A powerful German knockout blow delivered through Belgium

was key to the German strategy of quickly defeating France and avoiding a two-front war.

Although resistance in Belgium was stauncher than anticipated,

the German right hook has broken through and is advancing into northern France.

Meanwhile, a French counteroffensive farther south has ended in disaster, huge casualties and nothing to show for them. The French army

is spent and is in retreat, and the German army is looking as strong as ever.

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The Episode 86, Paris cannot hold out.

When we last looked in on the Western Front, the situation was grim.

That the Germans might try a huge flanking maneuver through Belgium was not unexpected.

The French thought they were prepared for this contingency,

but the German offensive in the North was far larger than anyone had imagined.

The French response to hit the German center on the theory that a strong German flank meant a weak center,

but that had failed badly during the Battle of the Frontiers, as we saw in episode 84.

In fact, in one day during the height of the Battle of the Frontiers, August 22, 1914,

27,000 French soldiers were killed, making that the bloodiest day in all of French military history.

For all the awful bloodshed that is still to come in the Great War, this terrible record will never be equaled.

By August 24th, the French Army was in retreat along the entire front.

The other French strategy for answering a German offensive through Belgium was to swing

the French Fifth Army, the northernmost of France's five armies, farther north, into Belgium.

There, according to the plan, the Fifth Army would coordinate with the British and the Belgians.

The six divisions of the Belgian Army plus the six divisions of the British

...