The Guns of August

CHAPTER 2 · AUG–SEP 1914 · The Great War, 1914–1918

The three charcoal arrows sweeping through Belgium are the Schlieffen Plan: hold in the east, put seven-eighths of the army in the west, and swing the massive right wing through neutral Belgium to envelop Paris from behind — France beaten in six weeks, then everyone east by rail to meet Russia. It almost describes what happened. Liège’s forts cost ten days and were smashed by 420mm siege guns; the army that marched past them burned Louvain and shot some 6,500 civilians against imagined snipers — the “Rape of Belgium” was real, and it armed Allied propaganda for four years. Meanwhile France ble

The turn: The Marne, 5–12 September.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.