Now, lying as they did behind the rivers, and with the ring of forts around Namur to shield their point of junction and to split the enemy's attack, this superiority, though heavy, was not crushing. The hopes of the defensive that it would stand firm, or at least retire slowly so as to give time for the manoeuvring masses to come up was, under this presumption, just. It was even thought possible that, if the enemy attacked too blindly and spent himself too much, the counter-offensive might be taken after the first two or three days. As for the remainder of the German forces, it was believed that they were stretched out very much in even proportion, without any thin places, from the Meuse to Alsace. Now, as a matter of fact, the German forces were in no such disposition. 1. The Germans had added to every army corps a reserve division. 2. They had brought through the Belgian plains a very much larger number than seven army corps: they had brought nine. 3. They had further brought against Namur yet another four army corps through the Ardennes, the woods of which helped to hide their progress from air reconnaissance. To all this mass of thirteen army corps, each army corps half as large again as the active or first line allowed for, add some imperfectly trained but certainly large bodies of independent cavalry. We cannot accurately say what the total numbers of this vast body were, but we can be perfectly certain that more than 700,000 men were massed in this region of Namur. The enemy was coming on, not four against three, but certainly seven against three, and perhaps eight or even nine against three. The real situation was that given in the accompanying diagram (Sketch 43). Five corps, each with its extra division, were massed under von Kluck, and called the 1st German Army. Four more, including the Guards, were present with von Buelow, and stretched up to and against the first defences of Namur. Now, around the corner of that fortress, two Saxon corps, a Wurtemberg corps, a Magdeburg corps, and a corps of reserve under the Duke of Wurtemberg formed the 3rd Army, the right wing of which opposed the forts of Namur, the rest of which stretched along the line of the Meuse. Even if the forts of Namur had held out, the position of so hopelessly inferior a body as was the Franco-British force, in face of such overwhelming numbers, would have been perilous in the extreme. With the forts of Namur abandoned almost at the first blow, the peril was more than a peril. It had become almost certain disaster. [Illustration: Sketch 43.] With the fall of Namur, the angle between the rivers--that is, the crossings of the rivers at their most difficult part where they were broadest--was in the hands of the enemy, and the whole French body, the 4th and 5th Armies, was at some time on that Saturday falling back.