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p style=”text-align: justify;”>Breaking the Fortress Line 1914 offers a fascinating new perspective on the German offensive against France and Belgium in 1914. In graphic detail it describes the intense fighting that took place around the forts and fortified cities that stood in the path of the German invasion. The ordeal began with the German assault on the mighty fortress of Liège. They took twelve days to batter their way through the ‘Gateway to Belgium’, losing thousands of men in repeated frontal assaults, and they had to bring up the heaviest siege artillery ever used to destroy the defences. This is the epic struggle that Clayton Donnell depicts in this compelling account of a neglected aspect of the battles that followed the outbreak of the Great War. Not only does he reconstruct the German attack on the strongpoints they encountered along the entire invasion line, but he traces the history and design of these fixed defences and analyses the massive military building programmes undertaken by the French, the Germans and the Belgians between 1871 and 1914.
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p style=”text-align: justify;”>Thousands of huge forts, infantry strongpoints, bunkers, casemates and shelters were dug out along the French and German borders. The German Moselstellung and Steinbruch-stellung were born. These massive concrete fortress systems with steel gun turrets and diesel motors to generate electricity were a completely new concept of fortress design. As war approached, France and Germany devised plans to overcome each other’s powerful armies and these border defences. The French plan avoided contact with the German fortress system. But the Kaiser’s army faced twelve forts at Liège, nine more at Namur, and then the strongpoints of the first and second Séré de Rivières lines. Clayton Donnell provides a gripping narrative of the violent confrontation that followed.
REVIEW: Whilst the centenary of the 1914 campaigns passed by with barely a mention in the mainstream media of the actual campaigns and battles fought, a number of books have been published that look at the opening stages of the war.
Most of those with an interest in the war will be familiar with the opening stages of the British campaign including the Battle of Le Cateau, the Retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Aisne and the start of trench warfare during First Ypres. Yet the very first actions of the war, when the Germans attempted to sweep through Belgium and France, prior to British involvement, have been largely overlooked in the UK. Clayton Donnell’s book seeks to address this by providing an account of the initial German advance.
Both Belgium and France had constructed extensive networks of forts during the late 1800s, and it was these that posed a risk to the flanks and rear of the advancing German army. Many of the forts had been modernised due to the advances made in the explosive power of shells, which rendered the existing structures near-useless. In a vicious cycle, as the defences became thicker or more impenetrable, the guns needed to breach these defences became bigger. Armour plating was introduced to try and afford some level of protection to the static guns and their crews that would previously have been sited on open ramparts.
In the initial war of movement the attempts to destroy these fortifications stand out; a juxtaposition of the centuries old techniques of siege warfare with the use of modern, destructive firepower. Whilst most of these forts were overrun by the Germans in 1914, this type of warfare would be seen again in 1916 at Verdun as the French utilised the ring of forts surrounding the symbolic town; the forts required large numbers of men and artillery to attack them, which diverted resources from the main German advance.
Breaking the Fortress Line 1914 by Clayton Donnell (ISBN: 9781848848139), 222 pages. You can buy this book on on Amazon (U.S.), Amazon (U.K.) or on Pen & Sword Books.
