The Rest Is History

Episode 594: The First World War: The Invasion of Belgium (Part 1)
Date: August 24, 2025
Hosts: Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook

Overview

This episode kicks off a multi-part deep-dive into the early months of the First World War, focusing on the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. With their trademark wit and rich historical analysis, Tom and Dominic explore not only the military maneuvers, but also the context, motivations, myths, and atrocities surrounding the dramatic opening moves of history’s "defining modern calamity." This instalment goes in-depth on the Schlieffen Plan, the German mindset, Belgian resistance, civilian massacres, and the catastrophic impact on Germany’s reputation, setting the stage for the horrors that would define the rest of the war.

Main Topics & Key Insights

Setting the Stage: Europe’s Descent into War

• German Perspective & War Guilt

  • Reading from German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s speech on August 4, 1914—capturing the sense of a cultured nation forced into war.
    • Notable quote (Bethmann Hollweg via Tom Holland, 02:12): “Only in defence of a just cause shall our sword fly from its scabbard. The day has now come when we must draw it against our wish and in spite of our sincere endeavours.”
  • Early war narratives: Germany as both aggressor and victim—debates over blame, especially in historical literature (notably Fritz Fischer's controversial thesis of continuity between Wilhelmine Germany and Nazism).
    • Dominic Sandbrook (07:00): “Fritz Fischer said...Nazism didn’t come from nowhere. There’s a continuity between the Wilhelmine Empire and the Third Reich.”

• Fear, Encirclement, and the Calculus of Risk

  • German leadership, especially Moltke the Younger, acting from a mix of aggression and deep insecurity—haunted by the specter of encirclement by France and Russia.
    • Tom Holland (14:34): “Russia and France are on either flank of Germany...that they might be crushed between these two sides.”

War Plans and the March into Belgium

• The Schlieffen Plan and Strategic Imperatives (16:23–19:16)

  • Detailed explanation of the famous German strategy to knock out France before turning east to face Russia.
    • The plan required a rapid advance through Belgium to encircle Paris, relying on precise timetables and the dense Belgian railway network.
    • Dominic Sandbrook (16:23): “If we have a long war, there will probably be an economic collapse and a revolution...So the priority is to knock one enemy out before turning on the other one.”

• Diplomatic Blunders and the Belgian Ultimatum (26:51–28:44)

  • Germany’s demand for safe passage, Belgian refusal, and Britain’s subsequent entry into the war—driven in part by the need to uphold Belgian neutrality (“a scrap of paper”).
    • Dominic Sandbrook (29:36): “Bethmann Hollweg said...‘You are fighting just for a scrap of paper.’...the British turn it into a great propaganda weapon.”

The Belgian Defense and German Atrocities

• The Invasion and the Heroic Stand of Liege (34:27–39:22)
  • 750,000 German troops surge across Belgium; unexpected Belgian resistance at Liege delays the Germans and captures world attention.
    • Belgian Officer (Max Hastings’ quote, 37:27): “We simply mowed them down...the fallen were heaped one on top of the other in an awful barricade of dead and wounded men.”
  • The first zeppelin raid in history; the psychological shock of industrial warfare.

Notable Prose & Character Moments

• Descriptions of German columns: “columns of grey infantry, many of them...in those spiked helmets that you like so much.” (34:12)

• Moustache banter: The hosts’ comic riff on military facial hair among the combatant nations (11:09–12:23).

• Massacres and Reprisals: The ‘Rape of Belgium’ (39:50–52:39)

  • The myth and reality of German atrocities: systematic reprisals against civilians, fueled by rumors and collective memory of French partisan warfare in 1870.

    • Entire villages wiped out after suspected attacks, with hundreds of civilians killed in the war's first days—actions justified by the Germans as responses to alleged civilian ambushes.

    • Dominic Sandbrook (41:38): “After just four days of the war, the Germans have executed at least 850 Belgian civilians. And this is the sort of the taint that has marked the German record in the First World War ever since.”

  • Analysis of German soldiers’ motives, discipline breakdown, and the effect of fear, confusion, and expectations of conventional warfare.

  • Media and Propaganda:

    • “Scrap of paper” and “Hun” become dominant elements in Allied propaganda.
    • Atrocities—real, exaggerated, and fictionalized—fuel international outrage (notably in Britain and America).

  • The burning of Louvain’s medieval library—symbolic catastrophe for Germany's cultural reputation.

    • Dominic Sandbrook (55:15): “They break into the university library and set it on fire...A quarter of a million books went up in smoke...And this is the one incident that goes around the world and leads to people saying, they're the Huns, they're barbarians, they're book burners.”

German Mindset and the “Beastliness” Debate

• German officers and soldiers often see themselves as “doing their duty,” not sadistically, but with grim resignation and sometimes genuine horror at their own actions.

  • Dominic Sandbrook (52:39): “We have to do it, but I hope we can stop soon because...we're not Huns and we don't want to sully the honour of the German name.”

• The escalation and subsequent propaganda echo the “savage” language used by both sides, with references to “plucky little Belgium” and the supposed “Hun” barbarity fostering national unity and righteous anger in Britain.

Tension, Timetables, and the March to Paris

• Despite atrocities and the delay at Liege, German armies make impressive gains, but time is running out before the Russians threaten Berlin and the westward gamble risks collapse.

  • Richard Harding Davis (American journalist in Brussels, 58:46): “This was a machine, endless, tireless, with the delicate organization of a watch and the brute power of a steamroller...a force of nature like a landslide, a tidal wave or lava...it carried all the mystery and menace of a fog rolling towards you across the sea.”

• With Brussels fallen, the armies press toward Flanders, the Marne, and Paris;

• The hosts close on the question: Will the Germans reach their objectives before the clock runs out and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrives to intervene?

Memorable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• "Only in defence of a just cause shall our sword fly from its scabbard..."
  – Theobald Bethmann Hollweg (via Tom Holland), 02:22

• "I think in this series we're going to look at the first months of the war up to the end of 1914. The German advance on Paris, the heroic defense of Liege, the so-called rape of Belgium..."
  – Dominic Sandbrook, 04:36

• "The Schlieffen plan requires France to be knocked out within six weeks."
  – Tom Holland, 22:57

• "Bethmann Hollweg said to him: 'You are fighting just for a scrap of paper.'...the British turn it into a great propaganda weapon."
  – Dominic Sandbrook, 29:36

• "We simply mowed them down. They came on almost shoulder to shoulder until as we shot them down, the fallen were heaped one on top of the other in an awful barricade of dead and wounded men."
  – Belgian Officer (as quoted via Max Hastings), 37:27

• "If their army is capable of doing what it is doing, then the rest of the race must be the same. From now onwards, I shall regard every German man, woman and child from the Kaiser downwards as a willful savage."
  – British naval cadet, (from Max Hastings, cited by Dominic Sandbrook), 55:20

• "This was a machine, endless, tireless, with the delicate organization of a watch and the brute power of a steamroller...It was not of this earth, but mysterious ghost like it carried all the mystery and menace of a fog rolling towards you across the sea."
  – Richard Harding Davis, 58:46

Timestamps: Key Segments

• 01:59 – Dramatic readings: German pre-war mindset, Bethmann Hollweg’s address
• 04:36 – Series overview and the stakes of the First World War
• 07:00 – The Fischer thesis and debates over German war guilt
• 16:23 – The Schlieffen Plan explained; urgency of German timetables
• 26:51 – Ultimatum to Belgium, British intervention, “scrap of paper” incident
• 34:27 – Numbers and strategy of the German invasion force; the Liege defense
• 39:50 – Atrocities begin: Bernau, Melan, and mass civilian reprisals
• 52:39 – German diaries, sense of duty, contrast to later Nazi atrocities
• 55:15 – Burning of the Louvain library and the collapse of Germany’s cultural image
• 58:46 – The fall of Brussels: American eyewitness account; the war machine advances toward Paris

Tone and Atmosphere

Tom and Dominic maintain a blend of dramatic gravitas, dark humor, irreverent banter (notably about general’s names and moustaches), and poignant anti-war commentary. The observations are both empathetic to human suffering and intellectually rigorous in unpicking propaganda, myth, and the raw horror of war.

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a gripping, densely detailed account of the outbreak of total war in 1914—showing how a blend of fear, strategic necessity, political blunders and myth-making led to the German onslaught on Belgium, and how this shaped everything that followed. The hosts promise to continue the story with more on German advances, British intervention, and the catastrophic escalation that would define a generation.

Up Next:
Will the Germans reach Paris before the timetable runs out? And what of "our own plucky countrymen, the British?" Stay tuned for Part 2.