Fighting in Flanders

by E. Alexander Powell

In order to grasp the true significance of the events which preceded and led up to the fall of Antwerp, it is necessary to understand the extraordinary conditions which existed in and around that city when I reached there in the middle of August. At that time all that was left to the Belgians of Belgium were the provinces of Limbourg, Antwerp, and East and West Flanders. Everything else was in the possession of the Germans. Suppose, for the sake of, having things quite clear, that you unfold the map of Belgium. Now, with your pencil, draw a line across the country from east to west, starting at the Dutch city of Maastricht and passing through Hasselt, Diest, Aerschot, Malines, Alost, and Courtrai to the French frontier. This line was, roughly speaking, "the front," and for upwards of two months fighting of a more or less serious character took place along its entire length. During August and the early part of September this fighting consisted, for the most part, of attempts by the Belgian field army to harass the enemy and to threaten his lines of communication and of counter-attacks by the Germans, during which Aerschot, Malines, Sempst, and Termonde repeatedly changed hands. Some twenty miles or so behind this line was the great fortified position of Antwerp, its outer chain of forts enclosing an area with a radius of nearly fifteen miles.

Antwerp, with its population of four hundred thousand souls, its labyrinth of dim and winding streets lined by mediaeval houses, and its splendid modern boulevards, lies on the east bank of the Scheldt, about fifteen miles from Dutch territorial waters, at a hairpin-turn in the river. The defences of the city were modern, extensive, and generally believed, even by military experts, to be little short of impregnable. In fact, Antwerp was almost universally considered one of the three or four strongest fortified positions in Europe. In order to capture the city it would be necessary for an enemy to break through four distinct lines of defence, any one of which, it was believed, was strong enough to oppose successfully any force which could be brought against it. The outermost line of forts began at Lierre, a dozen miles to the south-east of the city, and swept in a great quarter-circle, through Wavre-St. Catherine, Waelhem, Heyndonck and Willebroeck, to the Scheldt at Ruppelmonde.

Two or three miles behind this outer line of forts a second line of defence was formed by the Ruppel and the Nethe, which, together with the Scheldt, make a great natural waterway around three sides of the city. Back of these rivers, again, was a second chain of forts completely encircling the city on a five-mile radius. The moment that the first German soldier set his foot on Belgian soil the military authorities began the herculean task of clearing of trees and buildings a great zone lying between this inner circle of forts and the city ramparts in order that an investing force might have no cover. It is estimated that within a fortnight the Belgian sappers and engineers destroyed property to the value of £16,000,000. Not San Francisco after the earthquake, nor Dayton after the flood, nor Salem after the fire presented scenes of more complete desolation than did the suburbs of Antwerp after the soldiers had finished with them.

On August 1, 1914, no city in all Europe could boast of more beautiful suburbs than Antwerp. Hidden amid the foliage of great wooded parks were stately chateaux; splendid country-houses rose from amid acres of green plush lawns and blazing gardens; the network of roads and avenues and bridle-paths were lined with venerable trees, whose branches, meeting overhead, formed leafy tunnels; scattered here and there were quaint old-world villages, with plaster walls and pottery roofs and lichen-covered church spires. By the last day of August all this had disappeared. The loveliest suburbs in Europe had been wiped from the earth as a sponge wipes figures from a slate. Every house and church and windmill, every tree and hedge and wall, in a zone some two or three miles wide by twenty long, was literally levelled to the ground. For mile after mile the splendid trees which lined the highroads were ruthlessly cut down; mansions which could fittingly have housed a king were dynamited; churches whose walls had echoed to the tramp of the Duke of Alba's mail-clad men-at-arms were levelled; villages whose picturesqueness was the joy of artists and travellers were given over to the flames. Certainly not since the burning of Moscow has there been witnessed such a scene of self-inflicted desolation. When the work of the engineers was finished a jack- rabbit could not have approached the forts without being seen. When the work of levelling had been completed, acres upon acres of barbed-wire entanglements were constructed, the wires being grounded and connected with the city lighting system so that a voltage could instantly be turned on which would prove as deadly as the electric chair at Sing Sing. Thousands of men were set to work sharpening stakes and driving these stakes, point upward, in the ground, so as to impale any soldiers who fell upon them. In front of the stakes were "man-traps," thousands of barrels with their heads knocked out being set in the ground and then covered with a thin layer of laths and earth, which would suddenly give way if a man walked upon it and drop him into the hole below. And beyond the zones of entanglements and chevaux de frise and man-traps the beet and potato-fields were sown with mines which were to be exploded by electricity when the enemy was fairly over them, and blow that enemy, whole regiments at a time, into eternity. Stretching across the fields and meadows were what looked at first glance like enormous red-brown serpents but which proved, upon closer inspection, to be trenches for infantry. The region to the south of Antwerp is a network of canals, and on the bank of every canal rose, as though by magic, parapets of sandbags. Charges of dynamite were placed under every bridge and viaduct and tunnel. Barricades of paving-stones and mattresses and sometimes farm carts were built across the highways. At certain points wires were stretched across the roads at the height of a man's head for the purpose of preventing sudden dashes by armoured motor-cars. The walls of such buildings as were left standing were loopholed for musketry. Machine-guns and quick-firers were mounted everywhere. At night the white beams of the searchlights swept this zone of desolation and turned it into day. Now the pitiable thing about it was that all this enormous destruction proved to have been wrought for nothing, for the Germans, instead of throwing huge masses of infantry against the forts, as it was anticipated that they would do, and thus giving the entanglements and the mine-fields and the machine-guns a chance to get in their work, methodically pounded the forts to pieces with siege-guns stationed a dozen miles away. In fact, when the Germans entered Antwerp not a strand of barbed wire had been cut, not a barricade defended, not a mine exploded. This, mind you, was not due to any lack of bravery on the part of the Belgians--Heaven knows, they did not lack for that !--but to the fact that the Germans never gave them a chance to make use of these elaborate and ingenious devices. It was like a man letting a child painstakingly construct an edifice of building-blocks and then, when it was completed, suddenly sweeping it aside with his hand.

As a result of these elaborate precautions, it was as difficult to go in or out of Antwerp as it is popularly supposed to be for a millionaire to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Sentries were as thick as policemen in Piccadilly. You could not proceed a quarter of a mile along any road, in any direction, without being halted by a harsh "Qui vive?" and having the business end of a rifle turned in your direction. If your papers were not in order you were promptly turned back--or arrested as a suspicious character and taken before an officer for examination--though if you were sufficiently in the confidence of the military authorities to be given the password, you were usually permitted to pass without further question. It was some time before I lost the thrill of novelty and excitement produced by this halt-who- goes-there-advance-friend-and-give-the-countersign business. It was so exactly the sort of thing that, as a boy, I used to read about in books by George A. Henty that it seemed improbable and unreal. When we were motoring at night and a peremptory challenge would come from out the darkness and the lamps of the car would pick out the cloaked figure of the sentry as the spotlight picks out the figure of an actor on the stage, and I would lean forward and whisper the magic mot d'ordre, I always had the feeling that I was taking part in a play-which was not so very far from the truth, for, though I did not appreciate it at the time, we were all actors, more or less important, in the greatest drama ever staged.

In the immediate vicinity of Antwerp the sentries were soldiers of the regular army and understood a sentry's duties, but in the outlying districts, particularly between Ostend and Ghent, the roads were patrolled by members of the Garde civique, all of whom seemed imbued with the idea that the safety of the nation depended upon their vigilance, which was a very commendable and proper attitude indeed. When I was challenged by a Garde civique I was always a little nervous, and wasted no time whatever in jamming on the brakes, because the poor fellows were nearly always excited and handled their rifles in a fashion which was far from being reassuring. More than once, while travelling in the outlying districts, we were challenged by civil guards who evidently had not been entrusted with the password, but who, when it was whispered to them, would nod their heads importantly and tell us to pass on.

"The next sentry that we meet," I said to Roos on one of these occasions, "probably has no idea of the password. I'll bet you a box of cigars that I can give him any word that comes into my head and that he won't know the difference."

As we rolled over the ancient drawbridge which gives admittance to sleepy Bruges, a bespectacled sentry, who looked as though he had suddenly been called from an accountant's desk to perform the duties of a soldier, held up his hand, palm outward, which is the signal to stop the world over.

"Halt!" he commanded quaveringly. "Advance slowly and give the word."