To understand the true position of the Belgian resistance, it is advisable to realise the character of the defences of Antwerp. When, after a prolonged discussion, General Brialmont was, fifty years ago, authorised to modernise the defences of Antwerp and Namur, and to re-fortify Liége, he adopted, in the case of Antwerp, the resources afforded by its situation as a seaport. The older ramparts were demolished, and replaced, at a distance allowing for natural expansion of the city within them, by a new inner ring of massive earthworks between forts, of the form known as a blunted redan. The plan adopted by Brialmont was on the system described by military engineers as the polygonal trace, and his work has always been looked upon as one of the best examples of that system, considered best adapted to meet the range and accuracy of modern siege artillery.
But undoubtedly the distinctive feature was presented by the wet ditches, 150 feet broad with some 20 feet depth of water, which surround not only the inner works, but also the line of detached forts built on an average two miles in advance of those works. Brialmont was the first military engineer to carry out this idea, now followed in all present-day fortification. Each of his forts, with a front of 700 yards, mounted 15 howitzers and 120 guns. There were thus on the 9 forts, including Merxem, 1,080 pieces of ordnance.
Since Brialmont’s time, however, his outer forts had been connected by an enceinte, now 15 miles or thereabouts in length, strengthened by 18 redoubts, and the second wet ditch. As a third line of defence, there were, at the same time, built the 25 large forts and 13 redoubts, enclosing round the city an area of some 200 square miles. Between the first and second line of defences, the space formed an entrenched camp of, roughly, 17,000 acres in extent.
To protect the navigation of the Scheldt, and to prevent the city from being deprived of supplies, six of these great outer forts were placed at commanding points along the river. By cutting the dykes on the Rupel and the Scheldt areas could be flooded which would limit an attack to the south and south-east, and not only enable a defending army to concentrate its strength in that direction, but enable it behind the outer third line of fortifications to dispute in force the passage of the Nethe.
There were thus on the various defences some 4,000 pieces of ordnance, and, looking at the rivers and wet ditches to be negotiated, it was evident that an attempt to take the fortress by storm could only hope to succeed after a very heavy bombardment followed by an attack with overwhelmingly superior forces.
Since at Liége, as proved by the identification tallies collected from the German dead, the attempt to storm that place, a far easier enterprise, had cost the attackers 16,000 lives, it is no matter for surprise that they intended to postpone an attack upon Antwerp until their enterprise against France had proved successful.
So acute, however, was the annoyance they experienced from the Belgian army, and so manifest the political effects of its continued activity and being, that they resolved upon an attack with what was evidently an insufficient though, nevertheless, a large force. This force, more than twice as numerous as the Belgian army, succeeded in making its way round to the north of the fortress, where both the outer and the second line of defence were judged weakest. They had failed, however, to reckon upon the element of defence afforded by the dykes. These at Fort Oudendyk, and elsewhere along the Scheldt, the Belgians promptly cut, though not before they had allowed the besiegers to place their siege guns in position.
The result was that the Germans found themselves flooded out, and lost a considerable part of their artillery. Men struggling breast deep in water, or to save their guns, were shot down from the forts. Some climbed into trees; not a few were drowned. They were forced to beat a hasty and disastrous retreat, harassed by a sortie of the whole Belgian army.
Not until the failure of their great expedition into France had become manifest, with the prospective loss, in consequence, of the possession of Belgium, the real and primary object of the war, did they address themselves, with all the resources available, to the reduction of the great fortress. Evidently the hope of being able, with Antwerp in their power, to defy efforts to turn them out, inspired this enterprise. After a bombardment with their huge 42-centimetre guns lasting some ten days they succeeded in making a breach in the outer ring of forts, and at the end of five days of heavy fighting drove the Belgians across the Nethe. These successes, however, were dearly bought.