Fighting in Flanders | Page 8

threaten his lines of communication and of counter-attacks by
the Germans, during which Aerschot, Malines, Sempst, and Termonde
repeatedly changed hands. Some twenty miles or so behind this line
was the great fortified position of Antwerp, its outer chain of forts
enclosing an area with a radius of nearly fifteen miles.
Antwerp, with its population of four hundred thousand souls, its
labyrinth of dim and winding streets lined by mediaeval houses, and its
splendid modern boulevards, lies on the east bank of the Scheldt, about
fifteen miles from Dutch territorial waters, at a hairpin-turn in the river.
The defences of the city were modern, extensive, and generally
believed, even by military experts, to be little short of impregnable. In
fact, Antwerp was almost universally considered one of the three or
four strongest fortified positions in Europe. In order to capture the city
it would be necessary for an enemy to break through four distinct lines
of defence, any one of which, it was believed, was strong enough to
oppose successfully any force which could be brought against it. The
outermost line of forts began at Lierre, a dozen miles to the south-east
of the city, and swept in a great quarter-circle, through Wavre-St.
Catherine, Waelhem, Heyndonck and Willebroeck, to the Scheldt at
Ruppelmonde.
Two or three miles behind this outer line of forts a second line of
defence was formed by the Ruppel and the Nethe, which, together with

the Scheldt, make a great natural waterway around three sides of the
city. Back of these rivers, again, was a second chain of forts completely
encircling the city on a five-mile radius. The moment that the first
German soldier set his foot on Belgian soil the military authorities
began the herculean task of clearing of trees and buildings a great zone
lying between this inner circle of forts and the city ramparts in order
that an investing force might have no cover. It is estimated that within a
fortnight the Belgian sappers and engineers destroyed property to the
value of £16,000,000. Not San Francisco after the earthquake, nor
Dayton after the flood, nor Salem after the fire presented scenes of
more complete desolation than did the suburbs of Antwerp after the
soldiers had finished with them.
On August 1, 1914, no city in all Europe could boast of more beautiful
suburbs than Antwerp. Hidden amid the foliage of great wooded parks
were stately chateaux; splendid country-houses rose from amid acres of
green plush lawns and blazing gardens; the network of roads and
avenues and bridle-paths were lined with venerable trees, whose
branches, meeting overhead, formed leafy tunnels; scattered here and
there were quaint old-world villages, with plaster walls and pottery
roofs and lichen-covered church spires. By the last day of August all
this had disappeared. The loveliest suburbs in Europe had been wiped
from the earth as a sponge wipes figures from a slate. Every house and
church and windmill, every tree and hedge and wall, in a zone some
two or three miles wide by twenty long, was literally levelled to the
ground. For mile after mile the splendid trees which lined the highroads
were ruthlessly cut down; mansions which could fittingly have housed
a king were dynamited; churches whose walls had echoed to the tramp
of the Duke of Alba's mail-clad men-at-arms were levelled; villages
whose picturesqueness was the joy of artists and travellers were given
over to the flames. Certainly not since the burning of Moscow has there
been witnessed such a scene of self-inflicted desolation. When the work
of the engineers was finished a jack- rabbit could not have approached
the forts without being seen. When the work of levelling had been
completed, acres upon acres of barbed-wire entanglements were
constructed, the wires being grounded and connected with the city
lighting system so that a voltage could instantly be turned on which

would prove as deadly as the electric chair at Sing Sing. Thousands of
men were set to work sharpening stakes and driving these stakes, point
upward, in the ground, so as to impale any soldiers who fell upon them.
In front of the stakes were "man-traps," thousands of barrels with their
heads knocked out being set in the ground and then covered with a thin
layer of laths and earth, which would suddenly give way if a man
walked upon it and drop him into the hole below. And beyond the
zones of entanglements and chevaux de frise and man-traps the beet
and potato-fields were sown with mines which were to be exploded by
electricity when the enemy was fairly over them, and blow that enemy,
whole regiments at a time, into eternity. Stretching across the fields and
meadows were what looked at first glance like enormous red-brown
serpents but which proved, upon closer inspection, to be