The town was taken and retaken. At the finish it remained in the hands of the invaders, but thousands of the flower of their army lay amid and around its ruins.
The battle of Mons and Charleroi was a Pyrrhic victory. One decisive advantage, however, on that day the invaders had won. They had captured the fortress of Namur.
After the heroic defence of Liége the rapid fall of Namur formed one of the surprises of the campaign. The fortress was held by a Belgian garrison of some 26,000 men, and well provisioned. Though so far as natural situation goes a strong place, surrounded by a ring of four larger and five smaller forts, in which the guns were protected by armoured turrets of a type similar to those at Liége, it had some serious weak spots.
As secretly as possible and during the night-time the Germans had transported from Liége batteries of their huge howitzers, and had planted these on already prepared beds of concrete in positions beyond the range of the fortress artillery. It had been decided to renew the ordnance of the forts, and the guns had been ordered, according to report, though this lacks authority, from Germany. At all events the newer and heavier ordnance was not there. It may here be explained that an attack is rarely or never made upon a hostile fortress without the general in command of the attack and his principal officers being put into possession of plans of the works. These plans, the result of espionage, show every detail, and afford every particular; disclose every trench, entanglement, and obstacle, every building, wireless instalment, or line of telegraph and telephone wire. The exact range and power of every gun is stated. Between the field of fire of the guns there are spaces, known technically as “dead points,” left uncovered, or at all events, the facts being disclosed, such dispositions for attack as will create “dead points” are readily made by drawing the fire of the forts in particular directions.
Now the defence of Liége was successful because the entrenchments and obstacles in the sectors between the forts were made when their details could not be disclosed to the enemy. But Namur had been prepared about the same time, and there was ample opportunity to discover the particulars.
All the Germans therefore had to do was to wait for the first autumn mist among the hills to open fire from guns whose position the defence did not know. To the attack the “laying” of such guns to hit any desired object in the fortress was, with the plans in their possession, a mere matter of mathematical calculation. Under cover of such a mist, the forts being unable to reply, to knock some of them to pieces by a heavily concentrated fire, and after that to stalk the place was comparatively easy. The garrison were aware that the fortress was untenable, or only to be held by meeting the attack by a counter-attack. Following a terrific two days’ bombardment, during which two of the forts were demolished, the assault was launched on the afternoon of August 23. The garrison after a short resistance against great odds were driven out. The mist which had favoured the attack equally favoured their escape. They found their way fortunately into the French lines.[C]
CHAPTER VIII
THE CRIME OF LOUVAIN
On August 20, the day before the formal entry of the German forces into Brussels, the Belgians had evacuated Malines. It was deemed prudent, as in fact it was, to withdraw the forces to the line of the outer forts of Antwerp. Some of the most violent fighting on August 19 and 20 had taken place 16 miles to the south-east of Antwerp at Aerschot. There the Germans had made their determined, but unsuccessful, effort to cross the Dyle.
Once in occupation of Brussels, they turned Malines into the headquarters of the troops, an army corps some 60,000 strong, told off to “mask” Antwerp by keeping the Belgian army if possible cooped up within the fortress. Malines lies exactly halfway between Antwerp and Brussels, about 12 miles from either city. It is, however, not more than half a mile from the outer ring of the Antwerp fortifications. The value of such a watch-tower to the Germans is manifest. No movement could possibly be made by the Belgians from Antwerp without the invaders knowing of it.