Forts at Liege

[bob lembke]

Hi Carl,

The German were definitely trained, but probably not too much in taking a fortress by coup de main. In prewar instructions what they tried was not recommended, in fact is was warned against. It's not surprising it almost failed. What the Germans accomplished in 1914 against the fortresses and forts of France and Belgium was almost exclusively the result of their heaviest guns. Most of the tactics and techniques that were practiced in peace-time were disregarded. This worked well in 1914, it didn't work so well at Verdun in 1916.

Paul

Interestingly, about 1885 Belgium wanted to upgrade their forts to resist the effects of new HE shells, which had untergone a major improvement in the same era; possibly unwisely, they granted the contract to a major defense contractor, Krupp of Essen. Certainly this led to the Germans having good plans of these forts, and possibly other results. One finding of some studies was the suspicion that one of the causes ot the more dramatic fall of Belgian forts in 1914 vs. French forts at Verdun in 1916 was that some felt that the Belgian concrete was noticably poorer than French concrete used in fortifications. However, the French complex at Maubeuge fell quite handily in 1914 as well.

Wondering if Krupp got the contract by seriously underbidding the competition. Already in the 1880's Krupp had 40 cm guns in their orderbook for foreign customers, in two barrel lengths.

Bob

[Paul Hederer]

The Germans became overconfident after the results they achieved with their heaviest guns. One artillery commander told the the siege commander (in the way thing were organised) not to worry too much about the defenses, because their heaviest artillery would punch holes in anything they had. That's not tactics, that's hubris. General Beseler wrote something interesting in 1914--he said (I'm paraphrasing) that the easy successes in Belgium would probably lead to disappointments in France, as the French knew a thing or two more about soldiering.

I've read the report on the forts of 1914, and there is no doubt that the Belgian fortifications had problems with their concrete--it was not mixed in the proper proportions and tests done showed it only had a fraction of the strength it should have had.

One important thing to remember about the fortresses of the day is the quality of their garrisons. Those stuck on fortress duty were not usually the elite--they were normally older troops, or those not fit for field duty. The same study showed that the damage done to most of the forts was not significant enough to warrant their surrender--I think something like 86% of the forts that surrendered still had the capacity to fight. The writer concludes that the poor morale of the garrisons led to the surrender of the forts.

Paul

[bob lembke]

Hi, Paul. Good to hear from you!

I agree with most but not everything that Paul has observed; a friend and I are working hard on this topic, with valuable help from another discussant. My comments in bold-face:

The Germans became overconfident after the results they achieved with their heaviest guns. One artillery commander told the the siege commander (in the way thing were organised) not to worry too much about the defenses, because their heaviest artillery would punch holes in anything they had. That's not tactics, that's hubris. Well, when firing the 42 cm fort-busting shells (I think 2550 lbs, very heavy shell walls, two chambers of explosives, both on a seperate time fuze, to assure that the shell exploded, and deep in the fort.) the shells could penetrate 40 feet of concrete, and (some) steel, earth, corridors, internal walls, before exploding, coming down almost vertically from about four miles up over the fort; I would consider that "punching holes in anything". If the gun fired a "fort-buster" you probably were in more danger deep in the fort; if the fort fired a HE shell (say 2200 lbs) you were safer deeper. But the battery did not advise the fort and garrison on which shell they were firing.

General Beseler wrote something interesting in 1914--he said (I'm paraphrasing) that the easy successes in Belgium would probably lead to disappointments in France, as the French knew a thing or two more about soldiering. Paul, can you mention a citation? I have not come across material by von Beseler. (My grand-father was von Beseler's Id, and I have a photo of them together.) But I actually have read much more Belgian and French material than German. Von Beseler's observation was perceptive.

I've read the report on the forts of 1914, and there is no doubt that the Belgian fortifications had problems with their concrete--it was not mixed in the proper proportions and tests done showed it only had a fraction of the strength it should have had. I have a classified Denkschrift written on the comparative damage to the various Belgian and French forts, written in 1915 by a general of Pioniere after an elaborate investigation by experts; it went into a lot of detail on concrete, types of aggregate, sand, reenforcing rod, etc. used.

One important thing to remember about the fortresses of the day is the quality of their garrisons. Those stuck on fortress duty were not usually the elite--they were normally older troops, or those not fit for field duty. Exactly - General Leman, the Governor of the Fortified Place of Liege, and also of the 3rd Belgian Division, before he sent it off to rejoin the Belgian field army in the west, wrote a book-length report on the siege, and he complained about the quality of the troops; the line infantry fired, at maximum, 120 rounds a year, in order to economize on the cost of the ammunition; his peace-time garrison troops generally seemed to be second-rate (at Liege, the typical fort had a company of fortress artillery, likely older men than field artillery, and perhaps a platoon of engineers, when war came it also received about a company of old reservists, sort of like Territorials or Landsturm); Leman bitterly complained that the latter, older family men, had no military qualities whatsoever (that might be a bit overstated, in translation). The same study showed that the damage done to most of the forts was not significant enough to warrant their surrender--I think something like 86% of the forts that surrendered still had the capacity to fight. The writer concludes that the poor morale of the garrisons led to the surrender of the forts. Here I have to disagree with the first part of Paul's assertion. I could pull together statistics, but most of the forts were largely ruined. At least 14% of the forts exploded when a 42 cm or 30.5 cm shell penetrated and exploded a shell or powder magazine. In the case of Fort Loncin, to which General Leman had retreated when Liege itself was taken, a 42 cm shell penetrated and exploded a powder magazine containing 26,000 lbs of powder, and about 400 of a garrison of perhaps 480 was buried alive or killed (often in shocking fashion; men dead but without a mark on them, or men dead (or severely burned) with all clothes blown off and every inch burned black, or men killed, blackened, with their bodies shrunken to a small size; these horrors often totally broke all resistance on the part of the survivors.) This was the most dramatic, but most forts were very badly damaged, most or all gun and observation turrets damaged or even blown off the fort, great fissures opened in the structure that would allow the entry of infantry (I think that that actually never happened in Belgium, while the garrison resisted.), electric power out, communications broken. A further important factor is mentioned below.

The morale was certainly a major factor. Leman, in his report, evaluated the resistance of all of his 12 forts one by one, and he did state clearly that at least one clearly surrendered before "its due", in which there was a serious dispute between the garrison and the CO, and he recommended that no survivor of that fort receive a decoration. One totally undamaged fort surrendered (I remember the account vividly, but am only 80% sure that it was at Liege) to a lieutenant and about four men (and a handful more concealed outside), he bluffed them (said that he had a regiment and heavy artillery hidden in the nearby woods) , and the surrendered garrison was "out of joint" when they realized that they had been tricked; nevertheless, the remaining garrison only numbered about 20, despite the fort not having been shelled yet. This account, from the German side, did not explain this, but seemingly the rest of the garrison had just taken off. At Antwerp, my grand-father had observed the bombardment of Fort Sint-Katelijne-Waver for several days; he wrote my father "one really has to hand it to these guys, to stand there and take this bombardment", without knowing that the garrison had evacuated the fort out of the rear at least a day earlier; but to their credit I believe that they remained in the vicinity and may have even reoccupied the fort before the final assault. (My detailed research has not reached Antwerp yet.) He also spent two days in a 30.5 cm battery and one in a 42 cm battery as they bombarded this fort, I have a letter that he wrote at night describing these visits (he was responsible for supplying their ammunition, as an old Prussian Foot Artillery NCO he was fascinated by these giant guns), and finally, from a castle tower, observed the final assault on the fort with the rest of his Generalkommando and von Moltke, who was visiting. (Pardon the self-promotion, but I have "some skin in the game", as is said.)

A major factor in the surrender of the forts was the athmosphere within the fort, and this was discussed by General Leman in detail, fort by fort, across his command, in his report. There were two main, quite different causes. The big German shells, when they exploded, gave off a great volume of quite toxic gasses of combustion, and these poisoned the athmosphere within the forts, not only when a shell penetrated the fort, but also shells exploding on the structure of the fort produced gasses that penetrated the fort, especially after previous shells had fractured the structure of the fort. This may have been the cause of finding groups of men dead within the fort without a scratch on them, this rattling the survivors. (The concussion of very large shells might have also have been a factor.) Secondly, at least the Belgian forts had their kitchens, bakeries, and especially their latrines outside the fort, and these were destroyed in the very first stages of bombardment, or at least were not accessible. The Belgians at least had some sort of patented indoor latrine device, I have its name in French in my materials, Leman mentioned them in his evaluation, but these worked so badly that within 2-3 days the athmosphere in the entire fort was so poisonous that some garrisons were contemplating surrender on these grounds itself. They also felt that the gasses from the internal latrines would create serious health problems. (As these forts were planned to hold out against a siege for three months, one regards this with amazement, one gets the strong impression that at no time was this arraingement and equipment actually seriously tested; if after 2-3 days this equipment made the fort almost uninhabitable, what were they expecting over a three month siege?)

At Fort Vaux at Verdun in 1916 the Germans, fighting their way through the fort underground (this was really horrible fighting, even for Verdun), the Germans blocked as many ventilation orifices as possible with sand-bags, periodically removing a few bags and firing gas and flame-throwers thru the orifice, and then replacing the sand-bags, and this made the athmosphere in the French portion of the fort awful, and kerosine lanterns that the French used for illumination eventually could not even burn, due to a lack of oxygen. The latrine emenations were also very bad, but Vaux had been shelled and attacked for months, and it seems that the French arraingements must have been much better than the Belgian.

My father was in Fort Douaumont at Verdun several times in 1916, and one risked death going outside for even a moment, but those arraingements also seemed to work for months, and the fort functioned very uisefully for months. (Did blow up once!) It seems that it was not only the French concrete that was better.

Does anyone have any technical detail on the Belgian latrine devices? I could look up their name in French. (I am planning to write a comprehensive study on the 1914 siege gun / fort combat, toilets not excepted.)

Bob

Paul

[Paul Hederer]

I agree with most but not everything that Paul has observed; I and a friend are working hard on thisa topic:

Bob, the Beseler material is from his papers in BA-MA Freiburg--none of it has been published that I know of...

On the destruction of the forts I stick with the expert opinion on the German engineer officer who wrote the report in 1915...

Paul

[bob lembke]

Bob, the Beseler material is from his papers in BA-MA Freiburg--none of it has been published that I know of...

Many thanks - I haven't had the luxury of getting over there yet, but I am scheming . . .

On the destruction of the forts I stick with the expert opinion on the German engineer officer who wrote the report in 1915...

Probably the same Denkschrift. (Pause) In fact, I just looked at my bibliography, and my notes in my bibliography entry for the Denkschrift (Generalmajor Julius von Bailer, Brussels, 1915), and you supplied the Denkschrift to my dear friend Marc, who in turn shared it with me. Many thanks! Small world!

One is reminded of the several blind wise men examining the various ends of the elephant, and coming up with very different evaluations of what they were examining by feel. My reading of von Beiler (about 56 pages) was focused on tactical details re: the big siege guns. Most of my reading on this topic is not German but French and Flemish accounts, and they really felt badly beat up.

First-rate troops could have defended many of those forts. The Belgian troops, with their many handicaps, many quite older, with no real military experience for decades, and with large families and beer bellies, could not be expected to. Most of the garrisons were psychologically shattered after three days bombardment, and General Leman's report almost mentioned toilet stench more than shelling damage as the causal factor for surrender; that would have been unobvious to German engineers examining the fort seven months after the last bowel movement. It is possible that a rumor swept the garrison that they were about to die from pathogens, Leman practically said that. I am sure that the athmosphere in Fort Vaux in 1916 was worse than in the Belgian forts in 1914.

Paul

Bob

[cdr]

Well

One of the major problems with latrines in the forts at Liège is as follows : it was only in Loncin that the latrines were situated in the central 'fighting' block. In all the other forts the latrines were situated in wooden barracks in the central. So you had to go outside for..... I would be disinclined to do that during a bombardment. Even in Loncin (btw the only fort with electricity) the latrines were a problem. After a short period buckets were used.

The quality of the fortress troops was not very high. One of the problems was a severe shortage of officers. In his memoirs major Collyns of the 12th line infantry says : .... a company of fortress troops were withdrawing rapidly. I could not really blame them as this entire 180 man strong company did not have a single officer to command them.... The 120 strong infantry in the fort of Hollogne had a single 2nd lieutenant (straight from military school) in command.

Directly to blame for this was the Belgian gouvernement. Prime minister de Broqueville had been able to pass a law on concription and reform of the army in 1913. This foresaw the creation of mixed brigades with a doubling of the infantry regiments (each 3 bataillon strong regiment raised a second 3 bataillon infantry regiment and a regiment of fortress infantry. HOWEVER NO provision was made for an increase in the numbers of officers !!!

Concrete in the forts at Liège and Namur

These forts were the first to use concrete. The French firms in charge (typically Belgian, the French built the forts and Germany provided the heavy artillery !) were not very torough. The concrete apparently used to much water, not enough ciment and was cast in layers. The stones used in the concrete were rather large riverpebbles from the Ourthe. These apparently worked as ball bearings during the bombardments and tore the layers apart.

I'm still impressed with the resistance these forts put up !

Carl

[cdr]

I'm still looking for info on the German units at Liège .

Does anyone have better info on losses ? . T Zuber gives for instance for the 11th brigade a total of 175 losses (killed wounded and missing) . Another (German) source gives the following :

brigadestaff 4 wounded;

Infanterie regiment 20 36 dead, 90 wounded and 101 missing (regimental commander among the killed);

Infanterieregiment 35 47 killed, 53 wounded 33 missing (commander 1st bataillon among the killed)

Jäger bataillon 3 6 wounded

Total 370 losses ( which is different from 175 losses)

Carl

[bob lembke]

I'm still looking for info on the German units at Liège .

Does anyone have better info on losses ?

Carl

Hi, Carl!

I am working on the big guns re: Russia and 1915, so Liege, which I was working on last year, seems very distant.

I can look through my time-lines, but I would not have generally written down the casualties if I came across them.

Have you looked through the appropriate book from the Schlachten des Weltkrieges series? As I remember, it had very

detailed descriptions of the very intense infantry combat in the opening phases of the fighting. I was struck by the severe

chest wounding of a German general (a brigade commander, I think) by a night-time bayonet thrust, and the Belgians fortifying

houses along the route the Germans were advancing along, and the Germans having to roll up 105 mm howitzers and fire into

these houses at such close ranges that the fuzes did not activate and the shells acted as solid shot and just punched thru

the houses without exploding. There were severe casualties in that fighting.

Do you have that Schlachten volume? They are plentiful and last I noticed generally cost prices like 6 Euros; some years ago

prices like 6 DM. (Who knows, we may be back to the DM!)

There is a new data source on German casualties, new availability of the Verlusten series (I hope I spelled that right, from memory),

now partially available. However, I do not understand it well, as I have not tried it, and it's use seems to be very labor-intensive

at present, due to its size and organization. Not all the data is available yet.

Bob Lembke

[joerookery]

Robert,

Are the majority of your quotations taken from this source?

Kuhl, G. v. (1929). Movements and Supply of the German First Army during August and September 1914. Fort Leavenworth: The Command and Gen. Staff School Press.

I am just getting lazy! You probably already told me but I am getting old.

[Marilyne]

Carl, Thanks for the "complicated" ...

but you're right in your answer.

A BELGIAN !!

Marilyne

[cdr]

Thanks Bob

I'm looking to get a copy of the 'schlachten' book. The text i've used is from a 1930's publication on the 'handstreich' by the generalstab des heeres 7 (kriegswissentschaftliche) abteilung . (the losses in the text were based on the original returns of the units to the kriegministerium , nachweise amt). So i think they might be more reliable than list with losses in regimental histories (there is however nothing on the heavy artillery)

Carl