New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2: Who Began the War, and Why?Various
History
New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2: Who Began the War, and Why?
Various
World War, 1914-1918
We are now able to report upon Liege Without doing any harm.... We
had only a weak force at Liege four days ago, for it is not
possible to prepare for such a bold undertaking by collecting large
masses of men. That we attained the desired end in spite of this is
due to the excellent preparation, the valor of our troops, their
energetic leadership, and the help of God. The courage of the enemy
was broken, and his troops fought badly. The difficulties against
us lay in the exceedingly unfavorable topography of the
surroundings, which consisted of hills and woods, and in the
treacherous participation of the entire population in the fighting,
not even excluding women. The people fired upon our troops from
ambush, from villages and forests--fired upon our physicians who
were treating the wounded, and upon the wounded themselves. Hard
and bitter fighting occurred; whole villages had to be destroyed in
order to break the resistance, before our brave troops penetrated
the girdle of forts and took possession of the city. It is true
that a part of the forts still held out, but they no longer fired.
The Kaiser did not want to waste a drop of blood in storming the
forts, which no longer hindered the carrying out of our plans. We
were able to await the arrival of heavy artillery to level the
forts one after the other at our leisure, and without the sacrifice
of a single life--in case their garrisons should not surrender
sooner.... So far as can be judged at present the Belgians had more
men for the defense of the city than we had for storming it. Every
expert can measure from this fact the greatness of our achievement;
it is without a parallel....
(Signed) VON STEIN,
Quartermaster General.
It is not the German people alone that will have cause to remember
Liege; the whole world will do well to learn from the case of Liege that
an organized manufactory of lies is trying to deceive the public opinion
of all the nations. Glorious victories are converted into "defeats with
heavy losses," and the strong moral discipline of the German troops is
slanderously described in the reports of the imaginative, phrase-loving
French as cruelty--just as in 1870 the Prussian Uhlans were described as
thrusting through with their lances all the French babies and pinning
them fast to the walls.
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