August 22, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
THESE notes upon the operations taking place on tlie 
Continent are -written upon the evening of Wednes- 
day. Tbey are corrected or amplified accoi"ding 
to the nevra received in London upon Thureday 
morning up to noon. Thej are in tha hands of 
the public on Friday morning. 
It is impossible to avoid in the chronicle whieh they attempt 
to establish that gap between the Thursday noon and the Friday 
morning which printing demands. The same criticism applies 
to the deductions made from such news as has been received ia 
London* 
It is the object of these comments, and of the deductions 
from news received which they will contain, to explain, as much 
as is in the writer's power, the nature of the ojierations on land. 
In order to do this, it is first necessary to get Bome idea of the 
process of events in the Western theatre of war since the first 
days of mobilisation. 
I say " In the Western theatre of war " because operations 
in any way decisive of the result have not yet taken place in the 
Eastern theatre of the war upon the Eastern and Southern 
frontiers of the (Jermanic allies, anless we are to accept the now 
detailed accounts of an Austrian reverse at the hands of the 
Servians at Shabat. 
In the Western field, upon the other hand, operations 
which will be of weight in the final decision, and others which 
hare begun to define the probable direction of tha opposed 
armies, have already taken place. 
In thus attempting to establish the sucoession of events 
which have led up to the present situation in the Western field ■ 
of the war, we must exclude what is merely political and con- 
sider only what is military. 
Upon Saturday, August Ist, the French Government gave 
the first open orders for mobilisation. What previous steps it 
may have taken in preparation of the general mobilisation we 
do not know. But, at any rate, the life of the country was 
quite normal op to and including this Saturday, August Ist, 
and certainly nothing in the shape of general mobilisation had 
yet taken place. Tho full operation of mobilisation only began 
in France upon Sunday, August 2nd. 
What the corresponding stops may have been upon the 
Crerman side we do not know. Germany had already declared 
martial law, and she may have begun her mobilisation — in part, 
at least, and particularly in the North — before France did. An 
examination of the first operations makes this still more probable, 
but we have no positive information upon the point. 
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The process of fuU mobilisation in both countries is at least 
12 and like to be in practice more nearly 14 days : using tha 
phrase " full mobilisation " to mean not the bringing up of tho 
troops to the field of action, but tho putting of them all upon 
a war footing. How many days must elapse before the 
mobilised armies could begin to undertake their principal 
actions would depend upon the field in which those operations 
would take place ; certainlv, fifteen or sixteen days is not too 
much to allow, seeing that tLe strict theoretical minimum (which 
was bound to be exceeded) was at least eleven days. 
The French mobilisation proceeded with quite unexpected 
smoothness ; a state of affairs most fortunate for the French, 
which was due to political factors with which we are not here 
cojuemcd. The results of its accurate working Will be later 
pointed out 
Meanwhile, upon that same Sunday, August 2nd, tha 
German Covering Troops fiom IVcves had violatwl tho neutral 
territory of Luxembourg, entering that independent State by 
several bridges, paiiicuIaTly by those of Wasserbillig and 
Remich. 
At 7 o'clock in tho evening of the same day the German 
Minister in Brussels presented an ultimatum to the Belgian 
Government demanding unopposed passage for German Troops 
through Belgian territory, in otlier words, demanding the aid 
of Belgium against France. Tvrelve hours were given for tha 
reply, that is, until 7 a.m. of tho following Monday morning. 
The Belgian Ministry met and discussed the position in the 
small hoars of Monday, and somewhere about 4 o'tlock returned 
a negative answer to the German demand. They determined to 
resist the violation of Belgian territory. 
Upon Monday, August Srd, therefore, the German troops 
crossed the frontier between Germany and Belgium ; tha troops 
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first effecting tliis violation of neutrality being those of tha 
Vllth Germany Army Corps coming from the region of 
Aix-la-Chapelle. These troops were not nearly as numerous a* 
has been represented. They could not have been fully mobilised 
troops, but only the covering troops of the region. The task set 
them was to force immediately the fortress of Lidge. 
Let me describe this task. 
The fortress of Li^ge is a modem ring fortress : tliat is, it 
consists of an area roughly circular, about, or rather less than 
ten miles in diameter, protected by a ring of forts (twelve ia 
number) surrounding the great industrial town of Liege. Tho 
River Meuse runs right through Liege and through the middle 
of the ring. One of the main railways of Europe runs through 
the same circle and leads from the chief German bases of 
supply in the North to the Belgian Plain ; other railways also 
come in and effect their junction with this main lino within the 
circle of the Forts. This ring of forts lies quite close to the 
German frontier — a day's march at tha most away; at the 
nearest point, less than a day's march. Further, there is here 
but a very narrow passage between Liege and the neutral Dutch 
border round Maestricht. The Germans, though prepared to 
violate the neutrality of Belgium, were determined not to violate 
the neutrality of Holland for political reasons that have nothing 
to do with these notes. Therefore until the Liege ring of forts 
were in their hands : (1) Thev could only use road traffic to 
supply their advance into Belgium. (2) They could only use 
even road traflBc over one very narrow belt, between the range of 
the Eastern forts of Liege and the Dutch border. 
To the North of the Li^ge ring of forts, then, there was no 
entry into Belgium save by a very narrow gut between tha 
extreme range of the forts and the Dutch frontier. Right 
across this gap of five miles or less was the obstacle of the 
Meuse, having but one bridge, that of Vise, a little town lying 
on the right bank of tha Meuse, that is, the bank towards 
Gcniiany. Upon the south side of Liege was difiicult, high, 
and barren country consistiug of upland woods and heaths 
through which the progress of supplies would be difiicult, and 
further supplies coming that way would have to cross 
the Meuse higher up to reach tha Belgian Plains. (See Plan A.) 
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