BELCH'S HOT

Evening Star, Issue 23383, 28 September 1939, Page 12

BELCH'S HOT

THE LESSON OF 1914 DEFENCE OF MEUSE FORTS AND TANK TRAPS Twenty-five years ago “ the cockpit of Europe ” was a stock phrase for Belgium, so named because her soil and people have been trampled on by successions of invaders to the plains of France. From 1600 onwards Belgium for two centuries was repeatedly the battleground of Europe, but in 1839 she was, by solemn declaration of France, Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, declared a permanently neutral State. Belgium rested on the promise until August 2, 1914, ivhen Germany toi’e up the “ scrap of paper,” and on August 4 crossed the frontier. Political and diplomatic moves and measures to safeguard her neutrality apart, Belgium has rested less on assurances since 1918, and, lacking a great man power, has built up frontier fortifications more complete and far more formidable than w'ere tho old forts of 1914.

It is not by chance that Belgium has suffered from the heels of invaders down the centuries, for geography lias made her the way of the aggressor from the east. Liddell Hart has summarised the nature of the country and the steps taken by Belgium to defend herself in his ‘ Defence of Britain.’

Strategically, he wrote, Belgium may be compared to a roughly-drawn figure 8, in which the upper circle is about twice the size of the lower circle. At the top of the upper circle is the lowlying plain of Flanders, with its network of canals and irrigation channels; the rest of it is gently undulating country. The lower circle is filled by the wooded and mountainous Ardennes. Along the right side of the upper circle, across the intersection, and down the left of the lower circle runs the deepcut valley of tho Meuse. In the first swetch it covers the heart of Belgium; in the second it offers a convenient route across tho waist of Belgium into France which Germanic invaders have many times used in the past; in the third stretch it forms a back-stop to the Ardennes and, thereby strengthens the natural protection they provide to the frontier of France in this region. “ The defence problem of Belgium turns on the course of the Meuse, and its solution largely depends on the maintenance of the obstacle to an invader that is offered by this great natural moat,” he says. “If it is lost there are other lines of resistance behind, but any withdrawal from the Meusq involves tho abandonment of important areas of Belgian territory, while no rearward line equals its advantages for defence.” DANGER IN NEW DIRECTION. for the Belgians the obvious plan of defence is to make sure of holding the Meuse moat, while utilising the Ardennes as a buffer to absorb the shock of any hostile advance that comes that way, but, ho says, they have to reckon with the possibility of having to meet danger in a new direction, where they are more vulnerable, on their Dutch flank, for an advance through Holland would not only strike Belgium whore she has in the past been least prepared for defence, but would stretch her available forces to a greatly increased extent. Giving his impressions of a recent tour of the frontiers, Captain Hart wrote of the immensely strong natural defences 'of the Ardennes—if used for resistance and not for attempted rapid movement. Much of this country is heavily wooded, with deep-cut rivers, and at many points where tho roads cross them a handful of machine guns could hold up an army corps. Chains of pillboxes cover the approaches to mam road centres, and elsewhere natural barriers are strengthened by art. ARDENNES TO THE LIEGE GAP. The evidence of the new fortifications beyond the Ardennes to the Liege gap is still more profuse. On the outskirts of Liege is the first “ line of security,” in a chain of pillboxes permanently manned, and beside them movable antitank barricades which can be swiftly pushed into position to block the road. Liege lies in the trough of the Meuse, with high cliffs walling it on either side, so that the roads leading from Germany descend by steep and narrow valleys. The strength of the line of security lies in the fact that an invader is unable to leave the roads and . attain its posts. Next, about six miles ‘rorn the centre, comes the line of old tori;. now modernised, 12 in number, and continuous anti-tank and deep wire entanglement across the front. Halt a down miles further out one comes to tin- line of the four new forts. Each is surrounded bv an immense anti-tank moat. That at Battico he estimates to be over two miles round, with a perpendicular concrete wall 15 feet deep on the outside and n steep glacis about 40 feet high on the inside; casemate arc built in to enfilade tho moat. He doubts the necessity of such immense moats, and adds: - “ The garrisons consist entirely of armour-encased artillery and machine guns, all underground, so that it is hard to see how tanks could endanger them.” The country between the forts is filled with a close-linked chain of pillboxes to form a continuous network of fire. Farther out again, only a few miles from tho frontier, is a forward line of posts and defended localities. Many of the pillboxes nestle in the fields, painted to tone with the background, but in the villages and hamlets one notices apparently brick-built cottages or outhouses which have no windows or else dummy windows. More formidable still, as a barrier to sudden invasion, is the deep belt of prepared •demolitions, at bridge after bridge, road, rail, and canal, with sentries continuously on watch.

The Meuse north of Liege has received similar attention. The natural water obstacle is strengthened by a chain, of casemates, three to thomile, along the bank, and at the junction of the Albert Canal and the Meuse is the new fort of Ebon Amael, commanding the passage where the Germans were able to gain a crossing in 1914 and thus outflank Liege from the north. Ehen Amael is even larger than the fort of Battice, with a deep water-filled antitank moat and tunnel access to the underground galleries. "THE MAASTRICHT APPENDIX.”

North-east of Liege is the narrow tongue of • the Netherlands which has been called the “ Maastricht appendix,” a southward projection of Dutch territory which narrows to a neck barely five miles wide. As this is too narrow to be defended by the Dutch, the Belgians have to face the possible dailger of a sudden irruption on their own frontier, formed by the Meuse. Once across the river an invader would until recently have met with no further serious obstacle, but now the Belgians