"'Respect for the general! He is dead!' said a Belgian aide-de-camp.
"With gentleness and care, which showed they respected the man who had resisted them so valiantly and stubbornly, our infantry released the general's wounded form and carried him away. We thought him dead, but he recovered consciousness, and looking round, said,
"'It is as it is. The men fought bravely.'
"Then, turning to us, he added,
"'Put in your dispatches that I was unconscious.'
"We brought him to our commander, General von Emmich, and the two generals saluted. We tried to speak words of comfort, but he was silent—he is known as the silent general.
"'I was unconscious. Be sure and put that in your dispatches.'
"More he would not say."
Fort Boncelles disputed with Fort Loncin the honor of being the last to fall. It is not known, definitely, which of the two resisted longest.
The night before the fall of Fort Loncin, the electric-lighting system of Boncelles was destroyed. The men—the master among them—fought all night through in utter darkness, groping for the machinery of their guns and in momentary expectation of suffocation and death from the German shells.