Not until next morning did the citizens learn that the government had departed. The newspapers announced that steamers were waiting at the quays to carry the inhabitants into safety. In the great Zoological Gardens keepers were busy shooting the fiercer wild animals. The Germans had given notice that the bombardment of the city would begin at ten o'clock that very evening. Then and only then did the courage of the townsfolk fail. They saw their own soldiers streaming across the bridge of boats towards the western bank of the river, and they knew that all was lost. Then began an exodus from the city, the like of which has probably never before been seen in all the world's history. Wellnigh half a million fugitives, not only from Antwerp but from all the countryside for twenty miles round, poured along the roads into Holland, or struggled on the quays to escape by water. Every vessel, no matter of what description, was pressed into service, and the broad stream was choked with tramps, dredgers, ferry-boats, barges, yachts, tugs, and even rafts, all packed with terror-stricken men, women, and children, and the little belongings that they could carry with them. For hours the overloaded craft lay in the stream, while the crowds on board watched the flames leaping up from the buildings of the city, which had been fired by bombs. As each bomb burst, a great sigh of terror went up from the homeless, helpless thousands.
Even more terrible were the scenes along the highways, where soldiers and civilians were mixed together in frightful confusion. An American correspondent says:—
"By mid-afternoon on Wednesday the road from Antwerp to Ghent, a distance of forty miles, was a solid mass of refugees, and the same was true of every road, every lane, every footpath leading in a westerly or a northerly direction. The people fled in motor cars and in carriages, in delivery wagons, in furniture vans, in farm carts, in omnibuses, in vehicles drawn by oxen, by donkeys, even by cows; on horseback, on bicycles; and there were thousands upon thousands afoot. I saw men trundling wheel-barrows piled high with bedding, and with their children perched upon the bedding. I saw sturdy young peasants carrying their aged parents in their arms. I saw women of fashion in fur coats and high-heeled shoes staggering along clinging to the ends of wagons. I saw white-haired men and women grasping the harness of the gun teams or the stirrup leathers of the troopers, who, themselves exhausted from many days of fighting, slept in their saddles as they rode. I saw springless farm wagons literally heaped with wounded soldiers with piteous white faces; the bottoms of the wagons leaked, and left a trail of blood behind. . . . The confusion was beyond all imagination, the clamour deafening; the rattle of wheels, the throbbing of motors, the clatter of hoofs, the cracking of whips, the groans of the wounded, the cries of women, the whimpering of children, and always the monotonous shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of countless weary feet."[168]
British Naval Brigade in the Trenches outside Antwerp.
Photo, Newspaper Illustrations, Ltd.
At least 200,000 of the refugees crossed into Holland, where they were kindly received, and were provided with food and shelter. Some sought refuge in England; but thousands of others fell by the wayside, where they perished of exposure and starvation.
The remainder of the pitiful story is soon told. Once the German guns were across the Nethe there was nothing left for the defenders to do but to make for the coast with all speed, so as to escape from being cut off by the enemy. By the morning of Friday, the 9th, nearly the whole of the garrison was across the Scheldt. Three battalions of the British force delayed their departure, and arrived on the bank of the river, to find that the bridge of boats had been destroyed. They managed to cross on rafts and barges; but one party, believing itself to be headed off by the Germans, marched north into Holland. Another party was forced to surrender, and a third sailed down the river and landed on Dutch territory. Of course those who took refuge in Holland were interned.[169] The British losses were 37 killed, 193 wounded, nearly 1,000 missing—that is, prisoners—and 1,560 interned in Holland. About 18,000 Belgian troops were also driven across the frontier, and many were captured by the Germans. Thus in disaster and gloom ended the gallant attempt to save Antwerp.
Two hours before midnight on the evening of Wednesday, 7th October 1914, the great shells began to fall on the doomed city. It was almost as deserted as a city of the dead. There were no lights in the streets; but, as the shells exploded, lurid flames began to arise. On the Scheldt barges were burning, and the waters beneath them glowed blood-red in the light of the flames. As the huge projectiles struck the buildings they collapsed like houses of cards, and soon there was scarcely a street in the southern quarter of the town which was not battered into shapeless ruin. The historical buildings of the city, however, were spared.