upposed enemy
in dotted lines.

[Illustration: Sketch 42.]

Roughly speaking, the Allies were allowing for a thirty per cent.
superiority.

Now, lying as they did behind the rivers, and with the ring of forts
around Namur to shield their point of junction and to split the
enemy's attack, this superiority, though heavy, was not crushing. The
hopes of the defensive that it would stand firm, or at least retire
slowly so as to give time for the manoeuvring masses to come up was,
under this presumption, just. It was even thought possible that, if
the enemy attacked too blindly and spent himself too much, the
counter-offensive might be taken after the first two or three days.

As for the remainder of the German forces, it was believed that they
were stretched out very much in even proportion, without any thin
places, from the Meuse to Alsace.

Now, as a matter of fact, the German forces were in no such
disposition. 1. The Germans had added to every army corps a reserve
division. 2. They had brought through the Belgian plains a very much
larger number than seven army corps: they had brought nine. 3. They
had further brought against Namur yet another four army corps through
the Ardennes, the woods of which helped to hide their progress from
air reconnaissance. To all this mass of thirteen army corps, each
army corps half as large again as the active or first line allowed
for, add some imperfectly trained but certainly large bodies of
independent cavalry. We cannot accurately say what the total numbers
of this vast body were, but we can be perfectly certain that more than
700,000 men were massed in this region of Namur. The enemy was coming
on, not four against three, but certainly seven against three, and
perhaps eight or even nine against three.

The real situation was that given in the accompanying diagram (Sketch
43).

Five corps, each with its extra division, were massed under von Kluck,
and called the 1st German Army. Four more, including the Guards, were
present with von Buelow, and stretched up to and against the first
defences of Namur. Now, around the corner of that fortress, two Saxon
corps, a Wurtemberg corps, a Magdeburg corps, and a corps of reserve
under the Duke of Wurtemberg formed the 3rd Army, the right wing of
which opposed the forts of Namur, the rest of which stretched along
the line of the Meuse.

Even if the forts of Namur had held out, the position of so hopelessly
inferior a body as was the