me up, between 9 P.M. and 10 P.M.,
from his house at Ascot on the telephone, eager for news. The last
time that I saw him was when he came to ask me to tell off some one
from my staff to accompany him to the front on the occasion of the
visit which in some respects ended so tragically, but which enabled
the great soldier to go to his rest within sound of the guns and
surrounded by the troops whom he had loved so well.

It was mentioned in the preceding chapter that the Military Operations
Directorate found little to do in connection with "operations"
question concerning the Western Front just at first, because the
concentration of the Expeditionary Force in the war zone was carried
out automatically and in accordance with plans worked out in advance.
Indeed almost the first time that such a question arose in at all
aggravated form was when the Antwerp affair got going. That was a
queer business altogether, and it seems necessary briefly to deal with
what most military men regard as an unfortunate transaction.

In so far as the Belgian forces as part of the Entente hosts in this
theatre of war were concerned, the strategical situation after the
great retreat appeared to demand imperatively that these must above
all things avoid, firstly, any risk of becoming cut off from their
French and British allies, and, secondly, the danger of finding
themselves trapped in the entrenched camp of Antwerp or of being
hustled up against the Dutch frontier on their way out of the
entrenched camp. The Belgian military authorities, as far as one could
make out at the time, appreciated the situation quite correctly--they
wished to abandon Antwerp, at all events with their field troops.
Problems such as those responsible on the Entente side were at this
time faced with, undoubtedly admit of difference of opinion; but most
soldiers will surely agree that the Belgian leaders deserve great
credit for not allowing themselves to be hypnotized by that huge place
of arms which General Brialmont had designed some forty years before,
and upon which vast sums of money had been laid out then and since. It
has to be remembered in this connection that the famous engineer had
always contemplated the retirement of his country's armies into the
stronghold, more or less as a matter of course, in case of invasion,
and that this had virtually been the military policy of Belgium up
till quite recently. Lord French has referred in "_1914_" to the
"terrible te