Breaking the Fortress Line, 1914

by Clayton Donnell

Overview

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 Lige. 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. 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 Lige, nine more at Namur, and then the strongpoints of the first and second Sr de Rivires lines. Clayton Donnell provides a gripping narrative of the violent confrontation that followed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473830127
Publisher:	Pen & Sword Books Limited
Publication date:	01/31/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Clayton Donnell is retired from the US Air Force. He has a degree in history and has passionately studied military history and fortress engineering for thirty years. Clayton lived for many years in Europe and studied the architecture and archaeology of the most renowned fortress systems of Belgium, France and Germany. He created the first internet site in the world in English about the Maginot Line, and another on the fortress and Battle of Liège, Belgium. His publications include Modern European Military Fortifications, 1870-1950: A Selected Annotated Bibliography (edited with J.E. Kaufmann), The Forts of the Meuse in World War I, The German Fortress of Metz and Fortifications of Verdun 1874-1917.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi

1 An Introduction 1

2 War Plan Development 16

3 The German Strike at Liege: Initial Attacks 33

4 The German Strike at Liege: The Forts Hold Out 57

5 Namur 67

6 The French Retreat 98

7 Two Tragedies: Montmedy and Ayvelles 110

8 Between Two Battles - Fort Manonviller 117

9 Fortress Longwy 131

10 The Siege of Maubeuge 143

11 The German Retreat after the Battle of the Marne 160

12 The Heights of the Meuse 165

13 The Final Siege - Antwerp 180

14 Conclusions 196

Appendix I Chronology 205

Appendix II The German Heavy Siege Guns 207

Appendix III A Study of the Fall of the Forts of Liège 211

Notes 215

Bibliography 219

Index 220