90. They had consisted of a single fort on the Meuse right bank,
and the citadel crowning the heights of the old town. But subsequently
the Belgian Chamber voted the necessary sums for fortifying Liege
and Namur on the latest principles. From the plans submitted, the
one finally decided upon was that of the famous Belgian military
engineer Henri Alexis Brialmont. His design was a circle of detached
forts, already approved by German engineers as best securing a
city within from bombardment. With regard to Liege and Namur
particularly, Brialmont held that his plan would make passages of
the Meuse at those places impregnable to an enemy.

When the German army stood before Liege on this fourth day of August,
in 1914, the circumference of the detached forts was thirty-one miles
with about two or three miles between them, and at an average of
five miles from the city. Each fort was constructed on a new model
to withstand the highest range and power of offensive artillery
forecast in the last decade of the nineteenth century. When completed
they presented the form of an armored mushroom, thrust upward from
a mound by subterranean machinery. The elevation of the cupola in
action disclosed no more of its surface than was necessary for the
firing of the guns. The mounds were turfed and so inconspicuous that
in times of peace sheep grazed over them. In Brialmont's original
plan each fort was to be connected by infantry trenches with sunken
emplacements for light artillery, but this important part of his
design was relegated to the dangerous hour of a threatening enemy.
This work was undertaken too late before the onsweep of the Germans.
Instead, Brialmont's single weak detail in surrounding each fort
with an infantry platform was tenaciously preserved long after
its uselessness must have been apparent. Thus Liege was made a
ring fortress to distinguish it from the former latest pattern of
earth ramparts and outworks.

Six major and six minor of these forts encircled Liege. From north
to south, beginning with those facing the German frontier, their
names ran as follows: Barchon, Evegnee, Fleron, Chaud-fontaine,
Embourg, Boncelles, Flemalle, Hollogne, Loncin, Lantin, Liers,
and Pontisse. The armaments of the forts consisted of 6-inch and
4.7-inch guns, with 8-inch mortars and quick firers. They were
in the relative number of two, four, two and four for the major
forts, and two, two, one and three for the minor _fortins_, as
such