CHAPTER X
THE AGONY OF ANTWERP
In this drama of a gallant nation’s sorrows, a spectacle which, the world over, must endear the name of freedom afresh to every heroic heart, no act has appealed more strongly than the gallant defence of Antwerp and its lurid close.
Once the commercial capital of the world, adorned, to quote the words of Motley, “with some of the most splendid edifices in Christendom,” Antwerp has the honour which no vicissitudes can dim of being one of the earliest seats in Europe of public spirit and liberty. Nor is it easy to accept the belief that such a city is destined to become merely the gateway of an ignoble Prussia.
As affairs stood at the beginning of October, the Germans were anxious to gain some decisive success. So far, the war had failed to yield any. They had met with heavy reverses. They were feeling sharply already the economic effects of the virtual closing of the Rhine. In the belief that, Belgium subjugated, no combination of Powers would be able to tear it from their grasp, and urgent to complete that subjugation while time yet offered, they pushed the siege with all the energy they could command.
This hurry, as at Liége, proved prodigal. An attempt to storm fort Waelhem alone cost nearly 8,000 men killed and wounded. As the reduction of the outer fortifications threatened to be slow, the 11- and 12-inch mortars at first employed were reinforced by the new 16-inch mortars throwing shells more than 800 lbs. in weight. These ponderous engines, transported with immense labour into France, were, with equal labour, hauled back across Belgium, and on the foundations of demolished buildings, placed into position against the forts situated to the south of the Nethe. At the same time, in order to explode magazines and to fire buildings, shells were used filled with naphtha, designed to scatter a rain of blazing oil. The besiegers’ loss of life in the attempt to storm Waelhem was avenged by destroying the city waterworks, situated close to that fort. This reduced the population of Antwerp to the supply afforded by such wells as were within the city limits and made it impossible to put out fires should they occur.
By October 5, forts Waelhem, Wavre, Ste. Catherine, and Konighoyck had been overpowered, and the fort of Lierre silenced. All these forts lie south of the Nethe. The villages adjacent were burned to the ground. At Lierre, a mile to the rear of fort Lierre, a German shell crashed through the roof of the Belgian military hospital. Some of the wounded men lost their lives. On October 7, after a furious concentrated bombardment, fort Broechem was a heap of ruins.
The way was thus open for a final attempt, under the weight of the German guns, to win the passage of the Nethe. Against great odds the Belgians offered a stubborn resistance. The action was one of the most bloody in the Belgian campaign. In it King Albert was wounded, though happily not seriously. This was the second injury he had met with. All through the war he had taken an active part with his troops, encouraging them in the trenches, braving every risk.
At the instance of the Belgian Government, the British sent to Antwerp on October 3, under the command of General Paris, of the Royal Marine Artillery, two naval brigades and one brigade of marines, a total of 8,000 men, with heavy naval guns and quick-firing naval ordnance mounted on armoured trains.
The Belgian command devolved upon General de Guise, military governor of Antwerp, one of the youngest, but also one of the ablest of the generals of the Belgian army. On both sides, the passage of the Nethe was disputed with desperate determination. The German attack at this time was directed, not only against the Belgian position north of the Nethe, through Linth and Waerloos, but with particular energy against forts Lierre, Kessel, and Broechen. These forts still held out. They covered the left flank of the defence. The right flank, protected by the flooded area along the Rupel, was unassailable.
Regardless of losses, the Germans worked day and night to float into position and complete the parts of seven pontoon bridges they had put together on the reaches of the river beyond the range of the forts. It was evident that if they could turn the left of the Belgian defence by destroying fort Broechen, and so breaching the outer defences at that point, just to the north of the Nethe, they could, having crossed in force farther up the stream, launch a formidable flank attack, which must compel the whole Belgian and British force to withdraw.