As to the first of these points, it will be found repeated throughout the whole of the campaign wherever German forces attack a ring of permanent works. For the German theory in this matter (which experience has now amply supported) is that since modern permanent works _of known and restricted position_ go under to a modern siege train if the fire of the latter be fully concentrated and the largest pieces available, everything should be sacrificed to the putting into the narrowest area of all the projectiles available. The ring once broken on a sufficient single sector point is broken altogether. The second point, that only field-pieces as yet were used (which was due to the fact that the siege train was not yet come up), is an important indication of the weakness of the defence--on all of which the enemy were, of course, thoroughly informed. There were perhaps 20,000 men in and upon the whole periphery of Liége, a matter of over thirty miles, and what was most serious, no sufficient equipment or preparation of the forts, or, what was more serious still, no sufficient trained body of gunners. It is almost true to say that the resistance of Liége, such as it was, was effected by rifle fire. With the dawn of August 5th, and in the first four hours of daylight, a German infantry attack upon the same south-eastern forts which had been subjected to the first artillery fire in the night developed, and after some loss withdrew, but shortly after the first of the forts, that of Fléron, was silenced. The accompanying sketch map will show how wide a gap was left henceforward in the defences. Further, Fléron was the strongest of the works upon this side of the river. Seeing that, in any case, even if there had been a sufficient number of trained gunners in the forts, and a sufficient equipment and full preparation of the works for a siege (both of which were lacking), the absence of sufficient men to hold the gaps between would in any case have been fatal to the defence. With such a new gap as this open by the fall of Fléron, the defence was hopeless, even if it were only to be counted in hours. [Illustration: Sketch 34.] It is high praise of the Belgian people and character to point out that, after the fall of Fléron, for forty-eight full hours such a gap was still contested by men, a great part of whom were little better than civilian in training, and who, had they been all tried regulars, would have been far too few for their task. General Leman, who commanded them, knew well in those early hours of Wednesday, the 5th, that the end had already come. He also knew the value of even a few hours' hopeless resistance, not perhaps to the material side of the Allied strategy, but to the support of those moral forces lacking which men are impotent in maintaining a challenge. Not only all that Wednesday, the 5th, but all the Thursday, the 6th, he maintained a line against the pressure of the invaders with his imperfect and insufficient troops.