Part 25

It was a great spectacle and an impressive one, but there were minor incidents that were of a less pleasant character.

Two Belgian officers, manacled and fastened to the leather stirrups of two Uhlans, made a spectacle that caused a low murmur of resentment from the citizens. Instantly German horsemen backed their steeds into the closely packed ranks of the spectators, threatening them with uplifted swords and stilling the momentary revolt.

At one point of the march a lame hawker offered flowers for sale to the soldiers. As he held up his posies a Captain of Hussars by a movement of his steed sent the poor wretch sprawling and bleeding in the dust. Then from the crowd a Frenchwoman, her heart scorning fear, cried out, "You brute!" so that all might hear.

There was one gross pleasantry, too, perpetrated by a gunner who led along a bear, evidently the pet of his battery, which was dressed in the full regalia of a Belgian General.

The bear was evidently intended to represent the King. He touched his cocked hat at intervals to his keeper.

This particularly irritated the Belgians, but they wisely abstained from any overt manifestation or any unpleasant feature of behavior. The soldiery as they passed tore repeatedly at the national colors which every Belgian lady now wears on her breast.

A more pleasant incident was when a party of Uhlans clamored for admittance at a villa on the Louvain road. They disposed of a dozen bottles of wine and bread and meat. The non-commissioned officer in command asked what the charge was and offered some gold pieces in payment. The money was refused.

Near the steps of St. Gudule a party of officers of high rank, seated in a motor car, confiscated the stock of the news vendors. After greedily scanning the sheets they burst into loud laughter.

Hour after hour, hour after hour, the Kaiser's legions marched into Brussels streets and boulevards. Some regiments made a very fine appearance, and it is well that the people of England should know this. It was notably so in the case of the Sixty-sixth, Fourth and Twenty-sixth Regiments. Not one man of these regiments showed any sign of excessive fatigue after the gruelling night of marching, and no doubt the order to "goose step" was designedly given to impress the onlookers with the powers of resistance of the German soldiers.

The railway stations, the Post Office and the Town Hall were at once closed. The national flag on the latter was pulled down and the German emblem hoisted in its place. Practically all the shops were closed and the blinds drawn on most of the windows.

At the time of writing I have heard of no very untoward incident. The last train left Brussels at 9 o'clock on Wednesday night. Passengers to the city cannot pass beyond Denderleeuw, where there are strong German pickets.

*The Fall of Antwerp*

*By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, Who Was at Antwerp During the Siege.*

LONDON, Oct. 11.--A Daily Chronicle correspondent who has just arrived from Antwerp tells the following story of his experiences:

Antwerp has been surrendered. This last and bitterest blow which has fallen upon Belgium is full of poignant tragedy, but the tragedy is lightened by the gallantry with which the city was defended.

Only at the last, to save the historic buildings and precious possessions of the ancient port, was its further defense abandoned. Already much of it had been shattered by the long-range German guns, and prolonged resistance against these tremendous engines of war was impossible.

Owing to this the siege was perhaps the shortest in the annals of war that a fortified city ever sustained. I have already described its preliminaries and the many heroic efforts which were made by the Belgians to stem the tide of the enemy's advance, but the end could not long be delayed when the siege guns began the bombardment.

It was at three minutes past noon on Friday that the Germans entered the city, which was formally surrendered by the Burgomaster, J. de Vos. Antwerp had then been under a devastating and continuous shell fire for over forty hours.

It was difficult for me to ascertain precisely how the German attack was being constituted, but from officers and others who made journeys from the fighting lines into the city I gathered that the final assault consisted of a continuous bombardment of two hours' duration, from 7:30 o'clock in the morning until 9:30.

During that time there was a continuous rain of shells, and it was extraordinary to notice the precision with which they dropped just where they would do the most damage. I was told that the Germans used captive balloons, whose officers signaled to the gunners the points in the Belgian defense at which they should aim.

The German guns, too, were concealed with such cleverness that their position could not be detected by the Belgians. Against such methods and against the terrible power of the German guns the Belgian artillery seemed quite ineffective. The firing came to an end at 9:30 o'clock Friday, and the garrison escaped, leaving only ruins behind them.

In order to gain time for an orderly retreat, a heavy fire was maintained against the Germans up to the last minute, and the forts were then blown up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the Gate of Malines. I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in a motor boat. The bombardment had then ceased, though many buildings were still blazing, and while the little boat sped down the Scheldt one could imagine the procession of the Kaiser's troops already goose-stepping their way through the well-nigh deserted streets.

Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to me now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in many parts of the city cannot be forgotten. It was Wednesday night that the shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns which the Germans possess--"Black Marias," as Tommy Atkins has christened them.

Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population or a large proportion of it fell into a panic. It is impossible to blame these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings. The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through.

Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit from the city. Their condition was pitiable in the extreme. Family parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men and women. There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had come into their lives.

In many groups were to be seen old, old people, grandfathers and grandmothers of a family, and these in their shaking frailty and terror, which they could not withstand, were the more pitiable objects in the great gathering of stricken townsfolk. This pathetic clinging together of the family was one of the most affecting sights I witnessed, and I have not the slightest doubt that in the mad rush for refuge beyond the borders of their native land many family groups of this sort completely perished.

All day and throughout the night these pitiful scenes continued, and when I went down to the quayside early Thursday, when the dawn was throwing a wan light over this part of the world, I found again a great host of citizens awaiting their chance of flight.

In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les Miserables" presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium in all its horror. I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to convey anything but a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair there. People stood in dumb and patient ranks drawn down to the quayside by the announcement that two boats would leave at 11 o'clock for Ostend, and Ostend looks across to England, where lie their hopes.