I understand there were a series of extremely advanced fortresses surrounding Liege, commanded by the Belgian commander Leman, and until the Krupp and Skoda artillery could arrive, these fortresses were impenetrable and Liege by extension was impregnable, also thanks to the "gap divisions" of Belgians between the fortresses.
However, John Keegan says in The First World War that Erich Luddendorff was able to take command of a few German soldiers, occupy a small Belgian village and use that to enter Liege and capture the citadel, but I'm having trouble visualizing this.
Where was this village? Why was it not defended as heavily? How did Luddendorff use it to enter Liege? What exactly did that do to help the German attack?
Thank you.
A very quick answer, the fortification of Liege is a ring of forts build around the town of Liege. There are considerable gaps in between the forts where a small detachment of soldiers could slip through, however large formations were unable to march since the roads were well covered by gunfire from the forts.
The Belgian plan for defence deployed one and a half divisions of infantry in Liege to support the fortress and counter any attempts by the enemy to infiltrate into the town, however on August 6 the German troops began to flank the fortress from the north. Leman was worried that the infantry could be encircled and lost for nothing, hence he ordered them to redeploy on the Gete where they could put up a better defence or fall back to Antwerp if necessary, thus leaving the fortress to fend for itself.
