"'It is the idea of little children that Belgium can resist,' he said. 'In two days we take Liége, in a week we are before Paris. It is all arranged. It is like a time-table. Nothing can prevent victory. Nothing will stop us. If any one hinders, we will roll them into the sea.'"
"Time-tables have been disarranged before now," said the master thoughtfully, "and it is worth remembering that the more rigid is the organization the more hopeless is the confusion when something goes wrong."
"If we can check them here—"
"Then," said the master, "they will never get to Paris."
So, under the plucky but inadequate fire of their forts, the 22,500 Belgians awaited the attack of 120,000 Germans. They knew, those heroes, those martyrs to the ideals of honor, that Germany had untold millions to roll up against them, should their resistance prove to be an obstacle.
It was almost dawn when the first attack began at Evegnée and Barchon. There, the sentries on duty, watching the hillsides opposite to them, saw what seemed to be an undulation of the earth, as though the soil were heaving like the sea. As the morning light cleared the mists away, these waves were seen to be vast bodies of infantry, their iron-gray uniforms indistinguishable against the dawn-lighted grass.
Came a sharp order to fire.
Red mouths of death opened. From trench[5] and fort, rifle-fire ran its crackling harmony to the crash of the 6-inch guns and the insistent rattle of the ear-rasping machine gun. In this hideous repertory of noise, the Hotchkiss machine-guns, used in the forts, and the Berthier guns, used by the infantry and drawn by a dog team, joined their concert of destruction.
It was no discredit to the German soldiers that they fell back. No one, neither General von Emmich, his officers, nor his men, expected to find the Belgian trenches so strongly held. The check was only momentary, however, merely long enough to allow the face of the hills to grow a little brighter, long enough to show clearly to the gallant defenders the tremendous odds they had to face.