Siege of Maubeuge

French defense preparations

On August 7, General Fournier, commander of the fortified area of Maubeuge , warned of the possibility of a German attack by the 6th Corps through the Meuse . General Joseph Joffre removed Fournier for defeatism and replaced him with General Disalex. However, General Paul Poe, sent to reconsider the situation near Maubeuge, recommended the restoration of Fournier, and Joffre changed his mind ^[1] . At a British military meeting on August 12, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener predicted a German offensive through Belgium, but sent the British Expeditionary Force (BES), as planned, to Maubeuge instead of concentrating them a little further beyond Amiens . Kitchener ordered General French not to place himself under French command, but nevertheless, for the sake of an alliance , he left the British strategy to his discretion ^[2] . BES arrived in France on August 14-17, and on August 20 took positions on the left flank of the French 5th Army on the interval Maubeuge - Le Cato ^[3] . The next day, at dawn, the area was foggy, and aerial reconnaissance was only possible in the afternoon. BES began to move northward from Maubeuge to Mons , contrary to aerial reconnaissance reports that the German units “stretched to Leuven as far as the eye could see” ^[4] .

German preparations for the offensive

The Germans were aware of the possibility of a concentration of BES in Maubeuge, but disembarkation in the ports of the canal was also considered possible. On August 21, General Karl von Bülow ordered the 1st Army of General Alexander von Kluck to turn south to Mobёzh. On August 24, the VII Corps, which was on the right flank of the 2nd Army , advanced until the 13th Division was stopped by French fire from Maubeuge. The corps with the 13th division was ordered to isolate the southeastern edge of the city, and to advance against the right flank of the BES, south of Maubeuge in front of Alnyu, stopping at the rest on August 25. News came of the surrender of most of the forts of Namur ; aerial reconnaissance reported the start of a general retreat of the French to the Verdun - Mezieres -Maubeuge line. The 14th division of the VIIth Reserve Corps was ordered to go south to connect with the IXth Corps, and the VIIth - to isolate Maubeuge from both banks of the Sambra . The Germans had already expected that BES was about to get surrounded, but in the afternoon it was discovered that they had slipped away. Byulov ordered General Ein to block and neutralize Maubeuge by forces of the 7th Corps (without the 14th Division), the 7th Reserve Corps (without the 13th Reserve Division), the 9th Corps and artillery, which carried out the siege of Namur ^[5] .

The encirclement of the fortress began on August 26, and the next day Tsvel was ordered to carry out an attack on Maubeuge by forces of the 17th Division of the IX Corps; the rest of the units under Maubeuge were sent to pursue the Franco-British forces. On August 27th, the 13th Reserve Division was sent to Maubeuge, and the 7th Corps was ordered to leave one brigade to start the march southward. Zwel planned to attack the fortress from the northeast, delivering a minor blow south of Sambra. 3 sectors were created: the 1st - from Truila to Sambra below Maubeuge, the 2nd - from Sambra to the Solre stream and the 3rd - From Solre to Sambra north of the fortifications. The cavalry regiment covered the gap to the west and north. 21 batteries of heavy and super-heavy artillery from Namur were deployed between Givry and Solre ^[6] . On September 2, the 27th Reserve Infantry Brigade occupied the 1st sector, the 26th Infantry Brigade occupied the southern sector, and the units of the 13th Reserve Division occupied the new 4th sector west of Bavé ^[7] .

On the morning of August 24, French in a short message threatened to leave the French 5th Army near Amiens and retreat. Joffre convinced him and suggested that it would be better to begin the removal of BES to the Maubeuge fortress. But at the end of this day, the German 2nd Army began to attack the fortress and the next day isolated it, leaving behind one corps as a cover. The Commander-in-Chief French ordered the commandant of the fortress to hold on, as the Germans finished encircling the fortified area. August 29 - September 5, the fortress was shelled by German heavy and super-heavy artillery. On September 5, German infantry attacked the fortress and the next day stormed 4 forts. On the evening of September 6th, the fortified area of ​​Maubeuge surrendered ^[8] .

Losses

In the book “Principal Events, 1914-1918” ( Eng. Principal Events, 1914-1918 ) (1922), official history reports that 40,000 French soldiers were captured ^[9] . In 2009, Herwig noted that when Maubeuge surrendered on September 9, the Germans captured 32,692 prisoners and 450 guns ^[10] . The losses of Germany amounted to about 1,000 people ^[6] .

The fate of the fortress

On November 9, 1918, Maubeuge was liberated by the English Defensive and 62nd (West Raidin) divisions. ^[11]

• Storming Liege
• The Siege of Namur (1914)

In Russian:

• Zayonchkovsky A.M. World War I. - SPb. : Polygon, 2000 .-- 878 p. - ISBN 5-89173-082-0 .
• The history of the First World War of 1914-1918 / edited byI.I. Rostunova . - M .: Nauka , 1975 .-- T. 1 .-- 446 p.
• Barbara Tuckman . The first blitzkrieg. August 1914 = The Guns of August. - M .: AST , 1999 .-- 640 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7921-0245-7 .

In English:

• Cassou, P. La vérité sur le siège de Maubeuge : [] . - Paris: Berger Levrault, 1919.
• Edmonds, JE Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914: Mons, the Retreat to the Seine, the Marne and the Aisne August – October 1914. - 2nd. - London: Macmillan, 1926. - Vol. I.
• Herwig, H. The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle that Changed the World. - New York: Random House, 2009 .-- ISBN 978-1-4000-6671-1 .
• Humphries, MO Der Weltkrieg: 1914 The Battle of the Frontiers and Pursuit to the Marne / MO Humphries, J. Maker. - 1st. - Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013 .-- Vol. I. - ISBN 978-1-55458-373-7 .
• Skinner, HT Principal Events 1914–1918 / HT Skinner, H. Fitz M. Stacke. - London: HMSO , 1922. (link unavailable)
• Strachan, H. The First World War: To Arms. - Oxford: OUP, 2001 .-- Vol. I. - ISBN 0-19-926191-1 .
• Wyrall, E. The Story of the 62nd (West Riding) Division, 1914-1919. - Naval & Military Press. - London: The Bodley Head, 2003 .-- Vol. II. - ISBN 1-84342-582-3 .
• Zuber, T. Ten Days in August: The Siege of Liège 1914 .-- Stroud: The History Press, 2014 .-- ISBN 978-0-7509-5761-8 .

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