A Spot
of History: The Fall of Antwerp is one of the major events of the opening
days of WWI, taking place from September 28 to October 10. Thousands tried to flee prior to the bombardment of the city. It was pure chaos and bedlam. When the shelling started, it got even worse.
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| Antwerp refugees trying to get cross a pontoon bridge -- one of the last escape routes out of the city before the German bombardment |
By 1914, Antwerp was Belgium’s second largest city, but
still maintained its bustling, small town feel. This was especially true in the
medieval Old Town, which hugged the river and was a picturesque maze of narrow
cobblestone streets, crooked alleys and open squares accentuated by magnificent
facades, ornate gables and graceful spires. A reminder of the ancient past was
in the more than 300 Madonnas that graced numerous street corners. Placed high
above the heads of many who never glanced up, the Madonnas had held candles and
lighted the way for nighttime pedestrians hundreds of years before.
Altogether, the grace, beauty and charm of Antwerp seemed to
flow from every ornate window ledge and stately building, every cobblestone
lane and finely wrought balcony – and in September 1914, every resident
probably wondered what would survive the coming German invasion.
There was no talk, however, of declaring the city an open
one as Brussels had done – Antwerp would fight and the Belgian army would make
its stand to show the Germans how tough the little Low Country was. Many
residents felt the city, with its two outer concentric rings of fortresses, was
nearly impregnable. “In fact, Antwerp was almost universally considered one of
the three or four strongest fortified positions in Europe.” Rumor had it that
the city and its forts could hold out for months at the very least – plenty of
time for the Allies to join the Belgian fight and push the Germans out of the
country before winter.
Antwerp was worth such fortifications primarily because it
was one of the largest commercial ports in the world. Even though it had a
metropolitan population of only 400,000, its port was the third busiest in the
world when it came to vessel tonnage in and out. (The top five from top down
were: New York, Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, and London.) As a 1910 Baedeker’s Belgium and Holland tour book
related, Antwerp “situated on the broad and deep Scheldt [River], 55 [miles]
from the sea, is one of the greatest seaports of Europe, serving as an outlet
for the commerce of Germany as well as of Belgium.”
On September 28, the Germans started shelling Antwerp’s
outer forts. Spotters in high altitude balloons helped guide the massive
artillery guns. With the German’s 17-inch howitzers and one-ton projectiles, it
would not be long before the forts began to fall and the beautiful, medieval
city of Antwerp would come under bombardment.
On the
battle front, by Thursday, Oct. 1, the German siege guns had devastated two of
the outer forts and German soldiers were moving up into the breach, while
Belgian troops, who had been fighting continuously for days, were trying to
hold them back. The battle line was barely a half-dozen miles outside of town. King
Albert wired England for help, knowing his 150,000 troops couldn’t hold the
outer forts against the Germans and their big guns. Everyone wondered when the
English would come and rescue them.
On
October 5, the city’s military commander, General de Guise, finally posted a
placard around the city that told everyone the truth – the situation was grave,
the city was about to fall and all noncombatants should immediately flee north
to neutral Holland. Those who were not able to flee were told to retire to
their basements, disconnect gas and water lines, stuff the staircases with
mattresses as a way of protection, and, the proclamation stated confidently, “having
taken these precautions, the population can await the bombardment in calm.”
De
Guise neglected to tell the whole truth, however, omitting the fact that the Germans
had given the city a 48-hour ultimatum – if you don’t surrender, we will start
bombarding the city at exactly 12:01 a.m. Wednesday morning, Oct. 7.
In the
end, knowledge of the ultimatum would probably not made much difference – after de Guise’s proclamation went up, the city
turned from relative calm to panic in a heartbeat. “Hundreds, thousands of terrified
fugitives filled the streets,” wrote Antwerp merchant Edouard Bunge. “Trains
were made up to run to Esschen [Holland], the only line still in operation. As
fast as they were filled – and God knows they filled quickly – people fought for their places. Vehicles that
were still left in the city were appropriated by force. One would see hacks,
market wagon trucks, push-carts, dog-carts, and all sorts of vans laden with
people. One noticed especially the throngs of the poor, those who could not
afford the luxury of a vehicle, walking with their eyes straight before them, a
mixture of men, women and children, burdened with their poor belongings – a
pitiful crowd driven by fear, and whose only desire was to gain the Dutch
frontier at the price of no matter how much suffering.”
Down at
the city’s docks on the Scheldt River the scene was frightening, chaotic and close
to total panic. Every boat and canal barge, no matter how small, was so packed with
people and their meager belongings that they verged on swamping. Thousands more
refugees jammed from the wide docks to a narrow temporary pontoon bridge like wet
sand in a giant funnel. All the permanent bridges had been previously destroyed
to prohibit the Germans from using them, so every Antwerp resident knew the
pontoon bridge was one of the last ways out of town into still-free East
Flanders. %2520Stadsarchief,%2520Antwerpen-29-151630%5B1%5D.jpg)
Antwerp's pontoon bridge -- one of the last
escape routes out of the city.
Soon,
Antwerp would endure three days and nights of bombardment by the Germans’ big artillery siege guns. Following is a short excerpt
from my book:
E.E. Hunt
was ripped from his sleep by a blast that was so ferocious it felt as if the
house had been lifted from its foundation. Two more artillery shells came
screaming in in quick succession, and when the fourth hit, “every pane of glass in the house blew
out in the chaos which followed the bursting of that fourth bomb. It had hit
directly across the street, less than 35 feet from where I was hurrying into my
clothes. I could hear screams and sobs; then the sound of people rushing by the
house, and the crash of glass which littered the sidewalks, splintering to bits
as the people ran.”
The
bombardment of Antwerp had commenced.
“
‘Everybody all right?’ I yelled, strapping on my belt of gold-pieces and
flinging on my clothes.
“ ‘All
right!’ answered Thompson shrilly from the next room. ’Y-yes,’ called Weigle
from upstairs.’“
They
dashed to the basement as more shells screamed into the city. They found de
Meester already in the basement in a small coal closet. They joined him.
“To my
astonishment, the cannonade gave me an intense feeling of exaltation. It was
like the exhilaration of fever. I was convinced that we should all be killed,
so I wrote on the walls of our cyclone-cellar the names and addresses of
Thompson, de Meester, Weigles and myself. My senses were keenly alive to
danger, but there was a strange joy in the thought that life was to be
obliterated in a mad chaos of flame and steel and thunder. Death seemed
suddenly the great adventure; the supreme experience. And there was something
splendid, like music, in the incessant insane snarl of shells and the blasts of
explosions.”
In a
quick maneuver, Hunt and Thompson ran upstairs and brought down mattresses and
blankets. They tried to sleep, with intermittent success, as the pounding
continued up above.
At four
in the morning, Hunt and Thompson, ever searching for stories and photos, went
out onto the Avenue du Sud. “Refugees, most of them women, were hurrying by in
every direction, half-dressed, only half sane, and horribly afraid. Many, no
doubt, were crouching in the cellars, but most of the people ran. Old and
young, in little coveys of fours, fives, half-dozens, dozens, ran along the
sidewalks, slipping and crashing over the broken glass, making a terrifying and
unearthly racket as they ran.”
One
shell smashed into the corner of Avenue du Sud and rue du Peage, ripping
through the cobblestones and the curb and carving a hole three feet deep and
seven feet across. People screamed and scurried for cover. Another shell hit
the house across the street and blew out the whole hallway; another took out
the third story four doors down. Black smoke rose above the city where the
city’s fuel storage facilities were now on fire.
At a
time like this, Hunt couldn’t help but think of the absurd. “I stood in the
middle of the street and watched the gray sky in the hope of seeing a shell.
The idea was absurd, yet I felt an odd sense of being cheated of part of the
spectacle. The air seemed full of steel. I counted three explosions a minute: I
wanted to see something. One could hear the shells so easily, it seemed
ridiculous not to see them…”
End of excerpt.
[To read more of the bombardment, you’ll have to wait to read my Chapter Three:
October.] Source: E.E. Hunt’s excellent book, War Bread.
My Post: I’m excited to report that I’ve
been hitting all my writing deadlines, so far. I completed Chapter One by the
end of January; completed Chapter Two at the end of February; and I’m
currently about 15 pages into Chapter Three, which is supposed to be finished by
the end of March. So far I have a little more than 100 pages in relatively good
shape. I wish I could say that every word’s a gem, but I can’t right now. Maybe
later I can say that every fourth word's a gem! :)
Ultimately,
my plan is to have the entire book in rough draft form by the end of May. Then
take all of June to edit, rewrite, re-plaster, etc. It should be between 250 and 300 pages and
will cover August 1914 through December 1914 and will be heavy with photos and
footnotes, with the footnotes all at the end of the book (aka endnotes) for
better readability.
After
that, the truly hard work begins – determining how best to present this book to
the general public. I know certain things for sure – it will be an e-book and
there will also be a print version – but as many people before me have said, “the
devil’s in the details.”
Yesterday,
Saturday, March 8, I took a half-day seminar on e-books. Quite an eye-opening
event. Lots to do and lots to think about – everything from the all-important
book cover to which format will I use to translate my manuscript into something
that can be read by as many devices as possible.
While
it’s all terribly complicated and horribly confusing, one thing I know for sure
is that it can be a black hole that will suck the time and life right out of
me. I cannot afford to take the time right now to be sucked into it. My ONE job,
my absolutely one critical function I can’t lose sight of is to get the story
down on paper – and make it as great as possible. Without a story, I have
nothing. With a story, I can then turn to the challenges that I’ll need to
overcome to get this book out to the general public.
That’s primarily
why I’ve never been good with keeping this blog current – I can’t afford the
time and energy to keep this up AND stay on deadline with the book. Right
now, everything must be subservient to the book – including my own life! (My wife, of course, would disagree, but...)
With
that said, it’s time for me to stop this post and to get back to the book. But
thanks to anyone out there who's taken the time to read this.
End of
Post 
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