those days), the attack on the northern forts of Liége, upon which
everything now depended, was opened. It was upon Thursday, August
13th, that the 280 mm. howitzers opened upon Loncin. Other of the
remaining forts were bombarded; but, as in the case of Fléron a week
before, we need not consider the subsidiary operations, because
everything depended upon the fort of Loncin, which, as the
accompanying diagram shows, commanded the railway line westward from
Liége. General Leman himself was within that work, the batteries
against which were now operating from _within_ the ring--that is, from
the city itself, or in what soldiers technically call "reverse"--that
is, from the side upon which no fort is expected to stand, the side
which is expected to defend and not to be attacked from. Whether
Loncin held out the full forty-eight hours, or only forty, or only
thirty-six, we do not know; but that moral factor to which I have
already alluded, and which must be fully weighed in war, was again
strengthened by the nature of such a resistance. For nearly all that
garrison was dead and its commander found unconscious when the
complete destruction of the work by the high explosive shells
permitted the enemy to enter.

[Illustration: Sketch 36.]

It was upon Saturday, the 15th of August, that the great bulk of the
two main German armies set aside for passage through the Belgian Plain
began to use the now liberated railway, and the week between that date
and the first great shock upon the Sambre is merely a record of the
almost uninterrupted advance, concentration, and supply of something
not far short of half a million men coming forward in a huge tide
over, above, and round on to, the line Namur-Charleroi-Mons, which was
their ultimate objective, and upon which the Anglo-French