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June 28, 1914, the murder of the Aus trian Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo set light to a powder trail which within a brief span exploded the European magazine in a series of detonations. Exactly one month later Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia, whose appeal to her ally and protector led Russia to order a partial mobilization on her southern front. The same day, July 29, an Imperial council at Potsdam decided on war against Russia, and, as a corollary, against France, although hoping to bargain for Britain's neutrality. While the chancelleries of Europe argued at cross-purposes, the military tide swept them off their feet. On July 31 Russia ordered a general mobilization and Germany, taking equivalent steps, sent a 12 hours' ultimatum. Austria, seeking belatedly to temporize, was dragged in the train of her more determined ally. By noon on Aug. 1 a state of war existed between Russia and Germany and next day German troops entered French territory. At 7 P.M. came Germany's ultimatum to Belgium, demanding an unopposed passage. On Aug. 3 Germany's formal declaration of war on France followed, and on Aug. 4 her troops crossed the Belgian frontier, for the sanctity of which England stood guarantor. At midnight, in reply, England also entered the war—while the Belgian popu lace, rising to resist the German invaders, sounded the death knell of gladiatorial wars and inaugurated the new warfare of peoples. And coincidently, by Italy's declaration of her neutrality, her refusal to fulfil the alliance with her hereditary enemy Austria—the artificiality of the political alliance system broke down before the new wave of national feeling which was to char acterize the World War.
The German advance into France was designed as a methodical sweep, so that unexpected checks should not upset its time-table. Confronted with the fact that the Bel gians would resist, a detachment was formed under Gen. von Emmich to clear a passage through the Belgian plain north of the Ardennes, ready for the ordered advance of the main armies concentrating behind the German frontier. The ring fortress of Liege (q.v.) commanded this channel of advance, but, after an initial check, a German brigade penetrated between the forts and occupied the town. The interest of this feat is that it was due to the initiative of an attached staff officer, Ludendorff, whose name ere long was to be world-famous. The forts themselves offered a stubborn resistance and forced the Germans to await the arrival of their heavy howitzers, whose destructive power was to be the first tactical surprise of the World War.
The very success of the Belgians' early resistance cloaked the weight of the main German columns and misled the Allies' intelli gence. The Belgian field army lay behind the Gette covering Brussels, and even before the Liege forts fell the advanced guards of the German 1st and 2nd Armies were pressing against this line. The Belgians, deprived of support owing to the mistaken French plan and British conformity with it, decided to preserve their army by falling back on the entrenched camp of Antwerp—where its location would at least make it a latent menace to the German communications. The Germans, their passage now clear, entered Brussels on Aug. 20, and on the same day appeared before
Namur, the last fortress barring the Meuse route into France. It must be noted that despite the Belgian resistance the German advance was slightly ahead of its time-table.
Meanwhile, away on the other flank, the French offensive had opened on Aug. 8 with the advance of a force under Gen. Pau into upper Alsace, a move intended partly as a military distraction and partly for its political effect. Soon brought to a halt, it was renewed on the 19th, only to meet with a fresh check. Thereafter the pressure of disasters elsewhere compelled the abandonment of the enterprise and the dissolution of the force—its units being dispatched westward as reinforcements. Meantime the main thrust into Lorraine by the French 1st (Dubail) and 2nd (de Castelnau) Armies, totalling 19 divisions, had begun on Aug. 14 and been shattered in the battle of Morhange-Sarrebourg, Aug. 20 (see FRONTIERS, BATTLES OF THE) where the French discovered that the material could subdue the moral, and that in their enthusiasm for the offensive they had blinded themselves to the defensive power of modern weapons, a condition which was to throw out of balance the whole mechanism of orthodox warfare. Yet it is but fair to add that this abortive French offensive had an indirect effect on the German plan, although this would hardly have been so if a Schlief fen or a Ludendorff had been in charge at German headquarters instead of the vacillating opportunist Moltke. The fact that Moltke had almost doubled the strength of his left, compared with Schlieffen's plan meant that it was unnecessarily strong for a yielding and "enticing" defensive such as Schlieffen had con ceived, while lacking the superiority necessary for a crushing counter-offensive. But when the French attack in Lorraine de veloped and Moltke appreciated that the French were leaving their fortified barrier behind he was tempted momentarily to postpone the right wing sweep and instead seek a decision in Lorraine. This impulse led him to divert thither the six newly formed Ersatz divisions that should have been used to increase the weight of his right wing.
He had hardly conceived this new plan before he abandoned it and, on Aug. 16, reverted to Schlieffen's "swing-door" design. But the princely commanders in Lorraine were loath to for feit this opportunity of personal glory. The Crown Prince Rup precht of Bavaria, instead of continuing to fall back and draw the French on, halted his 6th Army on the 17th, ready to accept battle. Finding the French attack slow to develop, he planned to anticipate by one of his own.
on Aug. 20 in conjunc tion with the 7th Army on his left, but although the French were taken by surprise and rolled back from the line Morhange-Sarre bourg, the German counter-stroke had not the superiority of strength (the two armies now totalled 25 divisions) or of strategic position to make it decisive. Thus its strategic result was merely to throw back the French onto a fortified barrier which both restored and augmented their power of resistance. Thus they were enabled to despatch troops to reinforce their western flank— a redistribution of strength which was to have far-reaching results in the decisive battle, on the Marne.