The French made great efforts to get up, and actually got a certain number by forced marches far enough to take the places of decimated Belgian regiments in the line. But the smashing numbers and artillery made the Belgian position, in its open trenches and entanglements on easy country, impossible. Their left once turned, the small Belgian army had no choice but to fall back on Malines and Antwerp. They had to choose between defending Brussels, to keep the link with the French, and covering Antwerp, which opened the road to Brussels. Antwerp was obviously the more important, and better prepared for defence. Brussels must have been destroyed in a siege, with immense loss of life to the huge numbers who have swarmed into it. Wavre and all the district where I was travelling to and fro yesterday was therefore evacuated, as the Belgians retired north. Their retirement compelled a synchronous falling back of the French upon the Sambre, to protect their own left wing when the link with the Belgians was broken. The Germans obtained free passage both on the east and south to Brussels. The rapidity of their progress is evidenced by the fact that when I passed round west of Brussels to-day, advance cavalry patrols were already reported in the neighbourhood of Oudenarde (about 35 miles west of Brussels, towards Lille). It will be seen that, on paper at least, the Belgian army is in no pleasant position. If the Germans continue to press northward on their left flank, the Belgians will constantly have to be wheeling to their own left front, to face them on the east. They will be forced to retreat until they rest upon Malines and Antwerp. At the same time any small force of Germans left in Brussels is largely out of the game. The Belgians threaten their northern communications. The farther the Germans push north, to Ghent or Ostend, the more danger that their lines can be cut. All depends whether this German northern advance is merely an army of occupation, to subdue Belgium, or the main army of advance upon France. In the latter case, it will not now be stopped this side of the frontier. Ostend, Saturday night. To-day the German flood has advanced with extraordinary rapidity. The Belgian army is for the moment off the board. At express speed and with clockwork regularity the country is being occupied. We know now that this must be the main army of attack. Sweeping from the east by three routes, and through and past Brussels, the main German advance has turned south-west. Passing close to Waterloo and through Hal it is directed against the frontier between Valenciennes and Maubeuge. A lighter cavalry column is passing further north, as if towards Lille.