owed
immediately. The bulk of the British marines made their way back to
Ostend, but a rearguard, consisting of 2,000 British, together with some
Belgians, was cut off by the advance of the Germans across the Scheldt,
and rather than surrender to them marched across the border into Holland
and surrendered arms to the Dutch authorities. The men were interned and
will be held in Holland till the end of the war. It is probable that
this rearguard was deliberately sacrificed to enable the Anglo-Belgian
army to make good its retreat.

The fate of Antwerp shows what might have happened to Paris had the
Germans been able to bring up their great siege guns to the outer
fortifications of the French capital and protect them while they
performed their tremendous task of battering the defenses to pieces.
The wrecking of Antwerp's outer and inner forts in ten days proves that
solid, massive concrete, chilled steel and well-planned earthworks
afford little or no security against the monstrous cannon of the
Kaiser's armies. There appeared to be but one way of withstanding them.

As seems to have been demonstrated in the valley of the Aisne, they
are apparently ineffective against field forces deeply intrenched in a
far-flung line.

THE FIGHTING OUTSIDE ANTWERP

Early on Tuesday morning, October 6, one of the fiercest of the
engagements outside Antwerp ended with the crossing of the River Nethe
by the Germans and their approach to the inner forts. Monday had been
the sixth day of the siege and the Belgian army was fighting with
reckless courage to save Antwerp. As a precaution, the boilers of all
the German ships lying in the harbor were exploded on Sunday, in order
to prevent, if possible, use of these ships as transports for German
troops across the North Sea or elsewhere. The detonation of the bursting
boilers, resounding through the city, set the excited Sunday crowd very
near to a panic. This was accelerated by the constant fear of airship
attacks, and most of the population that was not already in active
flight from the city sought safety in cellars.

The entire war has presented no greater picture of desolation than that
of the hosts fleeing from the last Belgian stronghold. For forty-eight
hours before the city fell great crowds of the citizens, dumb with
terror as the huge German shells hurtled over their heads, were fleeing
toward England and Holland in such numbers that the hospitality of those
countries was likely to