King Albert did all in his power to encourage the defense and by his presence among his troops on the firing lines around the city added greatly to his reputation as a patriotic soldier.  A force of several thousand British marines, coming from Ostend, aided the Belgian defense in the last days of the siege, but all efforts were unavailing.  One by one the forts succumbed to the German fire with which the Belgian guns could not cope, and German troops penetrated nearer and nearer to the doomed city.

Finally, on October 9, when the inhabitants were in a state of terror as a result of the long-continued bombardment of the forts, and the shelling of the city, further resistance was seen to be useless, the defending forces, Belgian and British, made their escape to Ostend or into the neutral territory of Holland, the city formally capitulated through the Burgomaster, and occupation by the Germans followed immediately.  The bulk of the British marines made their way back to Ostend, but a rearguard, consisting of 2,000 British, together with some Belgians, was cut off by the advance of the Germans across the Scheldt, and rather than surrender to them marched across the border into Holland and surrendered arms to the Dutch authorities.  The men were interned and will be held in Holland till the end of the war.  It is probable that this rearguard was deliberately sacrificed to enable the Anglo-Belgian army to make good its retreat.

The fate of Antwerp shows what might have happened to Paris had the Germans been able to bring up their great siege guns to the outer fortifications of the French capital and protect them while they performed their tremendous task of battering the defenses to pieces.  The wrecking of Antwerp’s outer and inner forts in ten days proves that solid, massive concrete, chilled steel and well-planned earthworks afford little or no security against the monstrous cannon of the Kaiser’s armies.  There appeared to be but one way of withstanding them.

As seems to have been demonstrated in the valley of the Aisne, they are apparently ineffective against field forces deeply intrenched in a far-flung line.

THE FIGHTING OUTSIDE ANTWERP

Early on Tuesday morning, October 6, one of the fiercest of the engagements outside Antwerp ended with the crossing of the River Nethe by the Germans and their approach to the inner forts.  Monday had been the sixth day of the siege and the Belgian army was fighting with reckless courage to save Antwerp.  As a precaution, the boilers of all the German ships lying in the harbor were exploded on Sunday, in order to prevent, if possible, use of these ships as transports for German troops across the North Sea or elsewhere.  The detonation of the bursting boilers, resounding through the city, set the excited Sunday crowd very near to a panic.  This was accelerated by the constant fear of airship attacks, and most of the population that was not already in active flight from the city sought safety in cellars.