Battle of Mechelen

The Battle of Mechelen, Malines in French, was the Belgian army’s first sortie from the fortress of Antwerp. It was fought on 25–27 August 1914 south of Mechelen, on the flat ground between Antwerp and Brussels. The Belgians tried to tie down as many German troops as possible while the French and British were fighting hard battles on the French frontier.

An army in the National Redoubt

After the fall of Liège and the retreat from the Gete, the Belgian army took refuge in Antwerp, surrounded by a ring of forts. King Albert I, who commanded the army in person, did not, however, intend to wait passively for a siege. The fortress lay on the flank and in the rear of the German armies marching through Belgium into France, which gave the Belgians the chance to threaten their communications.

From 21 August the main German forces disappeared from in front of the Belgian line and headed for the Sambre and Hainaut. To watch Antwerp they left III Reserve Corps under General Hans von Beseler and IX Reserve Corps. Their positions stretched along a very wide front, from Wolvertem through Elewijt to Aarschot and Diest. On 24 August the Belgian command learned of heavy fighting on the Sambre and at Mons. It was judged a good moment for a sortie, before the Germans had time to strengthen their positions.

The plan

The attack was to be made on a front some 20 kilometres wide, between the Willebroek Canal in the west and the river Dijle in the east. The main blow in the centre, towards Hofstade and Elewijt, was entrusted to the 6th Division. To its right, between the canal and the river Zenne, the 1st and 5th Divisions attacked. The 2nd Division was to enter the fighting on the left wing, towards Boortmeerbeek. The 3rd Division remained in reserve behind the 6th Division, and the Cavalry Division in the Putte area.

Course of the battle

On 25 August the Belgians went into the attack and ran into defences better prepared than they had expected. Even so, the 6th Division took Hofstade and the woods near Schiplaken, and the 1st and 5th Divisions captured Zemst, Weerde and Eppegem. The fighting was bloody. A brigade made up of carabiniers and grenadiers lost nearly 800 killed, wounded and missing at Hofstade and Schiplaken. In the villages they took, Belgian soldiers found burned houses and the bodies of murdered civilians, which inflamed their determination still further.

The attack did not succeed everywhere. On the left wing the 2nd Division failed to get across to the western bank of the Leuven–Mechelen canal and had to fall back. In the centre the 6th Division did not take Elewijt. On 26 August the Germans, reinforced, put up ever stiffer resistance. Meanwhile news arrived that the battles on the Sambre and at Mons had ended in Allied defeat and that the French and British forces were retreating southwards. Further attack lost its point. The Belgians broke off the operation and by 27 August had returned behind the line of Antwerp’s forts.

The air raid on Antwerp

During these days Antwerp was bombed from the air for the first time. A German airship dropped bombs on the city centre. According to eyewitness accounts about ten civilians were killed, and one of the bombs fell near the palace where the royal family was staying. Sources differ on the date: witnesses gave the night of 24–25 August, while some studies give the night of 25–26 August. It was one of the first air raids in history on a city full of civilians.

The crime at Louvain

The Belgian sortie caused confusion in the German rear. On the evening of 25 August units withdrawing from the fighting began to stream in disorder into Louvain. Shots rang out in the town. German soldiers, convinced that the inhabitants were firing on them, began a massacre and set fires. Belgian troops never reached Louvain, and the shots were most probably fired in panic by the Germans themselves. Over the following days 248 inhabitants were killed and more than a thousand buildings destroyed, and on the night of 25–26 August the university library with its priceless manuscripts burned down. We describe the crime in the article The Germans destroy Louvain.

Losses

According to Belgian estimates, the Belgian army’s losses in the first sortie exceeded 4,000 killed, wounded and missing. German losses are not known precisely.

Significance

The sortie brought the Belgians no lasting gains and revealed the weaknesses of a young, insufficiently trained army. It did, however, achieve some of its aims: it alarmed the Germans and forced them to leave substantial forces in Belgium, which were then lacking on the French front. In the following weeks the Belgian army twice more sallied out of Antwerp, among other times on 9–13 September, during the Battle of the Marne.