by the fall of Fléron, the defence was hopeless, even if it were only
to be counted in hours.

[Illustration: Sketch 34.]

It is high praise of the Belgian people and character to point out
that, after the fall of Fléron, for forty-eight full hours such a gap
was still contested by men, a great part of whom were little better
than civilian in training, and who, had they been all tried regulars,
would have been far too few for their task. General Leman, who
commanded them, knew well in those early hours of Wednesday, the 5th,
that the end had already come. He also knew the value of even a few
hours' hopeless resistance, not perhaps to the material side of the
Allied strategy, but to the support of those moral forces lacking
which men are impotent in maintaining a challenge. Not only all that
Wednesday, the 5th, but all the Thursday, the 6th, he maintained a
line against the pressure of the invaders with his imperfect and
insufficient troops.

During those forty-eight hours, the big howitzer, which is the type
of the heavy German siege train--the 225 mm.--was brought up, and it
is possible that a couple of the still larger Austrian pieces of 280
mm. (what we call in this country the 11-inch), which are constructed
with flat treadles to their wheels to fire from mats laid on any
reasonably hard surface (such as a roadway), had been brought up as
well. At any rate, in the course of the Thursday, the fort next
westward from Fléron, Chaudefontaine, was smashed. The gap was now
quite untenable, and the first body of German cavalry entered the
city. The incident has been reported as a _coup de main_, with the
object of capturing the Belgian general. Its importance to the