. He had sent away all
his General Staff with the division, in spite of the supplications of
his officers, who begged to be allowed to share his fate. He continued
to direct the longest resistance possible. The enemy was anxious to cut
all the communications between the forts, but soldiers volunteered for
carrying messages to the different commanders. Several succeeded, but
many were killed, for the investment became steadily tightened. Indeed,
certain gaps, where the ground was most broken, could not be swept by
the guns from the forts, and, under cover of the night, troops ensconced
themselves there comfortably. Moreover, the Germans, having received
reinforcements and heavy artillery, undertook the siege systematically,
first of Barchon, which it was unable to take by storm any more than
Boncelles, but which it subjected to a formidable deluge of shells.
Barchon could only reply haphazard to heavy guns the position of which
it could not tell. It was, indeed, deprived of its observation posts,
and was in the position of a blind man desperately parrying the blows of
an adversary who could see where to strike.

[Sidenote: Fort Barchon taken.]

The struggle was not for long, and the fort, reduced to impotence, left
a wide breach through which the invader scrambled. Through there he
could also introduce his heavy siege guns, howitzers of 28, and even
pieces of 42 cms.

[Sidenote: Forty-two centimetre guns.]

The enemy then followed a tactic which was to succeed rapidly. He
attacked the different fortifications in a reverse way. Thus Loncin,
Lantin, Liers, and Pontisse were bombarded by batteries placed in the
citadel itself and to which the Belgians could not reply without
shelling the town and doing frightful damage. A battery was also placed
in a bend of ground up Rue Naniot, under the "Tomb," where some of those
who fell in 1830 are buried, but it was discovered and had to be
withdrawn. Forts Boncelles and Embourg were attacked by guns placed on
the hill at Tilff, a pretty village, which would have been completely
destroyed had the firing been responded to. Finally, along the line of
the plateau of Herve, no longer dominated by Barchon and Fleron, now
destroyed, the enemy was able to bring into the very centre of the town
four of those howitzers of 42 cms. which were later to bombard Namur,
Maubeuge, and Antwerp.

The following are the dates on which the different forts succumbed:
Barchon and Evegnee fell on Augu