was moving between the Scheldt and the Dutch frontier, seeking contact with Rawlinson's force and the French Naval Bde. which were collecting towards Ghent.
In the afternoon of the yth, under instructions from O.H.L., Gen. von Beseler informed the governor of his decision to bombard the city of Antwerp, commencing at midnight, in default of previous capitulation. This attempt at intimidation had not the smallest effect upon either Gen. Deguise or on the Communal Council which, convoked by the governor, declared itself to be " willing to accept the consequences of prolonging the defence to its extreme limits," and assured him, moreover, that it never would try to influence the decision of the military authorities responsible for such defence.
The bombardment began at midnight. 1 It was directed especially on the gates of the enceinte. Certain quarters of the town were attacked by long-range guns. On the same night (yth-Sth) part of the III. Res. Corps pushed its patrols up to the fort line of defence.
On the 8th, Gen. Paris, the English general, and Lt.-Gen. Dassin, commanding the Belgian 2nd Div., came to the con- clusion that resistance to a determined attack on the following day would be hopeless. On hearing this and also that Gen. Paris, after telephonic communication with the British Ad- miralty, had received orders to bring away the Naval Div., Gen. Deguise at 5:30 P.M. gave up the idea of holding the fort line of defence any longer, and decided to take advantage of the night to withdraw all the troops occupying it to the left bank of the Scheldt.
The orders were :
(1) The British Naval Div. to cross in the night and entrain at St. Gilles Waes for Ostend.
(2) The 2nd Belgian Div. to accompany the British Div., covering its entrainment at St. Gilles Waes against the German troops re- ported near Lokeren (see below), then to march westward and try to rejoin the rest of the Belgian army.
(3) The forts still intact to defend themselves individually to the utmost.
(4) The enceinte to be handed over to the Germans when they appeared before it, in order to save the city from unnecessary damage.
(5) A force of some 20,000 men of the garrison troops, under Gen. Deguise himself, to hold out as long as possible in the entrenched camp formed by the Scheldt and the forts of the left bank.
These movements took place in the night of the 8th-pth without being disturbed by the Germans (who had no suspicion of them), but not without a good deal of confusion. Meanwhile the bombardment of the city continued.
On the ;th the Germans had succeeded in forcing the passage of the Scheldt at Schoonaerde. The advance was pushed to within 2 m. of Lokeren, where sharp resistance was again met. The Belgian army was in fact streaming past the front of this small force in several columns; neither side, however, was in a position to take the initiative of an encounter battle, the Ger- mans owing to the tactical, the Belgians owing to the strategical risks that this action would have involved.
Next day the Belgian divisions, though the enemy did not know it, were past the reach of attack and in touch with the French and British forces at and north of Ghent, leaving no baggage or stragglers to be picked up, since all impedimenta had been removed in the transfer of base to Ostend several days earlier.
On the pth, therefore, the three German brigades, now followed by the rest of the 4th Ersatz Div., struck a blow in the air, while the ist Res. Ers. Bde. from Alost advanced on Ghent, and at Melle became involved in a very heavy fight with the French Naval Bde. and some Belgian batteries (Oct. 9 and 10). On the loth, wheeling inwards to invest the fortress, and thus turning their backs to the Belgian field army, the five German brigades N. of the Scheldt pushed on to the line St. Gilles Waes-St. Nicolas, Kettermuit. But instead of the expected main body of the Belgians they only encountered the 2nd Belgian Div., which passed under fire of their guns at Moerbeke westward
1 It was opened by a battery of 5-9 shielded guns, E. of Lierre, 16,500 yd. from the nearest point of the enceinte. Later 13-cm. batteries were also employed. (C. F. A.)
and the two last battalions of the British Naval Div., which were caught at St. Gilles Waes and forced over the Dutch frontier.
Thus did the greater part of the prey which the Germans counted on capturing at Antwerp escape them.
Meanwhile Gen. Deguise was preparing to defend the en- trenched camp on the left bank of the Scheldt. But his remain- ing troops were of mediocre quality. The men of the fortress battalions were old, their officers few hardly one per company and nearly all either reserve officers or newly commissioned- The N.C.Os. were scarce and did not know their men. In fact, Gen. Deguise had 20,000 men in uniform rather than 20,000 combatants. On troops such as these the fury of the bombard- ment naturally had produced a great effect, and the departure of all field troops, and that of the English whom they had wel- comed so hopefully, led them to look upon themselves as so many units written off. During the whole of the 8th and gth their lines were crossed by crowds of civilians who, carting their families and their furniture and driving their live stock in front of them, filled all the roads and routes leading westward, repeating as they went the stories, a hundred times magnified, of Vise and Louvain, of Dinant and Aerschot.
The spectacle of this deplorable exodus completed the de- pression of the soldiers. It was no longer possible to expect this almost shephcrdlcss flock of men at bay to defend themselves in open trenches when they had seen armour and concrete ruined in a few hours.
On the evening of the gth Gen. Deguise, knowing that the Germans were near Lokeren and believing, through an erroneous report, that they had also crossed the river at Antwerp itself, became convinced that no further organized resistance was possible. Officers and units were allowed to leave the fortress at will and were to attempt to rejoin the field army. Many acted upon this and some succeeded, the rest taking refuge in Holland. On the loth the general sent a flag of truce to Gen. von Beseler to enquire the conditions of surrender. But mean- time the civil authorities, seeing the city to be empty of troops, had acted on their own account. The situation was grave. At about twenty points fires had been started by the bombard- ment. The waterworks at Waelhem on the Rupel having been in German hands for a week, the firemen could not undertake to master the flames in the fire areas. With a sudden violent wind the whole city might be set ablaze.
To save the city from a disaster, which could be of no advan- tage from a military point of view, the leading townsmen had sent a deputation to Gen. von Beseler to obtain a cessation of the bombardment, and on the afternoon of the gth an agreement was signed suspending the bombardment on condition of the surrender of all the works of the fortress the following day at noon. Gen. Deguise had no choice but to ratify this agreement.
Deep as was the impression made upon the world by the fall of Antwerp, the material strategic gain to the Germans was far less than had been anticipated. Although in military stores and economic resources their booty was considerable, not only had the whole of the Belgian field army made good its escape, but not even the fortress troops were left to adorn the German triumph. As to the works which had not been attacked, they were empty and in most cases rendered useless by their com- mandants.
Antwerp Port Arthur Verdun. The rapid fall of Antwerp in 1914 may seem astonishing when compared with the resistance of Port Arthur in 1904 and that of Verdun in 1916. It is neces- sary, however, both in appreciating the resistance of the Belgian fortress and in deducing technical lessons from the siege, to compare the conditions of the three cases in some detail.
Although Port Arthur possessed no cupolas and several of its forts were unfinished, yet the Russians had six months' leisure to prepare, not a line, but a zone of defence 3 m. deep, in which forts, trenches and redoubts formed a tangled system, cleverly applied to very difficult ground. Dug out of hard rock, these entrenchments offered an exceptionally good resistance to the engines of destruction. The artillery of the defence was ample and well distributed in the intervals. Finally, the Japanese
