Page:The Great War.djvu/71

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The Attack Upon Liege '59 burg. The first two would arrive in France behind the Belfort- Verdun barrier of forts and presumably compel the French Army on this line to fall back — opening the way for the Army of the Rhine and permitting the concentration of all three German armies well within French territory and north of Paris, the German objective. Now It remains to consider what happened. On Sunday, August 2, a German advance guard walked Into Luxemburg and occupied the principality. Since German mobilization had only just been or- dered, this was plainly merely a flying expedition made up of garrisons of frontier fortresses. Hav- ing occupied Luxemburg, they began to skirmish In front of Longwy, and this fighting continued grow- ing stiffer as the mass of the Army of the Moselle came up. In the same fashion there also began on Sunday skirmishing on the border facing Strassburg. CIrey was seized, raiding parties crossed the boundary and a dirigible dropped bombs In Luneville, the first con- siderable town on the line of the approach of the Army of the Rhine. Unmistakably and even before war was declared the first firing showed exactly where the storm was coming in these two quarters. It remains to consider the Army of the Meuse, which had assigned to It the most difficult preliminary role. Between Cologne, its base, and the frontier is a distance of twenty-five miles. Plainly the ad- vance guard, probably the army corps regularly sta-

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