THE SIEGE AND FALL OF ANTWERP.
The main bodies of the Germans swept through Belgium into France in the last week of August 1914, and the Belgian army, overwhelmed but undismayed, retired on its great national bulwark of defence. Yet not until 28th September did the curtain rise on the first act of Antwerp's tragedy. Many people in this country thought that Antwerp would be left alone until the conquest of France was complete. The Germans, indeed, made a proposal to King Albert that, if he would promise to keep his army quiet within the fortifications, the city would not be attacked. You know enough of King Albert to be quite sure what his answer was.
Why did the Germans besiege Antwerp? Chiefly because they were well aware that the Belgian army, now within the shelter of its forts, was in a position to fall on the German flank whenever the chance might arise. While Antwerp stood it was a source of serious anxiety to the German Staff. All the country between Antwerp and the sea still remained in Belgian hands, and thus Britain might send reinforcements to Belgium at any moment. If she did so, the Germans would have to fight not only in France but also in Belgium, where their communications were in danger of being cut. While the Belgian army remained in being, a large German army had to be kept in the country, and thus forces that were badly needed elsewhere were not available. Further, the capture of this great port would be a feather in the German cap, and would greatly hearten the subjects of the Kaiser. There was need of a new victory to give them cheer, for the retreat of their armies, and the deadlock that had now set in on the Aisne, had dashed their hopes of that speedy success which they had expected.
More than a month before the siege began, Antwerp had a foretaste of her fate. "At eleven minutes past one o'clock on the morning of 25th August death came to Antwerp out of the air." A Zeppelin suddenly appeared overhead, humming like a swarm of angry bees. A few minutes later something like a falling star dropped from it. Then there was a rending, shattering crash, followed by another and still another. Buildings fell as though a giant had hit them with a sledge-hammer. Ten people were killed and forty wounded, and nearly a thousand houses were damaged. One bomb was dropped within a hundred yards of the royal palace, in which the king and queen were sleeping, and another fell within two hundred yards of the Staff headquarters. It is said that one of the bombs fell on the German club and destroyed a statue of the Kaiser!
On the same day the Belgians moved out of Antwerp and attacked the Germans. They drove them out of Malines; but though they fought like heroes, they were overpowered by the large numbers of fresh troops that were hurried up. The Belgians were forced back once more, and at the beginning of the last week in September the Germans in real earnest set about the work of reducing the forts. They brought up their howitzers south of the river Nethe, and on the 28th, at a range of seven and a half miles, began to drop their shells on Forts Waelhem and Wavre Ste. Catherine. There was not a gun in these forts that had a range of more than six miles. The German fire was directed by observers in captive balloons, and was very accurate.
All day the roar of big guns and the crash of bursting shells were heard. Meanwhile the Belgians fought hard to the south of the Nethe, and had some success. But it was clear to everybody that the forts would soon be a heap of ruins. On the 29th Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine was smashed beyond repair, and the magazine blew up. Waelhem was badly hit, but managed to resist all day.
Next morning the German guns gave their full attention to Fort Waelhem and Fort Lierre. The air was filled with shrieking shell and bursting shrapnel. When the big shells, which the Belgians called "Antwerp expresses," fell in a field, they threw up a geyser of earth 200 feet high; when they dropped in a river or canal, a huge waterspout arose; and when they fell on a village, it crumpled into complete ruin. A shell that flew over Fort Waelhem fell on the waterworks and broke down the embankment of the reservoir. The water poured into half a mile of the Belgian trenches, and flooded out the defenders, who were thus prevented from carrying supplies to the fort. Meanwhile the citizens were short of water, and had no means of putting out any fires that might arise. On Thursday, 1st October, all the southern forts were destroyed, and by nightfall the Belgians had fallen back to the northern bank of the Nethe, where trenches had already been prepared. Here, on the second line of defence, they made a most stubborn stand. Within the city there was still hope. Although the citizens could hear the faint thunder of the guns, though they saw the dead and the wounded being brought in, and German aeroplanes circling above them, they still hoped that the enemy might be held off until the British could arrive and save the city.
Belgians intrenched on the Nethe. Photopress.
By the afternoon of 3rd October the prospect was black indeed. Forts Waelhem and Lierre had been pounded into silence, and a strong German force was striving to cross the Nethe. Already several pontoon bridges had been built, but in each case they had been blown to pieces before they could be used. Nevertheless every soldier knew that unless help came the Germans were bound to be over the river before long. The Belgians, who had been fighting desperately for a fortnight, were now weary and heavy-eyed from lack of sleep; the hospitals were overflowing with wounded; and the citizens began to lose heart. Preparations were made to transfer the government to Ostend, and many of the well-to-do inhabitants departed for Holland or England. The next day, however, brought good news—a British force was coming with heavy guns.
At one o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday, 4th October, Mr. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, reached Antwerp, where he remained for three days. He persuaded the authorities to continue their resistance, and went out to the trenches, where he had a rather narrow escape from a burst of shrapnel. His arrival awakened a new spirit of hopefulness in the townsfolk.
Late that evening the vanguard of the British force arrived by train from Ostend. It consisted of a brigade of marines, 2,000 strong. Without an hour's delay the men were marched off to the trenches on the Nethe, where they lay to the left of the weary Belgians, who were inspired to fresh efforts at their coming. Next day the whole of the British force, 6,000 in all, arrived. Four battalions of marines were the only regulars in the force; the remainder were volunteers, many of whom had never before handled a rifle. Some of them had no pouches or water-bottles or overcoats, while others had to stick their bayonets in their putties or tie them to their belts with string. Each of the two naval brigades into which the force was organized consisted of four battalions named after famous admirals. The 1st Brigade consisted of the Drake, Benbow,[162] Hawke,[163] and Collingwood[164] battalions; the 2nd Brigade, of the Nelson, Howe,[165] Hood,[166] and Anson[167] battalions. There were many London naval volunteers in one of the brigades. Though their equipment was very imperfect and their training had scarcely begun, they fought in the trenches with all the cheerfulness and doggedness of their race.
The Flight into Holland. From a picture by Allan Stewart.
Much was expected from a British armoured train which had been built in Antwerp, and was mounted with four 4.7-inch naval guns, worked by Belgian gunners under the direction of British bluejackets. Unfortunately it had but little opportunity of harassing the enemy.
That night the Germans tried hard to cross the river, but were driven back by the British marines. Late on Monday, the 5th, there was a terrible bombardment of the Belgian centre, and some thousands of Germans either swam or waded across the stream, and dug themselves in on the northern bank. Early on Tuesday morning the passage of the Nethe had been won, and the defenders had been driven back upon the inner circle of forts. The guns of these forts were out of date, and were hopelessly outranged and outclassed by the howitzers of the enemy. The end was drawing near.
By this time all the country between the inner forts and the Nethe was a wilderness of death and desolation, of blackened ruins and smoking haystacks, of torn and slashed fields, strewn with the bodies of the slain. On Tuesday evening the situation was hopeless, and the government left in haste for Ostend. The German general sent a flag of truce with a demand for surrender, and threatened to bombard the city should it be refused. The Belgians, however, would not yet give in.
That evening the great oil tanks on the western side of the Scheldt were fired lest their contents should fall into the hands of the enemy. A dense black mass of smoke drifted over the city, and the smell of burning filled the air. The machinery of several large ships that might prove useful to the enemy was also wrecked, and all munitions of war were sent out of the city by rail.
Not until next morning did the citizens learn that the government had departed. The newspapers announced that steamers were waiting at the quays to carry the inhabitants into safety. In the great Zoological Gardens keepers were busy shooting the fiercer wild animals. The Germans had given notice that the bombardment of the city would begin at ten o'clock that very evening. Then and only then did the courage of the townsfolk fail. They saw their own soldiers streaming across the bridge of boats towards the western bank of the river, and they knew that all was lost. Then began an exodus from the city, the like of which has probably never before been seen in all the world's history. Wellnigh half a million fugitives, not only from Antwerp but from all the countryside for twenty miles round, poured along the roads into Holland, or struggled on the quays to escape by water. Every vessel, no matter of what description, was pressed into service, and the broad stream was choked with tramps, dredgers, ferry-boats, barges, yachts, tugs, and even rafts, all packed with terror-stricken men, women, and children, and the little belongings that they could carry with them. For hours the overloaded craft lay in the stream, while the crowds on board watched the flames leaping up from the buildings of the city, which had been fired by bombs. As each bomb burst, a great sigh of terror went up from the homeless, helpless thousands.
Even more terrible were the scenes along the highways, where soldiers and civilians were mixed together in frightful confusion. An American correspondent says:—
"By mid-afternoon on Wednesday the road from Antwerp to Ghent, a distance of forty miles, was a solid mass of refugees, and the same was true of every road, every lane, every footpath leading in a westerly or a northerly direction. The people fled in motor cars and in carriages, in delivery wagons, in furniture vans, in farm carts, in omnibuses, in vehicles drawn by oxen, by donkeys, even by cows; on horseback, on bicycles; and there were thousands upon thousands afoot. I saw men trundling wheel-barrows piled high with bedding, and with their children perched upon the bedding. I saw sturdy young peasants carrying their aged parents in their arms. I saw women of fashion in fur coats and high-heeled shoes staggering along clinging to the ends of wagons. I saw white-haired men and women grasping the harness of the gun teams or the stirrup leathers of the troopers, who, themselves exhausted from many days of fighting, slept in their saddles as they rode. I saw springless farm wagons literally heaped with wounded soldiers with piteous white faces; the bottoms of the wagons leaked, and left a trail of blood behind. . . . The confusion was beyond all imagination, the clamour deafening; the rattle of wheels, the throbbing of motors, the clatter of hoofs, the cracking of whips, the groans of the wounded, the cries of women, the whimpering of children, and always the monotonous shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of countless weary feet."[168]
British Naval Brigade in the Trenches outside Antwerp.
Photo, Newspaper Illustrations, Ltd.
At least 200,000 of the refugees crossed into Holland, where they were kindly received, and were provided with food and shelter. Some sought refuge in England; but thousands of others fell by the wayside, where they perished of exposure and starvation.
The remainder of the pitiful story is soon told. Once the German guns were across the Nethe there was nothing left for the defenders to do but to make for the coast with all speed, so as to escape from being cut off by the enemy. By the morning of Friday, the 9th, nearly the whole of the garrison was across the Scheldt. Three battalions of the British force delayed their departure, and arrived on the bank of the river, to find that the bridge of boats had been destroyed. They managed to cross on rafts and barges; but one party, believing itself to be headed off by the Germans, marched north into Holland. Another party was forced to surrender, and a third sailed down the river and landed on Dutch territory. Of course those who took refuge in Holland were interned.[169] The British losses were 37 killed, 193 wounded, nearly 1,000 missing—that is, prisoners—and 1,560 interned in Holland. About 18,000 Belgian troops were also driven across the frontier, and many were captured by the Germans. Thus in disaster and gloom ended the gallant attempt to save Antwerp.
Two hours before midnight on the evening of Wednesday, 7th October 1914, the great shells began to fall on the doomed city. It was almost as deserted as a city of the dead. There were no lights in the streets; but, as the shells exploded, lurid flames began to arise. On the Scheldt barges were burning, and the waters beneath them glowed blood-red in the light of the flames. As the huge projectiles struck the buildings they collapsed like houses of cards, and soon there was scarcely a street in the southern quarter of the town which was not battered into shapeless ruin. The historical buildings of the city, however, were spared.
In the gray dawn of October 9th the bombardment ceased. Between eight and nine o'clock the burgomaster went out to surrender the city. About one o'clock the Germans marched in and tramped along the deserted streets. Sixty thousand men in review order passed the new governor, but there was not a living soul to greet them. Not a single spectator stood on the pavement; no face was seen at a window; not a flag waved. The American correspondent already quoted thus describes the march past:—
"Each regiment was headed by its field music and colours, and when darkness fell and the street lamps were lighted, the shrill music of fifes, the rattle of drums, and the tramp of marching feet reminded me of a torchlight parade. Hard on the heels of the infantry rumbled artillery, battery after battery, until one wondered where Krupp found time or steel to make them. These were the forces that had been almost in constant action for the last two weeks, and that for thirty-six hours had poured death and destruction into the city; yet the horses were well groomed and the harness well polished. Behind the field batteries rumbled quick-firers, and then, heralded by a blare of trumpets and the crash of kettledrums, came the cavalry, cuirassiers in helmets and breastplates of burnished steel, hussars in befrogged jackets and fur busbies, and finally the Uhlans, riding amid forests of lances under a cloud of fluttering pennons. But this was not all nor nearly all. For after the Uhlans came bluejackets of the naval division, broad-shouldered, bewhiskered fellows, with caps worn rakishly and the roll of the sea in their gait. Then Bavarian infantry in dark blue, Saxon infantry in light blue, and Austrians in uniforms of beautiful silver-gray, and last of all a detachment of gendarmes in silver and bottle-green."
