body--perhaps half as numerous--had determined to stand.

[Illustration: Sketch 37.]

The story of that very rapid advance is merely one of succeeding
dates. By the 17th the front was at Tirlemont, by the 19th it was
across the Dyle and running thence south to Wavre (the first army),
the second army continuing south of this with a little east in it to a
point in front of Namur. On the 20th there was enacted a scene of no
military importance (save that it cost the invaders about a day), but
of some moral value, because it strongly impressed the opinion in this
country and powerfully affected the imagination of Europe as a whole:
I mean the triumphal march through Brussels.

Far more important than this display was the opening on the evening of
the same day, Thursday, August 20th, of the first fire against the
eastern defences of Namur. This fire was directed upon that evening
against the two and a half miles of trench between the forts of
Cognelée and Marchovelette, and in the morning of Friday, the 21st,
the trenches were given up, and the German infantry was within the
ring of forts north of the city. The point of Namur, as we shall see
in a moment, was twofold. First, its fortifications, so long as they
held out, commanded the crossings both of the Sambre and of the Meuse
within the angle of which the French defensive lay; secondly, its
fortified zone formed the support whereupon the whole French right
reposed. It was this unexpected collapse of the Belgian defence of
Namur which, coupled with the unexpected magnitude of the forces
Germany had been able to bring through the Belgian plain, determined
what was to follow.