Germany declares war on Belgium

At 6 a.m. on 4 August 1914 the German minister in Brussels handed the Belgian foreign minister a short note. In it Germany declared that, since Belgium had rejected its “well-intentioned proposals”, it was compelled to carry out, “if necessary by force of arms”, the measures it had announced earlier. The note did not call this a declaration of war outright, but in practice that is what it was. Two hours later German troops crossed the frontier.

War on a neutral state

Belgium posed no threat to Germany and was not party to any alliance. Its only “fault” was that it lay on the route that the German Schlieffen Plan laid down for the main blow against France. Marching through Belgium made it possible to bypass the heavily fortified Franco-German frontier and come out in the rear of the French Army.

Germany was one of the guarantors of Belgian neutrality, laid down in the Treaty of London of 1839. The attack on Belgium therefore meant breaking an obligation Germany itself had accepted. On the day of the invasion Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg admitted this openly in the Reichstag. He said that Germany was in a state of necessary defence and that “necessity knows no law”. He admitted that the entry into Belgium was contrary to international law and promised that Germany would make good the wrong done as soon as it had achieved its military aim.

Belgium’s response

On the same day King Albert I addressed the assembled parliament. He called on the Belgians to unite and defend their country. The government broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and appealed for help to the powers guaranteeing Belgium’s neutrality: Great Britain, France and Russia.

The Belgian Army, small and inadequately prepared, set about the defence. Its first point of resistance was the fortress of Liège, surrounded by a ring of forts on the banks of the Meuse. The Germans expected to take it within a few days.

Significance

The attack on Belgium had consequences that the German leaders underestimated. It settled the entry into the war of Great Britain, which declared war on Germany that same evening. The image of a small, invaded country that chose resistance over submission also influenced public opinion around the world, including in the neutral United States. For Belgium more than four years of occupation were beginning, and for its people a time of hunger, deportation and repression.