Waelhem and Koningshoyckt, less heavily bombarded, continued to reply vigorously.
On the 3oth the situation grew worse. The ist Div. deployed between the Heyndonck inundation and Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine was worn out by three days of bombardment and had to abandon its ruined entrenchments and transfer the defence to the N. bank of the Nethe, leaving Fort Waelhem to defend itself in isolation. The right of the 2nd Div., affected by the retreat of neighbouring troops, and itself heavily engaged, gave way at one time.
The German infantry had not yet attacked 1 at any point, but all the works had suffered terribly except Fort Lierre. The artillery both of the forts and of the intervals maintained the struggle all day against the German gunners. Between the Senne and the Scheldt two powerful attacks on Blaesveld and on the sector of the 6th Div. were repulsed.
The Germans, expecting that by this time Fort Waelhem, Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine, and the defences to the N.E. would be " ripe for storming," had fixed Oct. i as the day for their break-through. Accordingly the Marine Div. was to attack Fort Waelhem, the trenches adjacent, and Chemin de Fer redoubt, and the 5th Res. Div. to storm Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine and the Dorpveld redoubt. The attack of the Marine Div. failed to reach Fort Waelhem (the Belgian ist Div. having largely reoccupied the trenches evacuated the day before), but its right captured Elsestraat, and after a sharp initial repulse the 5th Res. Div. reached its objectives, while the Belgian 2nd Div., after prolonged resistance under bombardment, began retreating to the Nethe.
Meantime the works of the Senne-Nethe sector had been subjected to a final and terrible hammering. Fort Waelhem had been mortally wounded. A 30-5 projectile blew up a magazine killing or grievously burning a hundred men who were sheltering in the adjacent postern. But the fort still claimed to be in a condition to fire, and, in fact, the assault on this fort was a definite failure, as also was an attempt made in the night of the ist-2nd. Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine was carried by the German infantry in the evening of the ist. 2
The Dorpveld redoubt had been bombarded intermittently on the 29th and soth, and on Oct. i from 8:30 A.M. Towards 5 P.M. an assault was delivered. The only 7-5-011. cupola being out of action, the survivors of the garrison held the rampart for half an hour, then abandoned the firing crest and took refuge underground; a company of the enemy's infantry installed itself in the mass of the cupola and the craters of the earthwork, but the garrison kept up rifle-fire from the barrack windows.
The commandant of the work managed to get a friendly field battery outside to sweep with shrapnel the enemy installed over his head; reciprocally, his own traditore battery came into action about 11:30 P.M. to defend the interval. On the 2nd, towards 3:30 A.M., on their side, the Germans attacked the roof of the fort by mining, and the concrete, which was of poor quality, began to yield in the right-hand part of the work. From this point the artillerymen could be of no use, and they were withdrawn under cover of darkness one by one, under the fire of a German machine-gun on the redoubt. Towards 5 A.M. a second mine, still more powerful, breached the vaulting, and the enemy took possession of the deserted floor. After defending for some time an improvised barricade which limited the as- sailants' progress, the commandant and 12 men, the sole sur- vivors, were forced to surrender about 6 A.M. Fort Konings- hoyckt, though violently attacked by 30- 5*5, took a vigorous
1 In its methodical advance it had reached the line of the Vrouwen- vliet (Marine Div.) ; a line 700 yd. from Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine (5th Res. Div.) ; Wavre Notre Dame and Koningshoyckt (6th Res. Div.); Berlaer (37th Lw. Bde.). On the 3Oth the Germans were very anxious about their right flank, owing to Belgian activity in the region E. of Fort Kessel. _ (C. F. A.)
2 According to the German account the light flanking guns were still in action when the fort was stormed. Authority had however been given to the commandant (see above) to evacuate it. The fort received 44 hits (out of 500 rounds fired) from super-heavy calibres. Observation difficulties, due to the country, seem to have made control of fire unsatisfactory. (C. F. A.)
part in the evening in repulsing the attack on the intervals. 3 Fort Lierre, after six hours' uninterrupted bombardment from the 42 's, repulsed an attempted assault early in the evening. The same night (ist-2nd) the Germans tried in vain to pierce the interval between Fort Lierre and the Tallaert redoubt. 4
Between the Scheldt and the Senne the German infantry made no move on this day. The artillery, however, kept up a continuous hammering on the front of the Belgian 3rd and 5th Divs., and especially on Fort Breendonck.
On Oct. 2 the Belgian ist and 2nd Divs. crossed the Nethe and pushed forward to regain the intervals lost during the night, but were checked by violent artillery fire, and King Albert there- fore decided to transfer the defence to the north of the Nethe, and had all crossings destroyed.
The evening was marked by the , death-struggle of Fort Waelhem. Here the recent strengthening of the structure had consisted chiefly in overlaying one metre of concrete on the old brickwork of 1881, and, according to the Germans, the 2i-cm. shell falling in large numbers on the fort contributed as much to its ruin as the 30- 5 's of which calibre the fort received 30 effective hits out of 556 fired. The Tallaert redoubt and Fort Konings- hoyckt were evacuated, being in ruins, the first-named owing to the explosion of a magazine, the second owing to the havoc of the shells. On the fall of Fort Wavre Ste. Catherine the 42-cm. battery hitherto engaged against that fort was turned on to Fort Koningshoyckt, superposing its effect on that of four Aus- trian 3o-5's. At Fort Lierre, after the fruitless attack of the previous day, the German artillery opened fire at 7:30 A.M. and battered successively all the organs of the fort. Several aeroplanes aided in directing the fire, and here the single 42- cm. battery engaged obtained a higher percentage of hits than elsewhere (32 out of 175 rounds). All the cupolas where put out of action, and all the chambers had to be evacuated in turn. By 5:15 P.M. the fort was practically destroyed and shortly afterwards it was evacuated. The Germans did not occupy it till next day.
On the 3rd the small Duffel (Chemin de Fer) fort, armed with six 5'7-cm. cupolas, on which the German artillerymen no doubt disdained to waste a 42," held the enemy engaged the whole day until its munitions were exhausted. The command- ant then blew up his defences and brought back his gunners and his wounded to the N. bank of the Nethe. The German infantry of the Marine Div., which advanced during the day and the night, occupied the ruined redoubt early on Oct. 4.
The Belgian troops now began to be seriously disheartened. The forts, in which their confidence though misplaced had been supreme, had in a few days been shattered under their eyes by the blows of a monstrous artillery, and they knew that their field artillery had nothing 6 but its own brave audacity with which to carry on the struggle. All its efforts were con- centrated on thwarting the enemy's active preparations for crossing the Nethe, where the infantry hastily erected new lines of defence.
The events of these days had left no illusions as to the fate in store for Antwerp's fortified positions. It had been proved that the 42-cm. or even the 30- 5-cm. shell would pierce a non- reinforced concrete vault of 25 meters or the 24-cm. (93 in.) chrome-nickel-steel domes of the cupolas. Once fire had been opened on a fort it was a question not of days but of hours to put it completely out of action. This being so, the idea that the entrenched camp of Antwerp could constitute a definite place of refuge for the army and the Government had to be abandoned once for all, on pain of involving the army in the surrender of the fortress. But another and a far more serious
3 According to the German account, the defenders were even able to counter-attack on this part of the line.
4 Tschischwitz says that the existence of the Tallaert redoubt came as a surprise to the Germans. (C. F. A.)
6 After the ruin of Fort Waelhem, however, a 3O-5-cm. battery was switched on to the redoubt, against which it fired 137 rounds.
(C. F. A.)
6 Ammunition supply had become a matter of anxiety by the eve- ning of Oct. 3.
