Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/831

CHAPTER XLVI FIRST YEARS OF THE WORLD WAR (1914-1916) I. COURSE OF THE WAR IN 1914 AND 1915 1119. The German Drive on Paris checked at the Marne. The vast German army advanced on France in three divisions, one through Belgium, one through Luxemburg (also a neutral state) down into Champagne, and the third from Metz toward Nancy. The Belgians offered a determined resistance to the advance of the northern division and hindered it for ten days a delay of vital importance to the French. But the heavy German guns proved too much for the forts around Liege, which were soon battered to pieces, and Brussels was occupied by the enemy, August 20. The French, reenforced by English troops hastily dis- patched across the Channel, made their first stand around Namur. This famous fortress, however, immediately collapsed under the fire of the German siege guns, and the French and English rapidly retreated southward. The western division of the Ger- man army had come within twenty-five miles of Paris by September i. The headquarters of the French government were moved to Bordeaux, and the capital prepared for a siege. The victory of the French, however, in the famous battle of the Marne, under the leadership of General Joffre, put an end to the immediate danger of the Germans' occupying Paris. They were compelled to retreat a little way and took up a position on a line of hills running from Soissons to Rheims. Here they were able to intrench themselves before the French and English could drive them farther back. 1120. Conquest and Ill-treatment of Belgium. After the Germans had given up their first hope of surprising Paris they 617