Liege road, after heavy fighting carried the village of Cheratte but was brought to a full stop at the next village, Wandre, and retreated to Argenteau whence it had come. Both the northern attacks were thus complete failures.
On the S. side, the 38th and 43rd Bdes. moved up in one column between Fort Boncelles and the Ourthe, detaching one battalion to demonstrate against Fort Embourg in the angle of Ourthe and Vesdre and half a battalion against Fort Boncelles. The fighting area of these brigades was the most heavily wooded and deeply scarped of the whole field, and the difficulties of the advance were increased by a thunderstorm and torrential rain. Here, too, Leman felt his position most sensitive and employed the bulk of his general reserve, so that, in sum, the Germans after penetrating as far as Oujnee and Sart Tilman, and looking down on the Meuse, withdrew again through the woods to the villages round Esneux, where meantime their baggage and rear parties had been subjected to constant attack by Belgian soldiers and civilians; for Liege, Herstal, and Sering were centres of the
