putting into
the narrowest area of all the projectiles available. The ring once
broken on a sufficient single sector point is broken altogether.

The second point, that only field-pieces as yet were used (which was
due to the fact that the siege train was not yet come up), is an
important indication of the weakness of the defence--on all of which
the enemy were, of course, thoroughly informed.

There were perhaps 20,000 men in and upon the whole periphery of
Liege, a matter of over thirty miles, and what was most serious, no
sufficient equipment or preparation of the forts, or, what was more
serious still, no sufficient trained body of gunners.

It is almost true to say that the resistance of Liege, such as it was,
was effected by rifle fire.

With the dawn of August 5th, and in the first four hours of daylight,
a German infantry attack upon the same south-eastern forts which had
been subjected to the first artillery fire in the night developed, and
after some loss withdrew, but shortly after the first of the forts,
that of Fleron, was silenced. The accompanying sketch map will show
how wide a gap was left henceforward in the defences. Further, Fleron
was the strongest of the works upon this side of the river. Seeing
that, in any case, even if there had been a sufficient number of
trained gunners in the forts, and a sufficient equipment and full
preparation of the works for a siege (both of which were lacking),
the absence of sufficient men to hold the gaps between would in any
case have been fatal to the defence. With such a new gap as this open
by the fall of Fleron, 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 Fleron, 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