MAPS

BELGIUM-FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIER
FRANCE, PICTORIAL MAP OF
BELGIUM, BEGINNING OF GERMAN INVASION OF
ALSACE-LORRAINE, FRENCH INVASION OF
BATTLE OF MONS AND RETREAT OF ALLIED ARMIES
BATTLE OF THE MARNE--BEGINNING ON SEPTEMBER 5, 1914
BATTLE OF THE MARNE--SITUATION ON SEPTEMBER 9, 1914
BATTLE OF THE MARNE--END OF GERMAN RETREAT AND THE INTRENCHED LINE
ON THE AISNE RIVER
LIEGE FORT, GERMAN ATTACK OF
ANTWERP, SIEGE AND FALL OF
FLANDERS, BATTLE FRONT IN
GERMAN AND ENGLISH NAVAL POSITIONS
WAR IN THE EAST--RELATION OF THE EASTERN COUNTRIES TO GERMANY
THE BALKANS, PICTORIAL MAP OF
SERBIAN AND AUSTRIAN INVASIONS

PART I--GREAT BATTLES OF THE WESTERN ARMIES

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

ATTACK ON BELGIUM

The first great campaign on the western battle grounds in the European
War began on August 4, 1914. On this epoch-making day the German
army began its invasion of Belgium--with the conquest of France
as its ultimate goal. Six mighty armies stood ready for the great
invasion. Their estimated total was 1,200,000 men. Supreme over
all was the Emperor as War Lord, but Lieutenant General Helmuth
van Moltke, chief of the General Staff, was the practical director
of military operations. General van Moltke was a nephew of the great
strategist of 1870, and his name possibly appealed as of happy
augury for repeating the former capture of Paris.

The First Army was assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle in the north of
Belgium, within a few miles of the Dutch frontier. It was under
the command of General van Kluck. He was a veteran of both the
Austrian and Franco-Prussian Wars, and was regarded as an able
infantry leader. His part was to enter Belgium at its northern
triangle, which projects between Holland and Germany, occupy Liege,
deploy on the great central plains of Belgium, then sweep toward
the French northwestern frontier in the German dash for Paris and
the English Channel. His army thus formed the right wing of the
whole German offensive. It was composed of picked corps, including
cavalry of the Prussian Guard.

The Second Army had gathered in the neighborhood of Limbourg under
the command of General von Buelow. Its advance was planned down the
valleys of the Ourthe and Vesdre to a junction with Von Kluck at
Liege, then a march by the Meuse Valley upon Namur and Charleroi.
In crossing the Sambre it was to fall into place on the left of
Von Kluck's army.