tact with the Belgian pickets before Liege.

After thirty-six hours of fighting the southern forts were captured
and the city fell into German hands on August 7, 1914. It was not
until the 15th, however, that General Leman, the Belgian commander,
was conquered in his last stronghold, the northern fort of Loncin.
When that fell, the railway system of the Belgian plains lay open to
the invaders. Leman's determined stand had delayed the German advance
for at least a week, and afforded an extremely valuable respite for
the unprepared French and British armies.

The first drafts of the British Expeditionary Force landed in France
on August 16, 1914. On August 7, 1914, a French brigade from Belfort
had crossed the frontier into Alsace and taken the towns of Altkirch
and Muelhausen, which, however, they were unable to hold for more than
three days. Between August 7 and August 15, 1914, large bodies of
German cavalry with infantry supports crossed the Meuse between Liege
and the Dutch frontier, acting as a screen for the main advance. The
Belgian army, concentrated on the Dyle, scored some successes against
the Germans at Haelen, Tirlemont, and Engherzee on the 12th and 13th,
but after the fall of Fort Loncin the German advance guards fell back
and the main German right under Von Kluck advanced toward Brussels. On
the 19th the Belgians began to withdraw to the fortress of Antwerp.
Brussels fell to the Germans on the 20th. Von Kluck turned toward the
Sambre and Von Buelow advanced along the Meuse to Namur. On the
opposite bank (the right) of the Meuse the Saxon army of Von Hausen
moved against Namur and Dinant, while farther south the German Crown
Prince and the Duke of Wuerttemberg pushed their forces toward the
French frontier. Meanwhile, General de Castelnau, commanding the
French right, had seized most of the passes of the Vosges, overrun
upper Alsace almost to the Rhine, and had reached Saarburg on the
Metz-Strassburg railway. On August 20, 1914, the Germans attacked
Namur, captured it on the 23d, and demolished the last forts on the
24th. This unexpected event placed the Allies in an extremely critical
situation, which led to serious reverses. The British force on the
left was in danger of being enveloped in Von Kluck's wheeling
movement; the fall of Namur had turned the flank of the Fourth and
Fifth French armies; the latter was defeated by Von Buelow at Charleroi
on the 22d; the pressure exerted by the armies of the Duk