Several wounded soldiers of an infantry regiment also gave their impressions on that part of the Titanic struggle in which they were engaged. They said that the Prussian marksmanship was not good. They fired too low. Besides, when the French advanced in skirmishing line, they protected their breast with their packs. These improvised bucklers deadened the force of the enemy’s bullets. The German practice with the machine guns, on the other hand, was deadly, but the position of these guns was easily discovered, and when discovered they were speedily silenced by the French seventy-fives. The Turcos, who, though the most formidable of fighters, have an ineradicable strain of childishness in their nature, seem to have supplied very helpful comic relief. One of them captured a German officer, carefully disarmed him, and was leading him off to the rear, when the officer began cursing him in broken French. Our Turco’s first impulse was to kill his prisoner, but he thought better and more wisely of it. He decided to humiliate him. Accordingly, at the bayonet-point, he compelled the officer to carry his pack, and, to put the finishing touch to the humiliation, placed his regimental gamelle, or saucepan, on the prisoner’s head. The entry of the Turco into camp, preceded by a Prussian major, crowned with a saucepan and performing an impromptu goose-step at the point of the bayonet, was highly successful. While the British troops were fighting at Mons and the French were engaged at Charleroi, Namur was in the last throes of siege. The strategic value of its position at the confluence of the rivers Sambre and Meuse rendered it of supreme importance to the Allies, and the fame of its forts was such as to raise high expectations as to their powers of endurance. The unexpected news, therefore, of the fall of Namur on August 23 was received with dismay, because it was believed that after the siege of Liège it could make a stout resistance with the support of the Allied Armies. But for several days the fortress had been practically isolated as the French were not sufficiently advanced to render it much aid, and its fall was due to the tremendous fire of the German siege guns. Some of these howitzers were stated to have been 11 inches (28 cm.) calibre, and to have required teams of 35 horses to move them. Of these guns there were some thirty batteries in action, with one or two guns to a battery. A number of howitzers concentrated simultaneously on each fort and smothered it with fire. The Germans are said to have attacked in a formation three ranks deep, the front rank lying down, the second kneeling, and the third standing. They afforded a target, which was fully used, for machine-gun fire. The Turcos fought well against the German Guard Corps, but while attacking they were trapped by Germans sounding their charge at 600 yards, and they were “badly mauled” at 300 yards from the German position.