But Von Buelow was now in the full tide of fighting strength—­an amazing spectacle to chance or enforced witnesses.  Well may the terrified peasants have stood hat in hand in the midst of their ruined villages.  Any door not left open was immediately broken down and the interior searched.  Here and there a soldier could be seen carrying a souvenir from some wrecked chateau.  But for the most part everyone fled from before its path, leaving it silent and abandoned.  The field gray-green uniforms were almost invisible in cover, in a half light, or when advancing through mist.  No conceivable detail seemed to have been overlooked.  Each man carried a complete equipment down to handy trifles, the whole weighed to the fraction of an ounce, in carefully estimated proportions.

But this was not enough.  Waiting for each column to pass were men with buckets of drinking water, into which the soldiers dipped their aluminum cups.  Temporary field post offices were established in advance, so that messages could be gathered in as the columns passed.  Here and there were men to offer biscuits and handfuls of prunes.  In methodical, machine-like progress came the ammunition wagons, commissariat carts, field kitchens, teams of heavy horses attached to pontoons, traction engines hauling enormous siege guns, motor plows for excavating trenches, aeroplanes, carriages containing surgeons, automobiles for the commanders, and motor busses in which staff officers could be seen studying their maps.  On some of these vehicles were chalked Berlin-Paris.  No branch of the service was absent, no serviceable part if it overlooked—­not even a complement of grave diggers.  It moved forward always at an even pace, as if on parade, with prearranged signals passed down the line when there was any obstacle, a descent or bend in the road.

The tramp of many thousands cast into the atmosphere clouds of fine dust, but even those in rear marched through it as if their lungs were made of steel.  No permission was granted to open out for the circulation of air, though it was the month of August.  It is safe to assert there was not a single straggler in Von Buelow’s army.  At the first sign of it he was admonished with a vigor to deter his comrades.  Discipline was severely maintained.  At every halt the click of heels, and rattle of arms in salute went on down the line with the sharp delivery of orders.

On Wednesday, August 12, 1914, the town of Huy, situated midway between Liege and Namur, was seized.  It possessed an old citadel, but it was disarmed, and used now only as a storehouse.  Some Belgian detachments offered a slight resistance at the bridge, but were speedily driven off.  The capture of Huy gave the Germans control of the railway from Aix-la-Chapelle to France, though broken at Liege by the still standing northern forts.  But they secured a branch line of more immediate service, running from Huy into Central Belgium.