Siege of Maubeuge begins

On 25 August 1914 German troops began to encircle the French fortress of Maubeuge on the Sambre, right on the Belgian border. The same day the Belgian fortress of Namur fell. The units and heavy artillery released from there could now be turned against the next target.

A fortress left to itself

Maubeuge lay on the main route of the German invasion. A few days earlier the British Expeditionary Force had assembled near it before setting off for Mons. After the defeats at Mons and Charleroi, however, the British and the French Fifth Army were retreating southwards. Field Marshal John French did not want to shut his men up in the fortress because, as he later recalled, he feared they would share the fate of the French army shut up in Metz in 1870. The British columns therefore bypassed Maubeuge and marched on towards Le Cateau.

The fortress was left alone. Its garrison numbered, according to various sources, some 45,000–50,000 men, largely older soldiers from territorial units. It was commanded by its governor, General Joseph Fournier. The six main forts, most of them built in the 1880s, were not prepared for fire from the heaviest siege guns.

The ring closes

The German Second Army under General Karl von Bülow was ordered to cut off and take the fortress. Its units approached Maubeuge from the north-east, while others closed the roads south of the town. The British chronology of the war records the encirclement of the fortress under the date of 25 August. More recent studies hold that the ring was fully closed only on 26–28 August. The siege was entrusted to General Hans von Zwehl and his VII Reserve Corps, and German 420 mm mortars and Austro-Hungarian 305 mm mortars were brought up from Namur.

What came next

The bombardment of the forts began on 29 August. The fortress held out for almost two weeks, longer than Liège and Namur, tying down considerable German forces and blocking an important railway line. It capitulated on 7 September, during the Battle of the Marne, and more than 30,000 of its defenders were taken prisoner.