The History of the World War I. Various Authors

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he knew he would meet with in the Belgian Parliament over the credits for the fortifications made him underestimate the number of men required. Besides which, the conditions of war have been greatly modified during the twenty-five years which have passed, owing to the increased power of siege guns. So that it may be laid down that 80,000, if not 100,000, men were needed to properly defend the entrenched camp of Liège.

      Troops in the forts.

      As for the forts, they were each occupied by a battery of artillery (250 men) and three companies (120 men), a total of 370 men. About 4,500 artillerymen for the twelve forts.

      General Leman was shut up in Loncin, one of the chief forts, which commanded the road towards Waremme and Brussels. He had sent away all his General Staff with the division, in spite of the supplications of his officers, who begged to be allowed to share his fate. He continued to direct the longest resistance possible. The enemy was anxious to cut all the communications between the forts, but soldiers volunteered for carrying messages to the different commanders. Several succeeded, but many were killed, for the investment became steadily tightened. Indeed, certain gaps, where the ground was most broken, could not be swept by the guns from the forts, and, under cover of the night, troops ensconced themselves there comfortably. Moreover, the Germans, having received reinforcements and heavy artillery, undertook the siege systematically, first of Barchon, which it was unable to take by storm any more than Boncelles, but which it subjected to a formidable deluge of shells. Barchon could only reply haphazard to heavy guns the position of which it could not tell. It was, indeed, deprived of its observation posts, and was in the position of a blind man desperately parrying the blows of an adversary who could see where to strike.

      Fort Barchon taken.

      The struggle was not for long, and the fort, reduced to impotence, left a wide breach through which the invader scrambled. Through there he could also introduce his heavy siege guns, howitzers of 28, and even pieces of 42 cms.

      Forty-two centimetre guns.

      The enemy then followed a tactic which was to succeed rapidly. He attacked the different fortifications in a reverse way. Thus Loncin, Lantin, Liers, and Pontisse were bombarded by batteries placed in the citadel itself and to which the Belgians could not reply without shelling the town and doing frightful damage. A battery was also placed in a bend of ground up Rue Naniot, under the "Tomb," where some of those who fell in 1830 are buried, but it was discovered and had to be withdrawn. Forts Boncelles and Embourg were attacked by guns placed on the hill at Tilff, a pretty village, which would have been completely destroyed had the firing been responded to. Finally, along the line of the plateau of Herve, no longer dominated by Barchon and Fléron, now destroyed, the enemy was able to bring into the very centre of the town four of those howitzers of 42 cms. which were later to bombard Namur, Maubeuge, and Antwerp.

      The following are the dates on which the different forts succumbed: Barchon and Evegnée fell on August 9th. Right from the 5th they had not ceased to be the object of continual attacks. They had valiantly resisted repeated assaults and field artillery. The heavy pieces poured in a hurricane of fire.

      Pontisse, which had so usefully barred the passage of the enemy below Visé, did not give way till the 12th. On the 13th Embourg surrendered after a twenty-six hours' bombardment.

      Forts yield one by one.

      The same day saw the fall of Chaudfontaine and Nameche, where two accidents happened worthy of being related. A shell burst on a cupola gun as it was finishing its movement after being loaded. The whole gun was shattered and ten men were wounded. A little while after, a shell entered the fort through the embrasure and set fire to the powder magazine. One hundred and ten artillerymen were terribly burned, fifty dying upon the spot. The 14th saw the fall of Boncelles, Liers, and Fléron. Boncelles from the 5th had offered an admirable resistance. Commandant Lefert had been wounded on the 8th, when 200 Germans, presenting themselves to surrender, treacherously fired upon him. Suffering greatly, he none the less went on directing the defence until his officers met together in a kind of council of war, and had him taken away in an ambulance. The unfortunate man was seized by a fever and became delirious. Boncelles was bombarded unceasingly for a whole day and the following morning. It was nearly destroyed, and may be considered as the fort which was the centre of the worst carnage of German soldiers. The enormous heaps of dead buried around it bear witness to the fact. Liers was put out of action by guns installed at Sainte Walburge.

      Loncin and Lantin fall.

      To get the better of the obstinate resistance of Fléron (Commandant Mozin), the Germans united twenty guns by an electric battery and fired them all off at the same time upon the fort, which trembled in its massive foundations. No one can have an idea of how demoralising this rain of projectiles was. On the 15th, Loncin and Lantin fell, the defenders firing until they were overcome by asphyxia. On the 16th, it was the turn of Flémalle, and on the 18th, of Hollogne.

      We know that it was at Loncin, which dominated the roads of La Hesbaye, where General Leman was shut up. Commandant Naessens and Lieutenant Monard had the honour of defending the fort under the General's eyes. Electrified by the presence of the governor of the fortress, the soldiers of Loncin wrote with their blood the most heroic page of the heroic defence of Liège. Commandant Naessens modestly narrated the story when he had been wounded and transported to the military hospital of Saint Laurent. General Leman has also résuméd the different phases of the attack, while a prisoner at Magdeburg. We will listen to his clear and crisp recital.

      General Leman's story.

      He distinguishes four periods during the bombardment. The first commenced on August 14th at 4.15 p.m. The shell fire, directed with great exactitude, lasted two hours without interruption. After a break of half-an-hour, some 21-centimetre guns opened fire. All night, at intervals of ten minutes, they rained shells upon the fort, causing it considerable damage. The escarpment was damaged, the protecting walls of the left flank battery destroyed, and the shutters of the windows pierced. Another unfavourable circumstance was that all the places of the escarpment where shelter could be obtained were full of smoke from the shells which had burst either in the protecting wall or in the ditches. The deleterious gases rendered it impossible to stand in the covered places, and forced the General to assemble the garrison in the interior and in the gallery. Even in these refuges the stupefying effects of the gases allowed themselves to be felt, and weakened the fighting value of the garrison.

      Horrors of the bombardments.

      The third period of bombardment began on the 15th at 5.30 a.m. and continued until two o'clock in the afternoon. The projectiles caused fearful havoc. The vault of the commanding post, where General Leman was present with his two adjutants, was subjected to furious shocks, and the fort trembled to its foundations. Towards two o'clock, a lull occurred in the firing, and the general took advantage of it to inspect the fort. He found part of it completely in ruins.

      Currents of poisonous gas.

      The fourth period is described as follows: "It was two o'clock when the bombardment recommenced with a violence of which no idea can be given. It seemed to us as if the German batteries were firing salvoes. When the large shells fell we heard the hissing of the air, which gradually increased into a roar like a furious hurricane, and which finished by a sudden noise of thunder. At a certain moment of this formidable bombardment, I wished to reach the commanding post in order to see what was happening, but at the end of a few paces in the gallery I was knocked down by a shock of violent air and fell face forward. I got up and wished to continue my way, but I was held back by a current of poisonous air which invaded the whole space. It was a mixture of the gas from the exploded powder and of the smoke of a fire which had started in the rooms of the troops where furniture and bedding were kept.

      The fort blown up.

      General СКАЧАТЬ