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Show BELGIANS WERE AT DISADVANTAGE Ostend Beigiuin, Sept. 8. via London, Lon-don, 5:35 p m The remnant of the Namur garrison has arrived here, bringing a story which explains to some extent why a stronghold believed be-lieved so nearly impregnable, fell. Ut 20.000 men in the forts in the environs en-virons of Namur. 12.000 have returned re-turned to Belgian soil, making the Belgian loss at Namur In killed, wounded and missing 14,000. It seems that, upder cover of the fog. the Germans Ger-mans finally got their new siege guns into iosltions from which they could concentrate their fire on a sin gle point of the Namur defenses. The guns were at minimum distance of three miles from the Belgian trenches and consequently outranged the Belgian Bel-gian guns "Without troubling about the forts, said one of the survivors, 'the Germans Ger-mans first centered their rain of steel upon our entrenchments. For ten hours our brave young fellows stood the terrible ordeal, unable to! fire a shot in return Any man risking risk-ing his head above the fire-swept ramparts had It blown off. Ljing flat on our stomachs all we could do was to wait, for the firing to end. Whole regiments were being declmat-1 ed. The loss among our officers was terrible "Meanwhile many Gorman guns hadj been turned on the forts, especially! Malzeret and Mnrchovellette. The men in them, armed with guns or much smaller caliber than the Germans, Ger-mans, could offer but feeble resistance. resist-ance. Maizcret, in fact, fired only about ten shots while receiving no less than 1200 shells at the rate ot twenty a minute. "At Marcho elette 75 men perished at the batteries and both forts soon surrendered. The other works, however, how-ever, were still holding out when the army left town. So much confidence! had been placed In General Michel I and his staff's ability to hold the fortress that the eventual retirement of the forces had not been provided for. and as a result the greatest confusion con-fusion ensued. "No provision had been made for the destruction of the stores and these, together with the fortress artillery artil-lery and most of the field artillery fell into the hands of the enemy. At the cadet, school alone was a store of 3.000,000 ratiqns. "The ambulance corps was a heavy sufferer through lack of organization, losing 160 out of COO men Many of our sick and wounded were left behind be-hind in Namur .but such as could be moved were got through the French lines and eventually were transferred to French hospitals. "On the retreat the narrow road was choked with men, horses and vehicles Of our enormous park or motor cars only two were saved, for the Germans entered the town closo on our heels. "We were doomed to disappointment disappoint-ment after disappointment The French had been obliged to fall back and could only send us two regiments. These braveiy fought their way to us. Joining us In greatly reduced numbers not far from Namur. Ouri generals had believed that the de-1 structlon of the bridge at Jambes would cover our retreat, but the Germans, Ger-mans, moving more rapidly, cut off our retreat near Bois de Villers, six miles from Namur, where their machine ma-chine guns made a clean sweep of several motors filled with Belgian officers. of-ficers. At last we cut our way through but at a terrible loss. 'Here the Eighth and Thirteenth regiments especially distinguished i tli.msflve. Thpy lost nearly all ot their olficcrs. One of our commissariat commis-sariat trains fell into the hands ot the enemy. "Our troops continued their retreat, ever pursued, ever harassed. Moreover, More-over, we tumbled right into the path of the French retreat from Charlerol, and it was not until wo got to lJhil-llpeville lJhil-llpeville that our troops were pulled together again and reformed. "The next day and thereafter our retreat was executed in good order Everywhere we were received with open arms, the inhabitants of towns vielng with one another to give us shelter." |