Brave Belgians

by Camille Buffin

In the radiant brightness of that beautiful summer morning, whilst the shooting of the guns and the roar of the cannon was to be heard on all sides, I led my little troop in the direction of Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse. My men were silent and sorrowful. I saw the anguish in my own heart reflected on their faces. At Liége, after the most heroic defence, we had seen our men obliged to fall back before the foreigner. At Namur, it was to be a repetition of the same thing. There, as here, we had hoped and hoped, up to the last minute, that friendly reinforcements would arrive. It was different here though! From Liége, our retreat had been towards the centre of our own country, we were at home and we knew that we were going to join our comrades of the army in campaign. From Namur, alas, we should be moving towards the frontier, getting farther and farther away from our fellow-soldiers, from our friends, and from our families.

After Liége, every man in our detachment had answered to the roll-call. On leaving Namur, we thought sorrowfully of those of our comrades who were sleeping for ever at the border of the Grandes-Salles Wood, or who were dying, in pain, in hospital beds.

"Courage! though," I said to myself, "we must keep our hearts up. We must throw a veil over the past and look ahead. At any rate, I must save the brave men under my care."

The information I had with regard to the enemy was very vague. The Germans were said to be stopped at the Sambre, on one side, and repulsed in the Dinant neighbourhood, some distance from the Meuse, on the other. The truth, as we were soon to see, was quite different. At Bois-de-Villers, where I arrived towards nine o'clock, I noted that there was intense firing in the direction of Sart-St. Laurent. There was no doubt possible. The Germans had forced the passages of the Sambre.

I made a hasty reconnaissance in the direction of the valley of the Meuse. The inhabitants told me that the French had placed outposts as far as Profondeville, but that they had taken them away the evening before, and that enemy patrols were moving about on the right bank.

It was, therefore, impossible to start with my column along the road from Profondeville to Dinant. This road, which skirts the river, is commanded, only a short distance away, by the heights of the right bank.

There was only one thing to be done, and that was to return to Namur for instructions.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, I was back again as far as the St. Héribert Fort. The Commander informed me that he no longer had telephonic communication with the Governor of the position. He could only give me all the information he had from private sources. The Germans had crossed the Sambre in great masses and were being held, at the present moment, between Fosse and St. Gérard, by a French army. The Meuse also had been forced by the enemy at Dinant.

The situation was, therefore, most critical for the Namur garrison. It would probably be completely encircled and it only had one road left for retreat towards France.