In the meantime a most terrible battle was taking place at the
fortification of Liege. Was ever attack so strong or resistance more
determined? Belgian officers said, "The enemy were twenty to one
against us; but, being obliged to face the terrible fires of the
fortress, their ranks were cut down in about the same manner as wheat
is cut off by the reaper." "So great was the number of the Germans
that they seemed to spring up out of the ground." "They crawled ahead
on hands and feet, and at a given signal sprang erect and fired, and
then again prostrated themselves. Thus they advanced, avoiding as much
as possible the heavy fires in front." Another Belgian officer at
the fortress during the battle said: "It resembled a storm of fiery
hailstones from a cloud of smoke, in an atmosphere suffocating with
heat and the smell of powder."
Eye-witnesses relate that heaps of slain, yards high, were found on
the battlefield, while columns of lifeless bodies were observed in a
standing position, there being no place for the dead to fall.
A story was told by one of the Belgian officers of a German soldier
who, when wounded by a Belgian in a hand-to-hand combat, took out a
coin and presented it. The Belgian, surprised, exclaimed "Zijt gij
zot?" (Are you crazy?) "Do you not know that I've broken your arm?"
"Yes," said the German, "This is to show my gratitude for the favor
you've rendered me, since it gives me the opportunity of leaving the
battlefield."
Much was said about the valor of the soldiers on both sides during the
siege of Liege. The Germans were obliged to advance in the face of
destructive fires. If one should retreat, he would be pierced by the
bayonet of the soldier behind him....
While facing death in this first great battle at the fortress of Liege,
one of the soldiers began to sing the well-known national hymn, "The
Proud Flemish Lion." Immediately the strains were taken up by the whole
regiment, and thus singing, they advanced until hundreds of them fell
in that awful conflict.
In the heaviest of the fray we were told that King Albert had placed
himself in the lines with his soldiers. He did not desire to be called
king, but comrade. His military dress was distinguished from the
others by only a small mark on one of the sleeves. He attended to the
correspondence for his soldiers and was regarded by them as a friend
and father, under whose guidance they were ready to fight and die.
When the siege was over he visited the wounded in many of the hospitals
and addressed each soldier in person....
After the fall of Liege and Namur, the destruction of Louvain and a
number of noted cities, towns and villages, our minds were concerned
with that awe-inspiring event--the advance of the enemy to Brussels.
Well do we remember that beautiful summer evening, when our prayers and
evening meditation in the chapel were disturbed for about an hour by
the continuous whirl of automobiles passing the Convent. We were told
that evening that it was the departure of the legislative body from
Brussels to Antwerp, with the archives and treasures of the Government.
Our hearts seemed to grow cold and leaden within us as we sat there
hoping, praying, fearing, yet instinctively feeling the doom so rapidly
approaching.
One gloomy, rainy day, word came that over two thousand soldiers of the
Civil Guard had lowered their weapons at the approach of the enemy and
quietly surrendered the City of Brussels, Belgium's beautiful capital.
To have fought without fortifications against such superior forces as
the Germans possessed would have been a useless sacrifice of life.