Their losses were immense. Repeatedly their shattered columns were thrown back. For two days, at appalling sacrifice, they fought for the passage. On the British position the attack made no impression. But at daybreak on October 6, following an assault delivered in overwhelming force, the enemy succeeded at length in gaining a foothold on the north bank near Duffel, and in holding it despite all the efforts of the Belgians to dislodge them. The Belgian army was obliged to fall back, and with them the British contingent, but it is evidence enough of the character and vigour of the resistance that, heavily outnumbered though they were, the Belgians, in retiring upon the inner defences of the fortress, left the Germans unable immediately to follow up their advantage. The British force withdrew without the loss of any of its guns. Indeed, the naval guns and the armoured trains covered the retirement so effectually that it was impossible for the Germans, until they had transferred their heavy artillery to the north of the Nethe, to press the retreating forces. Beyond the boom of the hostile guns away to the south, and the nearer crash of the fortress artillery in reply, those within the city had, during these days of stress, little idea of how affairs were really going. A picture of the scene on the night of Tuesday, October 6, is given by the special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_:-- The night was so impelling in its exquisite beauty that I found it impossible to sleep, or even to stay indoors. On the other side of the river the trees were silhouetted in the water, the slight haze giving a delicious mezzotint effect to a scene worthy of Venice. As I walked along the stone-paved landing piers the contrast between the beauty of the picture and the grim prospect of what the death-dealing machinery all along my path might make it at any moment was appealingly vivid. Within a few hours, however, the scene changed with what to most in the city seemed almost startling suddenness. Following a proclamation by the authorities warning all who could to leave Antwerp as soon as possible, began an exodus the like of which has not been witnessed since the days of “the Spanish Fury.” The same eye-witness proceeds:-- All day the streets have been clogged and jammed with panicky fugitives fleeing from a city which, in their terrified imagination, is foredoomed. Every avenue of approach to the pontoon bridge across the Scheldt leading to St. Nicolaes has been rendered impassable by a heterogeneous mass of vehicles of every size and kind, from the millionaire’s motor-car to ramshackle gigs loaded up with the Lares and Penates of the unfortunate fugitives.