A quick command from General Bertrand at Haecht turned a retreat of
the Belgian forces into an attack in much the same manner as that
in which General Sheridan rallied the Union forces at the battle of
Winchester in the Civil War. The story is printed in the _Currier
des Armes_, the official Belgian soldiers' paper.
General Bertrand, who succeeded General Leman in command of the
division which withstood the Germans at Liége, suddenly found his
troops in retreat.
"Friends," he shouted, "you've mistaken the road! The enemy is in
the other direction!"
Electrified by their leader's words, the soldiers wheeled about and
charged the German troops with renewed vigor.
On another occasion the general is declared to have stopped an
attack of two Belgian companies upon each other by rushing between
their lines and singing a popular ditty. Until they heard the
general's voice, the soldiers did not realize that they were firing
on their own countrymen.
The general is fifty-seven years old. He was a second lieutenant at
twenty years, and became a major-general last March.