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The German Army Marches
Through Brussels, 1914
Europe in 1914 was divided into two camps, each eyeing the other with mistrust,
apprehension and animosity. Germany and Austria-Hungary formed the Central
Powers while Britain, France, Russia and Italy formed the Allied Powers.
Since 1900 a number of incidents threatened open conflict, but each time, war was
averted and tempers cooled - until June 28, 1914. On that day a Serbian gunman
assassinated Franz Joseph, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife in the
Bosnian town of Sarajevo. (see Assassination of an Archduke) The bullet that
killed an Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo provided the spark that ignited the political
tinder box.
Austria accused Serbia of masterminding the murder. Emboldened by the military
support of Germany, Austria delivered an ultimatum to the Serbian government
that, if accepted, would have made that country a virtual possession of the AustroHungarian Empire. Russia weighed in on the side of the Serbs. Surprisingly, Serbia
bowed to all of Austria's demands -- except one. Austria found Serbia's refusal
justification enough to declare war, which she did on July 28, 1914.
Events now took on a life of their own as each power acted according to the dictates
of the secret agreements they had previously signed. First, Russia declared war
against Austria. Next, Germany declared war against Russia (August 1). Russia's
ally, France, mobilized against Germany, prompting Germany to declare war against
France (August 3). Germany attacked France by first invading neutral Belgium.
Britain, as a guarantor of Belgium's neutrality, then declared war against Germany
(August 4). The lines were drawn, the players on each side chosen. The First World
War had begun.
"This was a machine, endless, tireless, with the delicate
organization of a watch and the brute power of a steam roller."
The German juggernaut smashed its way into Belgium on August 5, initially
targeting Belgium's line of defensive fortresses. The Belgian army was forced to
retreat and by August 20 the Germans entered Brussels on its way to France. The
Belgians elected not to defend the city and the Germans marched through
unhindered.
Richard Harding Davis was an American newspaper reporter and witnessed the
German army's march through the city. We join his account as he sits at a boulevard
café waiting for the German arrival:
"The change came at ten in the morning. It was as though a wand had waved and
from a fete-day on the Continent we had been wafted to London on a rainy Sunday.
The boulevards fell suddenly empty. There was not a house that was not closely
shuttered. Along the route by which we now knew the Germans were advancing, it
was as though the plague stalked. That no one should fire from a window, that to
the conquerors no one should offer insult, Burgomaster Max sent out as special
constables men he trusted. Their badge of authority was a walking-stick and a piece
of paper fluttering from a buttonhole. These, the police, and the servants and
caretakers of the houses that lined the boulevards alone were visible.
At eleven o'clock, unobserved but by this official audience, down the Boulevard
Waterloo came the advance-guard of the German army. It consisted of three men,
a captain and two privates on bicycles. Their rifles were slung across their shoulders,
they rode unwarily, with as little concern as the members of a touring-club out for
a holiday. Behind them so close upon each other that to cross from one sidewalk to
the other was not possible, came the Uhlans [cavalry], infantry, and the guns. For
two hours I watched them, and then, bored with the monotony of it, returned to the
hotel. After an hour, from beneath my window, I still could hear them; another hour
and another went by. They still were passing.
Boredom gave way to wonder. The thing fascinated you, against your will, dragged
you back to the sidewalk and held you there open-eyed. No longer was it regiments
of men marching, but something uncanny, inhuman, a force of nature like a
landslide, a tidal wave, or lava sweeping down a mountain. It was not of this earth,
but mysterious, ghostlike. It carried all the mystery and menace of a fog rolling
toward you across the sea.
The German army moved into Brussels as smoothly and as compactly as an Empire
State express. There were no halts, no open places, no stragglers. For the gray
automobiles and the gray motorcycles bearing messengers one side of the street
always was kept clear; and so compact was the column, so rigid the vigilance of the
file-closers, that at the rate of forty miles an hour a car could race the length of the
column and need not stop - for never did a single horse or man once swerve from
its course.
All through the night, like a tumult of a river when it races between the cliffs of a
canyon, in my sleep I could hear the steady roar of the passing army. And when
early in the morning I went to the window the chain of steel was still unbroken. It
was like the torrent that swept down the Connemaugh Valley and destroyed
Johnstown. This was a machine, endless, tireless, with the delicate organization of
a watch and the brute power of a steam roller. And for three days and three nights
through Brussels it roared and rumbled, a cataract of molten lead. The infantry
marched singing, with their iron-shod boots beating out the time. They
sang Fatherland, My Fatherland.Between each line of song they took three steps. At
times 2000 men were singing together in absolute rhythm and beat. It was like
blows from giant pile-drivers. When the melody gave way the silence was broken
only by the stamp of iron-shod boots, and then again the song rose. When the
singing ceased the bands played marches. They were followed by the rumble of the
howitzers, the creaking of wheels and of chains clanking against the cobblestones,
and the sharp, bell-like voices of the bugles.
More Uhlans followed, the hoofs of their magnificent horses ringing like thousands
of steel hammers breaking stones in a road; and after them the giant siege-guns
rumbling, growling, the mitrailleuses [machine guns] with drag-chains ringing, the
field-pieces with creaking axles, complaining brakes, the grinding of the steelrimmed wheels against the stones echoing and re-echoing from the house front.
When at night for an instant the machine halted, the silence awoke you, as at sea
you wake when the screw stops.
For three days and three nights the column of gray, with hundreds of thousands of
bayonets and hundreds of thousands of lances, with gray transport wagons, gray
ammunition carts, gray ambulances, gray cannon, like a river of steel, cut Brussels
in two."
References:
Richard Harding Davis' account appears in: Downey, Fairfax, Richard Harding
Davis: His Day (1933); Keegan, John, The First World War (1999).
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"The German Army Marches Through Brussels, 1914," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com
(2004).
A Death at the Battle
of the Somme, 1916
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The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest engagements of the First World War. In the summer
of 1916 the line of trenches demarcating the Western Front stretched from the English Channel across
the length of France to the Swiss border. At Verdun, near the middle of this line, French and German
troops were bogged down in a battle of attrition. The objective of the Somme offensive was to relieve
the pressure on Verdun and to push the British line forward.
The attack began July 1, 1916 with a predominately British force clambering out of its trenches and
crossing No Man's Land under
withering German machinegun and artillery fire. The attack
soon stalled and deteriorated into disaster. On that day the
British suffered almost 60,000 casualties making it the
bloodiest day in British military history. Undeterred, the
British command ordered the assault to continue the next
day with the hope of breaking through the German lines.
This attempt and the others that followed through the
summer and fall months produced no break through.
Finally, with the approach of winter in November, the
battle was abandoned.
Over the Top
The final tally included 420,000 British casualties, 200,000
British troops leave their trenches
Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916
French and the Germans 500,000. The reward for this
effort was the six-mile movement of the British front line into German territory.
Among the French troops waiting to assault the German trenches on July 1 was an American named
Alan Seeger. He had graduated from Harvard in 1910 and had spent two years in Greenwich Village
before moving to Paris. Alan Seeger was a poet and he thrived in the bohemian atmosphere of Paris's
Left Bank. When war broke, Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion in order to defend the country he
loved so much. He did not abandon his poetry. One of his compositions during this period was an eerily
prophetic poem entitled "Rendezvous with Death:"
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air-I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
Seeger kept his appointment with death on July 1, 1916 - the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He
was 28 years old.
"The Supreme Experience"
Seeger kept a diary of his experiences in the French Foreign Legion. This, along with his letters, was
published in 1917. His final letter was written to a friend as he waited along with his company to be
called up to join the opening attack of the Battle of the Somme:
ADVERTISMENT
"June 28, 1916.
We go up to the attack tomorrow. This will
probably be the biggest thing yet. We are to have the honor of marching in the first wave.
I will write you soon if I get through all right. If not, my only earthly care is for my poems. I am glad to
be going in first wave. If you are in this thing at all it is best to be in to the limit. And this is the supreme
experience."
"..that was the last time I saw my friend"
The rest of Alan Seeger's story is told through the words of a friend:
"At 8 o'clock on the morning of July 1st there was roll call for the day's orders and we were told that
the general offensive would begin at 9 without us, as we were in reserve, and that we should be notified
of the day and hour that we were to go into action. When this report was finished we were ordered to
shell fatigue, unloading 8 inch shells from automobile trucks which brought them up to our position.
All was hustle and bustle. The Colonial regiments had carried the first German lines and thousands and
thousands of prisoners kept arriving and leaving. Ambulances filed along the roads continuously. As
news began to arrive we left our work to seek more details; picking up souvenirs, postcards, letters,
soldiers' notebooks, and chatting all the time, when suddenly a voice called out: 'The company will fall
in to go to the first line.'
About 4 o'clock the order came to get ready for the attack. None could
help thinking of what the next few hours would bring. One minute's
anguish and then, once in the ranks, faces became calm and serene, a
kind of gravity falling upon them, while on each could be read the
determination and expectation of victory. Two battalions were to attack
Belloy-en-Santerre, our company being the reserve of battalion. The
companies forming the first wave were deployed on the plain. Bayonets
glittered in the air above the corn, already quite tall.
The first section (Alan's section) formed the right and vanguard of the
company and mine formed the left wing. After the first bound forward, we
lay flat on the ground, and I saw the first section advancing beyond us
and making toward the extreme right of the village of Belloy-en-Santerre.
I caught sight of Seeger and called to him, making a sign with my hand.
Alan Seeger
He answered with a smile. How pale he was! His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the cornfield.
He was the tallest man in his section. His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward,
with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend. . . ."
References:
Keegan, John, The Face of War (2001); Seeger, Alan, Letters and Diary (posthumously published
1917).
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"A Death at the Battle of the Somme, 1916," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2004).
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