The outermost line of forts began at Lierre,[160] and swept round in a great circle south through Fort Waelhem to the Scheldt, and north through Fort Schooten to near the Dutch frontier. Two to three miles within this outer line of forts was a second line of defence formed by the rivers Nethe[161] and Rupel, which, along with the Scheldt, make a great natural waterway defending three sides of the city. If need be, the valleys of these rivers can be flooded, and thus form an additional barrier to the approach of an enemy. Some six miles within the line of the Nethe and Rupel, and about three miles from the centre of the city, was another chain of forts girdling it from the Scheldt on the south to the Scheldt on the north. Outside this inner line of defence, towards the north and west, were two other areas, which could be flooded in order to keep back the enemy. From the moment that the first German soldier set foot on the soil of Belgium, the military authorities were at work night and day strengthening the defences, and clearing away all the trees and buildings that lay in the line of fire of the guns in the forts. [Illustration: The Entrenched Camp of Antwerp.] Barbed-wire entanglements connected with the electric supply of the city covered acres of ground; stakes were driven point upwards to form obstacles; man-traps innumerable were constructed, and the fields all around were sown with mines. Preparations were made to blow up the bridges over the network of canals and rivers to the south of the city; machine guns and quick-firers were mounted everywhere; and at night searchlights swept over the zone of destruction, and made it bright as day. In this way Antwerp prepared to stand its latest siege. [Footnote 156: John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), American historian, whose most famous work, _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_, was published in 1856.] [Footnote 157: Ancient city of Bavaria, 95 miles north-west of Munich, the capital.] [Footnote 158: City of Bavaria, on the Lech, tributary of the Danube. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the great centre of trade between Northern Europe, Venice, and the Levant.] [Footnote 159: (1533-84.) Known as "the Silent." He headed the opposition in the Netherlands to Philip of Spain, and became the founder of the Dutch Republic. He was assassinated.] [Footnote 160: _Le-air´_, town, 10 miles south-east of Antwerp, at the confluence of the Great and Little Nethe.] [Footnote 161: _Nā´teh._] CHAPTER XXXVI. THE SIEGE AND FALL OF ANTWERP.