During that time there was a continuous rain of shells, and it was extraordinary to notice the precision with which they dropped just where they would do the most damage.  I was told that the Germans used captive balloons, whose officers signaled to the gunners the points in the Belgian defense at which they should aim.

The German guns, too, were concealed with such cleverness that their position could not be detected by the Belgians.  Against such methods and against the terrible power of the German guns the Belgian artillery seemed quite ineffective.  The firing came to an end at 9:30 o’clock Friday, and the garrison escaped, leaving only ruins behind them.

[Illustration:  GEN.  VON KLUCK Commanding on the German Left Wing in the West (Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., N.Y.)]

[Illustration:  GEN.  VON HINDENBURG The German Commander in the East (Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin Photographic Co.  N.Y.)]

In order to gain time for an orderly retreat, a heavy fire was maintained against the Germans up to the last minute, and the forts were then blown up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the Gate of Malines.  I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in a motor boat.  The bombardment had then ceased, though many buildings were still blazing, and while the little boat sped down the Scheldt one could imagine the procession of the Kaiser’s troops already goose-stepping their way through the well-nigh deserted streets.

Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to me now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in many parts of the city cannot be forgotten.  It was Wednesday night that the shells began to fall into the city.  From then onward they must have averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns which the Germans possess—­“Black Marias,” as Tommy Atkins has christened them.

Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population or a large proportion of it fell into a panic.  It is impossible to blame these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings.  The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through.

Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit from the city.  Their condition was pitiable in the extreme.  Family parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men and women.  There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had come into their lives.