a preliminary levy of eight million pounds, and leaving to the
fortifications of Namur the task of barring the German advance to the
northern frontiers of France. Namur proved a broken reed. The troops
which paraded through Brussels with impressive pomp and regularity
were only a detail of the extreme right wing of the invading force;
the mass was advancing along the north bank of the Meuse and
overrunning the whole of Belgium south and east of the river. On the
15th an attempt to seize Dinant and the river crossing above Namur was
repulsed by French artillery; but there was apparently no cavalry to
follow up this success, and the Germans were allowed to bring up their
heavy howitzers for the bombardment of Namur without disturbance. It
began on the 20th, and, unsupported by the Allied assistance for which
they looked, the Belgians were panic-stricken; on the 23rd the city
and most of the forts were in German hands though two resisted until
the 26th. The Germans had not, as at Liège, wasted their infantry in
premature attacks, and with little loss to them, a fortress reputed
impregnable had been captured, the greater part of the southern
Belgian Army destroyed, and the provisional plan of French defence
frustrated. The fall of Namur was the first resounding success of the
Germans in the war.

Its loss was not redeemed by the French offensive in Alsace and
Lorraine. On 7 August a weak French force advanced through the Belfort
gap and, finding still weaker forces to oppose it, proceeded to occupy
Altkirch and Mulhouse, while a proclamation by General Joffre
announced the approaching liberation of the provinces torn from France
in 1870. It was a feeble and ill-conceived effort to snatch a
political advantage out of a forbidding military situation. German
reinforcements swept up from Colmar and Neu Breisach, and on the both
the French were back within a few miles of the frontier, leaving their