Chapter IV: Namur and the French Lines

The news of the evening was that of the battle at Dinant: the great drawn battle that distracted attention from the launching of the bolt of the main German advance from Hasselt, north of the Meuse. Even the layman could see the result must delay the French design--if it was their design--of joining up with the Belgians to cover Brussels. It was vital, if Belgium was not to be abandoned, that the French should get up in time. Early the next morning I forced a way once again to Namur, with the hope of possibly reaching Dinant, and, if not, of finding out the real strength of the French in the region round Namur. One road was still open.

Namur was under the cloud of that silent nameless panic that is more terrible than tumult. It is not found in the fighting lines; only in the threatened civilian towns occupied by military headquarters in face of the enemy. Nerves strained to snapping point find their only vent in black suspicion. As a stranger, to catch a passing eye is to challenge insult or arrest. For two days I was the only unofficial visitor in the town. I was arrested five times. I could not sit for five minutes at my window without hearing the tramp of civic guards or police on the stairs, coming to interrogate me. My room was searched twice a day for wireless apparatus. On the second occasion I pointed out, sarcastically, that the small drawer of the wash-hand stand had not been searched. It was never left unexamined again! There was no definite news of advance, but absence of news is the worst trial to civic nerves. Fear was in the air. But it was restrained and silent. A lifted voice in the street was followed by a little noiseless rush of people. On the second day I did not venture a hundred yards from the hotel, to avoid the wearisome arrests and interrogatories.

Namur, Saturday.

Under my window the crowds are waiting round the station for news. The trains are practically stopped; there may be one to Brussels to-morrow. Only one road to the north is open; the others are closed, completing the circle of fortification. Yesterday the aviators were dropping bombs on to the line opposite. To-day the town is quiet, but humming restlessly. The thunderstorms may have checked the pestilent persecution, or possibly the Germans now know all they need.

South of us, on the Meuse, the two northern armies, French and German, are facing one another. They were in conflict all yesterday, and there is no reason now to keep silence about the positions. The scouting Uhlans, whom I touched at Eghezee and east of Wavre, have done their work. The main body of the German Army Corps, supposed here to be the 4th, possibly with the 10th in support, appears to be moving definitely against the French to the south of the fortress....

All day yesterday, in a sanguinary battle, they were trying to force the passage of the Meuse north and south of Dinant. A squadron of French Dragoons was surprised beyond the river and destroyed. There are the wildest reports as to the losses of the Germans. An eye-witness of the attempts upon the Anseremme Bridge described to me the Germans as swept by the guns, as they advanced in their usual columns, and unable to fall as they died, so close and massed were the ranks.

They were repulsed at the time, but they are returning in force. They have began an attack upon the fort across the river at Davre. The armies seem to be advancing north-west into the great angle of the Meuse at Namur, coming into touch with the Belgians and French along the semicircle from Huy to Givet.

In a lonely little village south of Namur to-day, where I shared the deserted street with a few sad-faced women and half a dozen cripples and old men, the landlord said, "This is the 15th: our feast day. I usually have hundreds of tourists; to-day you are alone; we are waiting for the great battle. To-night?--to-morrow? Who knows?" As he spoke, and we waited, the thunderstorms kept rolling up the lime-stone gorges, and we listened, each time thinking this was the beginning.

I slipped down from Namur this morning along the front of the French lines on the Meuse. In all the villages deserted houses; walls pierced for musketry; wire entanglements; and the picturesque windings of the river scarred with trenches, and stirring with hardly-seen troops. It was a curious change to leave our little friends, the dark Belgians, and meet the moving patrols of French Dragoons, large, splendid-looking fellows, bronzed and hardened since I saw them leave Paris but a fortnight ago. But they cannot show more heart than our worn little Belgian comrades, as they held back the overwhelming numbers in those desperate engagements I watched yesterday, at Haelen and Diest.

Where the cliffs on the far side sink to the river the roadside hedges on this bank were lined with smart, keen-looking infantrymen, by hedge and tree and trench, leaning across walls or behind trees, with rifle ready. Hardly an eye turned on us. For on the hills across and to the south the Germans have been sighted. The attack may come anywhere, any time.

We got within a mile of Dinant, well within the entrenched lines; past barriers and fortified bridge ends--where the soldiers lay ready under screens of sheaves. They were naturally suspicious at first of civilian dress, but always courteous. Journals delighted them. One smart dragoon, being shaved under a bough-shelter, musket on knee, received his first wound in jumping up to ask for a newspaper, and to cheer for England.

At last came the final block. "Impossible to proceed; no despatch-carrier even may pass." Infantry were clustered about us, keenly watching the other bank. The shimmer of the light blue cavalry uniform stirred and glittered up the steep lane behind us, hidden and ready to charge and sweep the bridge clear.

As the car raced back along the lines, even those who had chatted on our first passing, or turned to salute, had barely a glance for us. Something was in the air. The most talkative of the captains who had questioned us looked at our passing with only the absent inward look familiar now on the faces of men going into action. The dragoons moved restlessly along the road in quick patrols, carrying news of the enemy sighted in the woods on the opposite bank. The road is exposed in all its length, and the car was so conspicuous that I expected every instant to be fired upon from the trees opposite. A long train of guns wound out of Namur and blocked our entry.

What they awaited may come to-night, or to-morrow. We should hear the guns here if the siege had begun in earnest.

Later.

A bomb has just exploded on the line opposite my window. The glass roof of the station is shattered.

The sound of guns has begun from the forts on the east.

Namur, Sunday midnight.

The French were engaged last night at Dinant, even before we were clear of their lines. An attempt of the Germans to cross the Meuse at Bouvignes was repulsed with loss.

The Belgians this afternoon repulsed an attack at Wierde, east of Davre, the fort on the defences of Namur across the Meuse, where an unsuccessful attempt was made yesterday.

I was out on the lines of the defences to-night with some friendly soldiers, sharing their supper. I may say the commissariat of the Belgians is excellently managed. The soup was first-class, and some of the wives, just back from a Sunday visit to their husbands, tell me their extra burden of food and wine was not needed by the men. One woman, white with dust, had walked thirty miles in search of her son to-day. In the end an officer was found to send her forward in a Red Cross car.

Even as I supped in the dark on the outworks with those soldiers, one of the strange mood changes that are getting familiar in the war atmosphere took place. Sullen suspicious looks, whispered questions round me. I withdrew quietly but quickly. (When we hear the true story of the fall of Namur, this too may have to be taken into account. Soldiers conscious of their terrible losses, a populace half-believing itself deserted by its allies. French troops sent in, and again hurriedly withdrawn. The Namur army cut off from its main body, from the king, and the command.)

This evening the 28th Belgian Regiment marched in in triumph from its successful engagement yesterday at Lothain.

Only the First, Second and Third Division have yet been engaged. They have borne alone the whole weight of the recent fierce engagements in the front, from Namur to Diest. To-day the Third, here, is being replaced by the Fourth.

The Fifth and Sixth are still in reserve. They will probably be kept to cover Antwerp, if Brussels falls. The Sixth is the élite of the Army. The Belgian shooting so far has corrected the inequality of numbers; but the Sixth Corps contains the chosen marksmen. The Germans continue to shoot low.

The trains this evening stopped running for the reason that a column of 150 German cavalry has been located across the line and along the road down which we ran this morning; and the Belgians have been preparing a surprise for to-night. In fact, there is an additional, more serious and most satisfactory cause, almost laughable in its performance to anyone in the secret, of which again I may not at present speak. (French troops were being run in concealed by various devices from the sight of the airmen. They detrained outside the town. A regiment of "Turcos" however marched in in the evening, and produced the first applause I had heard for a long time).

The aviators have stopped dropping bombs. The soldiers, at least, believe to-night that "the King has sent an envoy to say that a hundred prisoners will be shot for every bomb dropped in the unprotected streets." Only girls and old men have so far suffered from the inhuman practice.

I have spoken with two witnesses of the encounter about Dinant yesterday. The chief struggle raged round the ancient citadel which was taken and retaken. The French guns smashed the pontoon bridges as soon as the Germans had built them. The permanent bridges were swept as the columns advanced. They were mined, but left standing, acting each as a death trap. The impatience of the French African troops, the "Turcos," who are spoken of with bated breath, is said to have prevented the success of a crushing enveloping movement, a yielding in the centre to pour in on the flanks, which the French could only partially execute.

Pitiable stories are told of the _corps-á-corps_ charges of the "Turcos." The stories are becoming so universal that there seems reason to suppose that the German "machine" has not been trained to meet the bayonet. The Belgians have already learned to count on the bayonet as their strongest weapon in meeting the Uhlans.

The battles at Haelen would suggest that the tubular Uhlan lance is less serviceable than the Belgian bamboo. It is certainly ineffective against the solid bayonet. At Haelen I found a large number of "buckled" and cracked lances along the line of the German cavalry charges.

The losses yesterday about Dinant seem to have been immense. Rumour speaks of anything between 20,000 and 40,000 put _hors de combat_ from the two opposing forces. It is probable from accounts that the number must be reckoned in thousands. A peasant from a village below Dinant told me that when he was called back from the fields "by the noise" he "came over the hill to see the Meuse running red-streaked with blood."

Allowing for the Ardennois emotion, there seems no doubt that the fighting was savage and terribly costly, and that one of the many good reasons that stopped our passage just short of Dinant was the fact that the dead were not yet removed.

In this war both sides are very rightly concealing their losses. The relatives are separately informed, whenever it seems fit; and no lists are published.

To-night it is reported among the soldiers, and possibly therefore with truth, that the Belgians have just blown up and abandoned one of the smaller forts. "The reinforcements came just a day too late; the 4th Army Corps should have been up yesterday."

The German corps lately engaged at Haelen and Diest in the north are reported to be moving south-west from their base at Kermpt and Hasselt. If this is true, the movement indicates a general advance preparatory for the battle of the three (four?) armies.

We know the next move, so far as one side can know it, but it must be left to explain itself. A few days, and the board in this corner will have been disclosed.

Monday, 7 a.m.

The surprise joke for the Germans, referred to above, has been going on all night.

Regiments of the 4th Belgian Army Corps have also been detraining all morning. Fresh, brisk-looking men, curiously pallid compared with their black unshaven comrades, who have been in the field all the week. Better booted and equipped, having had more time to mobilise. Odd boots and German prisoners' breeches, belts, and trappings have become common sights in that hard-worn division. A little captain at Diest was wearing blue breeches, one brown riding boot, one regulation black, a kepi with two bullet-holes through it, and a green Chasseur coat too small for him. "What would you? I have been in five fights, from Liége to Diest; the Germans sacked my lodging on the night at Haelen. I fought them there without a coat. We were seventeen in the corner of the wheat, cyclists; at night I went back with the two other survivors, and found my bicycle. One is a philosopher! one must be gay!"

The Second, Third, and Fourth Regiments of the Line have suffered most. The Second have lost a large proportion of their numbers.

The proportion of officers killed is very large; this especially among the Germans, owing to their massed formations and the distinction in uniform.

I saw a letter last night, found on a German officer, bitterly complaining of the want of preparation, absence of proper scouting, and reckless waste of life in their mass attacks.

Little credence can be attached to stories of an enemy's savagery. But a circumstantial story has been twice told me by men in different companies that Belgian prisoners were placed in the front line in the engagement at Landen; and that the Belgians fired low at first until their friends had fallen, shot in the legs. I give it only for what it is worth.

There is no doubt that the battle in which the Belgians lost most heavily was an early engagement on the Tirlemont lines, where, in the dark, two regiments of Belgians mistook their line, and fired on each other. Both lost many men. Under present conditions this must occur. The airmen are asking that no aeroplane shall be fired upon. They suffer from their friends.

Namur, Monday night.

Have you seen a fight between a hawk and a rook, or a hawk and peregrine? That, or something like it, took place over the open square by the station this afternoon.

An aeroplane appeared out of the west; it soared over the railway against the cloudy sky, stooped, and suddenly, as if struck, shot with a steep volplane on to this side of the Meuse.

There was a rush of cars and crowd. But before it touched a second aeroplane appeared like a speck in the clouds. It rushed down with extraordinary rapidity, in sharp dipping planes; hovered, as if looking for its prey, swooped at the tower on the station, and with extraordinary audacity wheeled twice above it in exquisite descending spirals. The flight of the first had brought a crowd of soldiers and Civic Guards on to every salient roof, and the circling challenge of the pursuer was followed by a regular salvo of musketry.

For a second it wavered: I could see the wings riddled with bullets. Then it steadied, dipped for a rush, and soared away magnificently over the surrounding heights.

Two minutes later the first aviator emerged from the station, a distinguished-looking white-moustached French officer, clearly in a fearful temper at the wrecking of his machine by the over-zealous Guards. To make quite sure of some one, they had raked his descent also with roof practice!

Hardly had the crowd quieted, when there came another rush. Two fine-looking German officers, in the uniform of the famous "Death's Head" Hussars, were raced up under guard to the station. The crowd, with the remarkable restraint that is distinguishing the Belgians, watched their transference in complete silence. They had been brought from the north, where a German column has to-day cut all communication with Brussels.

For two hours this morning we heard the sound of cannon. Armoured cars, fitted with mitrailleuse wheels, have been running through the town. There have been also several mitrailleuses drawn by the famous dog-teams that can get up any hill-side.

No trains are running. The station is full of weeping women and children, who came yesterday to see their soldier husbands.

The motor-cars stand in their ready ranks, along the river-side. The Government purchased 12,000 at the start of the war from garages and private owners. Their use has changed the whole conditions of transport. The chauffeurs were sleeping in them. I had breakfast this morning with five of them in a little restaurant. A small boy gave me his Belgian badge. "If you get out alive," said his father, "our colours at least will have been rescued from the Germans."

(Namur had now become almost impossible for a stranger. The guns could be heard bombarding the distant forts. There was every chance that delay would mean being shut up for a siege, with no chance of getting news out, in which fortune had so far favoured me. Only a miracle--and Léon--had kept my car from being commandeered. I arranged to run out at dawn on Wednesday, and if the Germans were across the road on the north, to loop west by Charleroi and take our chance with the French army.

In the last evening I made an excursion on foot out of the town on the north, and, clear of the fortifications, had proof of the French being engaged in the direction of Gembloux. This confirmed the hope that the junction with the Belgian army had been made in time, and that the Germans would be forced to fight, against an army in position, in that region.)

Wavre, Wednesday.

I have just reached here from Namur--now a city of rushing crowds and anxious waiting.

All through Monday night the French were pouring into Namur, detraining outside the town. They were concealed under provision bags, etc., from the aviators. By day or twilight they arrived with helmets and cuirasses masked. The Spahis and Turcos had a warm welcome. Even a low cheer from the silent crowds, that washed from point to point like a restless sea.

All Tuesday morning, too, the fresh Belgian 4th Army Corps moved in and through, to replace and reinforce the well-tried 3rd. In the evening the officers dined and took coffee in the square; to speed off in motors later to their posts. There was even a little music and singing in the hotels. The Belgians know their anxious, lonely task is almost over. The rest they will face in good company.

This morning we came out, probably only just in time to escape the siege. Later, the Uhlans were across the line and road. A dispatch carrier was found shot by the roadside an hour after we passed.

Meanwhile the allied armies would seem to have been taking position in a vast semicircle from Diest to Namur, curving by Quatre Bras and Wavre. They have been choosing their ground. Not Waterloo this time--that is too close to the possible distractions in Brussels--but on a splendid field. It is broken ground, veiling the strength from the enemy.

Yesterday the long line of troops, drawn gradually in, stiffened. An engagement took place near Gembloux. The Uhlans were hunted back by the Cuirassiers. I was out near in the evening on foot, north of the city, and heard the operations going on.

Taking advantage of the lull, we got out of Namur early this morning, taking cross roads and lanes in front of the French and Belgian lines, and dodging the Germans.

The French were advancing, pushing the Germans back. We were soon involved. The face of the fields and low hills near Sombreffe was alive with moving troops--columns of cavalry, light guns moving into position, long snakes of infantry scattered up and down the wooded slopes. An extraordinary sight in the sun, among woods and trees.

We worked back through the lines. The deserted châteaux were occupied by various headquarter staffs. Occasionally the country and the closeness of troops opened. We ran among patrols of the light-blue Hussars. Anxious to get us out of the way, they passed us on courteously, with an occasional "arrest." They were clearing the last Uhlans, the remnants of those which were dispersed yesterday.

An officer warned us in a lane on a hill. "Wait here," he said. "We have run down some Uhlans in those woods." We waited half an hour. No movement, sunny fields; nothing to be seen. Then suddenly, over a field, out of the wood, a rush of four horsemen, and the snap of a few shots from the far side. The next instant a running report of invisible rifles. Three horses fell. The fourth man fell from his saddle, and was dragged through the stubble. One of the other three got up, leaving his horse, walked a few paces, and fell. A grim sight in the summer fields.

Finally we were shepherded through to Mazy. Here we were blocked for two hours by advancing columns, Belgian guns and French cavalry. Slowly through the village (no peasants or children showing now!) filed regiment after regiment of French cavalry--glorious fellows. With their dulled, glimmering cuirasses, helmets covered in dust coloured linen, and long black manes brushing round their bronzed red-Indian faces, they are peculiarly savage-looking, in a splendid sort of way.

Some had slight wounds, scarf-bound; a few the remains of the garish flowers, given them in some cottage last night, still stuck in their breast-plates. Several were pallid from loss of blood. All covered with dust and their horses foam-flecked.

As they passed, four abreast, some of the files were singing together. The singing was subdued and hoarse, from tired throats. The sound had a curiously wild, barbaric note. I remember nothing like it except the beginnings of the Dervish chant, or the short moan of the Indian war-song. They all had the stern, fighting set of the face, the eyes sullen and looking only at the distance.

A few glanced round and smiled grimly: the sudden gleam of teeth and the flash of light in the eye, breaking through the mask of bronze, redness and dust, had a startling, almost shocking effect.

The majority had no glance for us; set faces and a rustle and stir of black, rusty plumes as the horses shifted uneasily at the car.

Now and again officers, and white-moustached colonels. A few noticed us, and gave various orders. Two general officers were specially noticeable in their subdued glint of armour. The one, white-bearded, slightly bent, but with a hawk's eye and a perfect seat and a great brown Irish hunter. The other like a Viking, with a white, drooping moustache. After inquiry of one of his staff, he rode up as he passed, with a dignified slight inclination. "You may pass on, sir: Englishman--and friend," he said.

A line of Belgian artillery; then the lighter horses and trappings of Lancers; finally cyclists and a detachment of the Red Cross and ambulance.

They all passed up the lanes, out on to the hills, with a sort of rustling, intent silence; for there are no drums or music in this war.

For many of these great bronzed men, with here and there a fierce negroid African, we were the last link with the life of towns and civilians. A few hours, perhaps a day or so, of the sight of the stir of troops, of the empty country and the sound of war, and they will be lying in the long nameless trenches in the fields, with the harrow already passing over them.

South of Namur also the French are advancing across the Meuse, pushing forward on the offensive. There may soon be a straight diagonal of the Allies from Maastricht to Belfort.

The Belgians are waiting quietly, and, now, more confidently.