1921 (Taisho 10) Monday, June 20 Crown Prince Hirohito, on a trip to Europe, toured the LONCIN battery in the city of Liege, a famous World War I battlefield in Belgium. Liege became an important battlefield in the beginning of World War I. On August 3, 1914, Germany declared war on France. According to the “Schlieffen Plan” that had been prepared for a long time, France bypassed the Franco-German border defended by fortresses and began to invade northern Belgium. On August 5, two days after the start of the war, the German army arrived in Liège, Belgium. The original Schlieffen Plan did not anticipate much resistance from fragile Belgian forces, but Fort Liege, defended by 30,000 men under General Gérard Lemans, fought stubbornly, and the 100,000 Germans eventually took 12 days to capture. This delay is said to have slowed the German advance and made the Allied forces ready to counterattack. In World War II, the German army also invaded France via Belgium, but in three days they captured Fort Liège.
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