train if the fire of the latter be fully concentrated and the largest
pieces available, everything should be sacrificed to the putting into
the narrowest area of all the projectiles available. The ring once
broken on a sufficient single sector point is broken altogether.

The second point, that only field-pieces as yet were used (which was
due to the fact that the siege train was not yet come up), is an
important indication of the weakness of the defence--on all of which
the enemy were, of course, thoroughly informed.

There were perhaps 20,000 men in and upon the whole periphery of
Liége, a matter of over thirty miles, and what was most serious, no
sufficient equipment or preparation of the forts, or, what was more
serious still, no sufficient trained body of gunners.

It is almost true to say that the resistance of Liége, such as it was,
was effected by rifle fire.

With the dawn of August 5th, and in the first four hours of daylight,
a German infantry attack upon the same south-eastern forts which had
been subjected to the first artillery fire in the night developed, and
after some loss withdrew, but shortly after the first of the forts,
that of Fléron, was silenced. The accompanying sketch map will show
how wide a gap was left henceforward in the defences. Further, Fléron
was the strongest of the works upon this side of the river. Seeing
that, in any case, even if there had been a sufficient number of
trained gunners in the forts, and a sufficient equipment and full
preparation of the works for a siege (both of which were lacking),
the absence of sufficient men to hold the gaps between would in any
case have been fatal to the defence. With such a new gap as this open