Waelhem and Lierre and the Chemin de Fer redoubt were constructed S. of the Nethe as a sort of bridgehead. Meanwhile the demands of the port were growing, and the city was becoming cramped within its enceinte. It was therefore decided about 1900 to extend the defensive system still further.

The scheme adopted by the legislative chambers in 1906 provided

for:

(1) The creation of a principal line of defence, composed of detached forts about 5 to 11 m. from the limits of the Antwerp agglomeration, to shelter the city from bombardment by the artillery of that epoch. This line was, on an average, about 2 m. in front of the RupelNethe water-line, thus placing the crossing points of this line out of reach of heavy field artillery. Its total perimeter was 59 m., 46 m. on the right bank and 13 m. on the left, of which 6 m. were protected by inundations.

The forts, 17 in number, were disposed about 3 m. apart, and, in principle, permanent redoubts were to be built in the intervals. The forts were armed with one or two cupolas for twin 15-cm. guns, two cupolas for single 12-cm. howitzers, and four or six cupolas for single 7.5-cm. guns. The redoubts had only one 7.5-cm. cupola. Forts and redoubts were constructed entirely of ordinary concrete, with vaults 2.50 metres thick at the crown and surrounded by wet ditches, 33 ft. wide. They all had traditores or Bourges casemates flanking the intervals with 7.5-cm. Q.F. guns. The garrisons varied from 100 to 500 men.

(2) The creation of an enceinte de sûreté on the old fort line, the forts being organized for small weapons. Concrete redoubts were built at intervals of about 500 yd. and all these points d'appui were connected by a grille. This line of defence was to be 20 m. long and 5 to 7 m. removed from the first line of defence.

(3) The demolition of the elaborate enceinte built in 1859 in the immediate vicinity of the town.

(4) Additional defences on the Lower Scheldt, including several coast batteries level with Doel to sweep the reaches of the river up to the Dutch frontier.

These very extensive works had necessarily to be spread over several years, and in 1914, on the outbreak of hostilities, the transformation of the fortress had not been completed.

(1) Even if the organization had been carried through according to plan, the fortress would not have come up to the standards established by the siege of Port Arthur. The two positions of defence were too shallow in themselves and also too far apart to support one another. The points d'appui of these positions, in which the elements of permanent defence were concentrated on a small ground surface, very easy to locate, were conceived on a vicious principle. Monolithic concrete is not invulnerable to present-day siege artillery; the organs of defence should therefore be protected above all by their dissemination, by camouflage and by their irregular dispersion over a large surface on the principle of the Metz Feste.

The substructures and the armouring, constructed to resist the 21cm. mortar, were not calculated to face 28-cm., still less 30.5 and 42cm. projectiles.1

(2) In July 1914 not one of the forts planned in 1906 was finished. Some lacked cupolas. Others had cupolas without concrete aprons, and these had to be improvised by pouring gravel, iron rods and cement round the cupolas. In some cases sacks of cement soaked with water, or even simple sandbags, had to suffice.

The transmissions and canalizations were not established either inside or outside the forts, neither was the machinery in place.

(3) For reasons of economy the 15-cm. cupolas had been provided with old guns, formerly on wheeled carriages, which had a range of not more than 8,800 yd. and used black powder. The most recent guns, amongst them those of the traditore batteries, hastily installed, were for the most part without laying instru nents. Of the other guns available the most powerful was the 1889 model 15-cm. which had a range of 11,000 yards. Older guns or howitzers, of 12 or 15 cm. were also available, all using black powder. England sent six 4.7 Q.F. guns, mounted on armoured railway trucks, and, in the last days of the siege, six 6-in. guns. No equipment for observation of fire and no observation posts existed, and the necessary survey work for firing by the map was incomplete. There were ten aeroplanes and one balloon for the fortress and the field army together.

The supply of ammunition was extremely modest, the 15-cm. guns being provided with 800 rounds, the others with only 125. Some French ammunition was hurriedly obtained, but, not being designed for the guns, it speedily put them out of action.

(4) The fort garrisons were chiefly of the oldest classes. The Lebel rifle with which they were armed was strange to them and they were entirely ignorant of the machine-gun. The men of the fortress battalions which garrisoned the intervals had had no military 1 Twenty-eight cm. howitzers were used by the Japanese at Port Arthur 1904-5. The first German model of 30.5-cm. siege howitzer was designed as early as 1898. (C. F. A.)

2 Its 38-kgm. shell was powder-filled. An order for 8,000 H.E. shells had been placed in Germany in 1912, but the firm concerned failed to deliver them.

service for 10 years or more and their fighting value was very low. The cadres were entirely inadequate.

Unfinished works, conspicuous and concentrated, proof only against projectiles of 21 cm.; obsolete artillery, lacking in observation-posts and in munitions; a garrison full of goodwill but with inadequate cadres and untrained in the handling of modern weapons-such were the real means of defence of the legendary fortress of Antwerp in 1914.

None the less the Belgians displayed, from the moment when their territory was invaded, the utmost activity in preparing it. The unfinished forts were put in a state of defence by any means that came to hand. The aprons for the cupolas were banked up as best they could be. Distribution systems were created for motive power, lighting and telephones. The immediate foreground was cleared, though this did more harm than good, as it made the works very visible. The inundations were prepared. Forts and redoubts were united by continuous wire. In the rear infantry trenches were constructed, but these inevitably showed well above ground on account of the waterlevel in the soil, and the shelters, which were none too numerous, were made merely with logs. The reserve artillery of the fortress was established in battery positions, which gave an average of five old-pattern guns, firing black powder, per km. of front.' A supporting position along the whole length of the Nethe was put in hand. The old fort line, and even the enceinte (which had been only partially demolished), were also organized as far as possible.

The unfinished state of the fortress and the mediocrity of its armament formed a serious handicap to the important part which Antwerp was destined to take in the operations.

(1) As a great commercial metropolis, always abundantly supplied with products of all kinds, Antwerp was an obvious centre for military depots and stores. Containing all the army's arsenals and supply magazines, it was a base of operations from which the army could under no circumstances allow itself to be cut off.

(2) By reason of its situation Antwerp offered to the Belgian field army a stronghold from which it could sally forth at any time it chose, to threaten the lines of communication of the German armies operating in the north of France.

(3) Through Ostend and Zeebrugge Antwerp had easy means of communication with England. Under the shelter of the fortress and the Scheldt English troops could safely land in Flanders, act in liaison with the Belgian army, operate against the German lines of communication, protect the Pas de Calais coast with its sea traffic, vital to England, and prevent the Allied left wing from being turned and enveloped.

To fulfil these important missions the fortress should have been complete and well manned. Failing these two conditions, it was of no importance save for the presence of the Belgian field army within its walls.

The Belgian army had fallen back in the direction of Antwerp when, to avoid envelopment by the German I. and II. Armies, the Nethe position had to be evacuated (Aug. 18-20). Hence, too, after the sortie battles of Aug. 25 (Eppeghem, Hofstade, Werchter) and Sept. 9-12 (Aerschot, Haecht, Louvain) undertaken for the purpose of coöperating in the battle of the Frontiers and that of the Marne, the army returned in each case to the fortress, resolved to stay there as long as its communications with the sea were not in danger.

When the German I. Army wheeled through and past Brussels on its way to France, it dropped the III. Res. Corps (v. Beseler) to face northward as a flank-guard against the Belgian field army at Antwerp. With some additions and changes, Beseler's force remained on the defensive, fulfilling this duty on the line Grimberghen-Over de Vaert-Aerschot.

On Aug. 25 and again on Sept. 9 it had to meet serious sorties of the field army in Antwerp, and on the second of these occasions its situation was at one time critical. After this, for a few days, the front was quiet. But towards Sept. 20 reports began to come in of important German transport moves and of a quantity of very heavy artillery moving on the roads leading

1 The artillery of the field army of course excluded.

2 Till Sept. 8 Beseler remained under command of I. Army. From Sept. 8 to Sept. 10 his force was under the VII. Army headquarters. Finally on Sept. 17 the force was designated "Armeegruppe Beseler." (C. F. A.)

On the 30th the situation grew worse. The 1st Div. deployed between the Heyndonck inundation and Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine was worn out by three days of bombardment and had to abandon its ruined entrenchments and transfer the defence to the N. bank of the Nethe, leaving Fort Waelhem to defend itself in isolation. The right of the and Div., affected by the retreat of neighbouring troops, and itself heavily engaged, gave way at one time.

The German infantry had not yet attacked' at any point, but all the works had suffered terribly except Fort Lierre. The artillery both of the forts and of the intervals maintained the struggle all day against the German gunners. Between the Senne and the Scheldt two powerful attacks on Blaesveld and on the sector of the 6th Div. were repulsed.

The Germans, expecting that by this time Fort Waelhem, Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine, and the defences to the N.E. would be "ripe for storming," had fixed Oct. 1 as the day for their break-through. Accordingly the Marine Div. was to attack Fort Waelhem, the trenches adjacent, and Chemin de Fer redoubt, and the 5th Res. Div. to storm Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine and the Dorpveld redoubt. The attack of the Marine Div. failed to reach Fort Waelhem (the Belgian 1st Div. having largely reoccupied the trenches evacuated the day before), but its right captured Elsestraat, and after a sharp initial repulse the 5th Res. Div. reached its objectives, while the Belgian 2nd Div., after prolonged resistance under bombardment, began retreating to the Nethe,

Meantime the works of the Senne-Nethe sector had been subjected to a final and terrible hammering. Fort Waelhem had been mortally wounded. A 30.5 projectile blew up a magazine killing or grievously burning a hundred men who were sheltering in the adjacent postern. But the fort still claimed to be in a condition to fire, and, in fact, the assault on this fort was a definite failure, as also was an attempt made in the night of the 1st-2nd. Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine was carried by the German infantry in the evening of the 1st.2

The Dorpveld redoubt had been bombarded intermittently on the 29th and 30th, and on Oct. 1 from 8:30 A.M. Towards 5 P.M. an assault was delivered. The only 7.5-cm. cupola being out of action, the survivors of the garrison held the rampart for half an hour, then abandoned the firing crest and took refuge underground; a company of the enemy's infantry installed itself in the mass of the cupola and the craters of the earthwork, but the garrison kept up rifle-fire from the barrack windows.

The commandant of the work managed to get a friendly field battery outside to sweep with shrapnel the enemy installed over his head; reciprocally, his own traditore battery came into action about 11:30 P.M. to defend the interval. On the 2nd, towards 3:30 A.M., on their side, the Germans attacked the roof of the fort by mining, and the concrete, which was of poor quality, began to yield in the right-hand part of the work. From this point the artillerymen could be of no use, and they were withdrawn under cover of darkness one by one, under the fire of a German machine-gun on the redoubt. Towards 5 A.M. a second mine, still more powerful, breached the vaulting, and the enemy took possession of the deserted floor. After defending for some time an improvised barricade which limited the assailants' progress, the commandant and 12 men, the sole survivors, were forced to surrender about 6 A.M. Fort Koningshoyckt, though violently attacked by 30.5's, took a vigorous In its methodical advance it had reached the line of the Vrouwenvliet (Marine Div.); a line 700 yd. from Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine (5th Res. Div.); Wavre Notre Dame and Koningshoyckt (6th Res. Div.); Berlaer (37th Lw. Bde.). On the 30th the Germans were very anxious about their right flank, owing to Belgian activity in the region E. of Fort Kessel. (C. F. A.)

2

According to the German account the light flanking guns were still in action when the fort was stormed. Authority had however been given to the commandant (see above) to evacuate it. The fort received 44 hits (out of 500 rounds fired) from super-heavy calibres. Observation difficulties, due to the country, seem to have made

Fort Lierre, after six hours' uninterrupted bombardment from the 42's, repulsed an attempted assault early in the evening, The same night (1st-2nd) the Germans tried in vain to pierce the interval between Fort Lierre and the Tallaert redoubt.*

Between the Scheldt and the Senne the German infantry made no move on this day. The artillery, however, kept up a continuous hammering on the front of the Belgian 3rd and 5th Divs., and especially on Fort Breendonck.

On Oct. 2 the Belgian 1st and 2nd Divs. crossed the Nethe and pushed forward to regain the intervals lost during the night, but were checked by violent artillery fire, and King Albert therefore decided to transfer the defence to the north of the Nethe, and had all crossings destroyed.

The evening was marked by the death-struggle of Fort Waelhem. Here the recent strengthening of the structure had consisted chiefly in overlaying one metre of concrete on the old brickwork of 1881, and, according to the Germans, the 21-cm. shell falling in large numbers on the fort contributed as much to its ruin as the 30-5's of which calibre the fort received 30 effective hits out of 556 fired. The Tallaert redoubt and Fort Koningshoyckt were evacuated, being in ruins, the first-named owing to the explosion of a magazine, the second owing to the havoc of the shells. On the fall of Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine the 42-cm, battery hitherto engaged against that fort was turned on to Fort Koningshoyckt, superposing its effect on that of four Austrian 30.5's. At Fort Lierre, after the fruitless attack of the previous day, the German artillery opened fire at 7:30 A.M. and battered successively all the organs of the fort. Several aeroplanes aided in directing the fire, and here the single 42cm. battery engaged obtained a higher percentage of hits than elsewhere (32 out of 175 rounds). All the cupolas where put out of action, and all the chambers had to be evacuated in turn. By 5:15 P.M. the fort was practically destroyed and shortly afterwards it was evacuated. The Germans did not occupy it till next day.

On the 3rd the small Duffel (Chemin de Fer) fort, armed with six 5.7-cm. cupolas, on which the German artillerymen no doubt disdained to waste a 42,5 held the enemy engaged the whole day until its munitions were exhausted. The commandant then blew up his defences and brought back his gunners and his wounded to the N. bank of the Nethe. The German infantry of the Marine Div., which advanced during the day and the night, occupied the ruined redoubt early on Oct. 4.

6

The Belgian troops now began to be seriously disheartened. The forts, in which their confidence-though misplaced-had been supreme, had in a few days been shattered under their eyes by the blows of a monstrous artillery, and they knew that their field artillery had nothing but its own brave audacity with which to carry on the struggle. All its efforts were concentrated on thwarting the enemy's active preparations for crossing the Nethe, where the infantry hastily erected new lines of defence.

The events of these days had left no illusions as to the fate in store for Antwerp's fortified positions. It had been proved that the 42-cm. or even the 30.5-cm. shell would pierce a nonreinforced concrete vault of 2 meters or the 24-cm. (9 in.) chrome-nickel-steel domes of the cupolas. Once fire had been opened on a fort it was a question not of days but of hours to put it completely out of action. This being so, the idea that the entrenched camp of Antwerp could constitute a definite place of refuge for the army and the Government had to be abandoned once for all, on pain of involving the army in the surrender of the fortress. But another and a far more serious 3 According to the German account, the defenders were even able to counter-attack on this part of the line.

4 Tschischwitz says that the existence of the Tallaert redoubt came as a surprise to the Germans. (C. F. A.)

5 After the ruin of Fort Waelhem, however, a 30-5-cm. battery was switched on to the redoubt, against which it fired 137 rounds. (C. F. A.) Ammunition supply had become a matter of anxiety by the eve

menace threatened the army more and more as the days went on. For a fortnight past the "Race to the Sea" had been in progress in France. Each side, hoping to envelop the outer flank of the other or seeking to protect its own flank from the same fate, was being led by a series of parallel and practically synchronous efforts to displace the centre of gravity and the decisive point of the campaign towards the sea. Thus by the end of Sept. the battle-front had been extended from the Oise to Arras and Béthune, and fresh German masses were traversing Belgium in a westerly direction.

The real peril to which the Belgian army was exposed lay in the possible failure of the Allied left to gain on the enemy's right and join up with the Belgians on the Scheldt. Yet this junction must be effected at all costs, even if the fortress had to be abandoned in order to get into contact with the Allies.

The King was strongly in favour, however, of holding the fortress until the last extremity, in order to bind the troops and material now concentrated before it, and also to gain the maximum of time for the formation of a Franco-British-Belgian front on the Scheldt and the Dendre-the natural rampart of the coast, the Straits and England. To prevent the Germans from reaching the coast would be an inestimable service rendered to the Allies, and the King was determined not to relinquish the idea save in the last resort. Every day gained at Antwerp meant a French port saved-to-day Boulogne, the next day Calais, the next Dunkirk-and the withholding from the Germans of the Straits of Dover, the most important maritime artery in the world.

Mr. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, fully realized the capital rôle which the fortress might play in the war. With great foresight and initiative he had drawn the attention of the British War Office to the strategic importance of Antwerp in the beginning of September. In the first days of Oct. he came in person to the besieged fortress to take stock of the situation. The Belgian Command gave him a frank statement of its intentions, and King Albert informed him personally of the rôle he proposed for the Belgian army on the extreme left wing of the Allied front. Being entirely in agreement, Mr. Churchill returned in all haste to London to push forward the immediate dispatch of all the troops the French and English Governments could spare to Antwerp and Ghent. It was urgently necessary (1) to guarantee the effective union of the Belgian army with the general Allied front and (2) to bring about this union on a level with Antwerp, or, failing this, on a line as far east as possible with its left resting on the Dutch frontier or the coast, so that the enemy could in no case seize and envelop the Allies' extreme left wing.

Given the double aim which the King had in view, that of holding Antwerp as long as possible and not allowing himself under any circumstances to be cut off from the Allies, there was no time to be lost in transferring the main base of supplies from Antwerp to Ostend, whence the army could carry out its subsequent operations in concert with the Allies. The transport of materials and supplies and the evacuation of the manufacture and storage establishments, of the wounded, the prisoners and the recruits therefore commenced on Oct. 1. Although the only through railway connexion between the E. and W. banks of the Scheldt was that by way of Willebroeck, Puers and Tamise railway bridge, within range of the enemy's guns, the trains followed one another night after night, with all lights out, until Oct. 7 without attracting attention. West of the Scheldt the evacuation transports and convoys were protected by the 4th Div. round Termonde, and the Cavalry Div. round Wetteren.1

On the right of the 6th Res. Div., on the contrary, a bold advance carried the Germans into Lierre, and there began in that town a prolonged and fierce struggle, the British Marine Bde. deployed along the Little Nethe and the 5th Belgian Div. on the Nethe between Lierre (excl.) and Hit Ven (excl.) completely holding up both the right of the 6th Res. Div. and those troops of the 26th Landwehr Bde. which, on the fall of Fort Kessel, had pushed up to Klosterheyde.

On the evening of Oct. 5 the German force in Lierre was still pinned down by the fire of the Marine Bde. Further south, under cover of a very heavy bombardment, they had succeeded in crossing the river, but were held a short distance beyond it, along the road from Hit Ven to Lierre, with only precarious communications behind them.

On Oct. 6 at dawn the 5th Div. tried, by a general counterattack, to throw the enemy back to the S. of the Nethe. But with the whole mass of the German artillery free to cover its infantry the counter-attack was foredoomed. The Belgian guns vigorously supported it, and a determined attack near Ringenhof was for a moment successful and produced a crisis in the German line. But no more could be done. The assistance of Fort Broechem was at an end, since on this day it was taken under fire by the 42-cms. and the Austrian 30.5-cms. which had ruined Fort Kessel and then advanced to their third positions at Vythoek and Koningshoyckt respectively. More and more German infantry was, by one means or another, got across the Nethe, and the débris of the 1st, 2nd and 5th Divs. and the English Marine Bde. fell back little by little in the afternoon without fighting) at Baesrode. The whole force on the left was placed under the 4th Ers. Div. staff, but until the arrival of further troops from the governor-general's forces (1st Res. Ers. Bde.) nothing could be done. On Oct. 4 the arrival of these troops, behind which the 1st Bav. Lw. Bde. was also coming up, released the 37th Lw. Bde. from Alost, and an advance was made by this brigade to Schoonarde on the Scheldt, with a view to forcing the passage there and reaching Termonde from the rear. On the 4th, 5th and 6th, however, attempts to do so were repulsed by the defenders, and throughout the critical days the Germans were unable to interfere with movements in the Lokeren region. (C. F. A.):

The 42-cm. battery which had attacked Forts Wavre Ste. Catherine and Koningshoyckt was a railway battery, and had to remain inactive for the time being. (C. F. A.):