Just before I left early this morning a rumour, which at that hour I was unable to confirm, spread through the city that the French had arrived, and that the Turcos were actually in action with the Germans on the Louvain road. These facts must stand out in the battle of yesterday. One long line of burning villages marked the German advance, and three regiments of Belgian troops are no more. They are, I hear, the First Regiment of Guides and the Third and Ninth Regiments of the Line. A weeping woman whom I took into my automobile drew from her breast, on the road to Ghent, a blue cap with a yellow facing, upon which was the figure "3." "Voilà une casquette d'un de nos braves petits soldats," she said to me, "mais il n'y a plus du Troisième." As Mr. William Maxwell pointed out, the real capital of Belgium, in the military sense, had always been Antwerp, not Brussels; and Napoleon himself gave one of his generals to understand, in explicit terms, that there could be no glory in entering the undefended capital of an enemy's country. "Most of the country the Germans have overrun up to the present," said Mr. Maxwell, "has not been seriously contested, for it does not enter into the Allies' plan of action." Antwerp, as an important Belgian official explained, was provisioned for an indefinite period; it could be supplied with stores of every kind from the sea; and it was calculated that the forts would be able to hold out for at least a year. In these circumstances the Belgian army entrenched there would always be a menace to the right wing of the Germans, who would be obliged to detach a large part of their forces to prevent an attack from that direction. Great indignation was aroused all over Europe when it became known that the Germans had imposed a war levy on Brussels of no less a sum than £8,000,000, the alternative being the sacking of the city, with all its priceless art treasures. A levy of £2,000,000 had already been imposed on the province of Liège. The Germans made their official entry into Brussels at two o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, August 21st. To the eternal credit of the people it must be said that they betrayed not the slightest sign of panic, but faced their painful uncertainty with dignity and courage. The Civil Guard, of whom 20,000 were in Brussels, were uniformed men, and may be compared to our old volunteers. They had made preparations to resist the capture of the city, and had covered the approaches with trenches and barbed wire entanglements. But Brussels is not a fortified place, and armed opposition would have involved severe penalties. The Guard, therefore, withdrew from the capital soon after midnight. They retired with the honours of war, singing songs of victory.