August 5, 1914
When the Germans sent an emissary to ask for their surrender, the Belgians responded, “Force your way through the gap.” The actual fight for the city and fortress of Liège started the night of August 5. What resulted was a massacre of the strike force. The initial assault on the Liège fortresses (August 5–6) cost not only time, but also fifty-three hundred German casualties—for zero gain. A Belgian officer commenting about the initial infantry attacks stated, “They made no attempt at deploying but came on line after line, almost shoulder to shoulder, until we shot them down; the fallen were heaped on top of each other in an awful barricade of dead and wounded.” Clearly, the Germans had fallen back on traditional doctrine and practice and disregarded any need to disperse per the 1906 regulations. One clue concerning the lack of dispersal is that Third Battalion Eighty-Ninth Infantry Regiment lost their battalion colors and First Battalion Ninetieth Infantry Regiment buried their colors near one of the forts. What were flags doing in a night attack when the inspirational value would approximate zero?
With the bridge across the Meuse destroyed, there was no way to move artillery and wagons across the river to support HKK 2. The result was a bifurcated reconnaissance scenario. Four reconnaissance squadrons pressed forward across the ford at Lixhe, but the bulk of the divisions were kept on the eastern shore of the Meuse—making, parenthetically, a bad logistical situation far worse. From these squadrons, patrols were sent out with specific orders to disrupt the railway connections at St. Trond and LandenThe German cavalry, however, was operating behind Liège in an area thirty kilometers broad and twenty kilometers deep. The reconnaissance squadrons could continue to push forward but had no way to call for support should they need it. Logistically, moreover, these reconnaissance squadrons had no support or supply elements to rely on, contrary to how they had been trained and therefore what they expected. Organic to the cavalry regiments were small pontoon bridges capable of only crossing minor impediments. Using those pontoons along with other gathered materials, Thirty-Fourth Brigade began crossing the Marne at 1430 hours.
Thirty-Fourth Infantry attack was to start on the evening of August 5 from the west side of the Meuse River. The assault troops could clearly not reach their initial positions for the attack in time. Support by the light field howitzer unit was also excluded because there was no way to bring it over the Meuse. The attack would have to be carried out without any artillery support. The ferrying of just two infantry regiments and the jaeger battalions were all that could be accomplished in the time allowed. The absence of two expected guides from the general staff had a further disconcerting impact. The two divisional bridge trains did not arrive until 1645 hours, too late to assist the crossing.
As luck would have it, while waiting for the infantry battalions to cross, a very heavy thunderstorm broke out. The thunderstorm turned the route to mud. The troops were exhausted and the mounted officers walked their horses to stay awake. 27th Infantry Brigade was ordered to get between Fort Barchon and Fort de Evegnée. Sixteenth Infantry Regiment eventually got as close as three hundred meters. The regiment’s history described the regiment’s formations as being very deep—again, a reflex recourse to sheer mass.
Within the 27th Infantry Brigade, as Twenty-Fifth Infantry Regiment started moving south, it came under heavy rifle fire allegedly with “terrorists” in several significant incidents. One was in the town of Berneau. Germans marching in a dense column through the dark night when suddenly the entire column started shooting wildly and randomly, predictable in the context of a night march and a first engagement.Action was stopped only by the use of bugle calls. After this incident, in which thirty men were severely wounded, all weapons were unloaded to prevent a repeat display. This unloading certainly indicates that the leaders on the spot realized the shooting started from soldier nervousness and not civilian involvement.
Fourteenth Infantry Brigade’s commander, Major General von Wussow, and the commander of the Twenty-Seventh Regiment were still mounted when they ran into an artillery battery and were both killed. This was—and still is—a universal conundrum of combat command. On horseback, officers were targets. Dismounted, they were invisible and immobile. Fratricidewith Eleventh Infantry Brigade resulted in heavy losses resulted: dead—one officer and thirteen NCOs and soldiers; wounded—two officers and 69 NCOs and soldiers. Eleventh Infantry Brigade’s attack was designed to penetrate between Fort de Fléron and Fort de Chaudefontaine. The brigade moved out for the night attack, their objective the town of Magnée. The General Staff had attached an officer as a guide. The brigade was soon in single file, but the guide lost his orientation, backtracked, changed direction, and returned. In the dark, the result was disorder, increasing intermixing of the units. Arriving at Romsée, the commanders of the Twentieth and Thirty-Fifth Infantry Regiments were killed. The result was decapitation and confusion. German regiments had no second-in-command or executive officer; command evolved on the senior battalion commander. But finding that officer under fire in the dark was no easy task.
Thirty-Eighth Brigade was given the mission of infiltrating between Fort Boncelles and the Ourthe River and taking the rail junction and rail bridges at the confluence of the Ourthe and Meuse by dawn. Forty-Third Brigade was to take the towns of Ougrée and Seraing and the Meuse railroad Bridge, while the Seventy-Third would move independently to demonstrate against Fort d’Embourg. The troops would unload their weapons, fix bayonets, and wear white armbands. The Germans had anticipated no Belgian troops in prepared positions between the forts. Instead, they found networks of field fortifications, improvised but disconcertingly effective. The German plan was predicated on an unopposed walk through the vacant area between the forts. Now they were opposed, in close formations appropriate for maintaining momentum and cohesion in darkness—but highly vulnerable as well.The brigade ran into a wire entanglement, and command and control fell apart. The provisional divisional commander was wounded by an accidental fratricide bayonet in the back. Seventy-Fourth Infantry Regiment determined they could do nothing except for wait for daylight. It is not clear whether the troops ever achieved the penetration reported on the maps for the Handstreich. A map in the history of the Seventy-Fourth Infantry Regiment history rather clearly showed that nobody made it past the town of Sart-Tilman. Another significant issue came from the of the Seventy-Fourth Infantry Regimental History. A company commander reported that as he was rallying some of the forces lost in the night, he had one hundred soldiers and two of the battalion colors with him. Again, the fact that they carried battalion flags onto the battlefield makes one wonder how well this specific regiment had embraced the tactical changesnecessary on a modern, firepower-based battlefield. The Commander of Seventy-Fourth Infantry Regiment, Colonel Prince Wilhelm of Lippe, was killed in this engagement when he ordered “the flag” be raised. — effective? It was dark.—This seems in any case an example of regression under stress—a pattern that contributed significantly to German casualty counts and Belgian reports of German forces moving literally shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps some of this shoulder bumping can be explained away as well by a natural tendency to bunch up under fire. The German experience reflected the fact that humans are not nocturnal. Neither their vision nor their nervous systems are significantly adapted to nighttime activity. This can be compensated for, but compensation cannot be assured—as the Germans discovered. In addition, there was a serious loss of officers and NCOs.
Ninth Cavalry Division, south of the fortress, continued its advance to the west and approached the River Meuse—then discovered no available bridge crossings between Liège and Huy.
