The first fights

August 1914 : the invasion of Belgium

The French have a resolutly offensive plan, the plan 17 : take back Alsace and Lorraine, march on Berlin. The first objective : Mulhouse. With an unsuited uniform for a modern war -dangerously bright red trousers, no helmets-, soldiers suffocate under their big wool jackets in the middle of summer, with a 5 kilos rifle. This new rifle represents a huge scientific advance : repeated shooting and a range of 400 meters, modern technology which makes archaïc and also criminal the bayonnet, actually used. They will cause hundred human lives. In Belgium, the Germans show that they are capable of reprisals. Civil people are afraid of the invaders and they rather to run away...

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