Liege (5 ago 1914 ano – 16 ago 1914 ano)

Descrição:

The battle of Liege 3rd of August 1914:
Once war was officially declared against France these troops were tasked with taking the heavily fortified road that led through Belgium from Germany so that the German 1st, 2nd and 3rd Army would pass through without resistance.
This road was fortified with 5 forts built between 1880 and 1890. These forts were built with the guarantee that they could not be destroyed with any weapon of the time.
Once German army began to engage with the forts they started to suffer heavy casualties due to being caught in overlapping fields of heavy machine gun fire.
After multiple unsuccessful attempts to attack and over run the forts, the Germans began using zeppelins to bomb fortified positions and began to use what was known as ‘Big Bertha’.
Significance:
Traditionally, the 420mm howitzer was reserved for naval battleships as the ship would use the sea and the shear weight of the ship to handle the recoil generated from firing it.
‘Big Bertha’ was the first of her kind to be seen on any battlefield and sent shock waves as the effective distance that she could reach was approximately 15km’s which was approximately 2 km greater than the largest Allied 305mm field artillery.
Casualties:
The Belgian army had 20,000 casualties at Liege and by 8th of August, the German attackers had suffered 5,300 casualties.

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