Page:The Great War.djvu/264

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232 The Great War gians, aided at least by the advice of their British and French Allies, had been at work preparing Na- mur for resistance. The whole battle plan of the Allies about Charleroi, Mons and the northern line was predicated upon a determined resistance by Namur. But in a few hours Namur fell, the forts destroyed, the garrisons terror-stricken, and the French at Charleroi, the British at Mons, narrowly escaped disaster. More than any other circumstances the German howitzer contributed to the opening defeats of the Allies. Following the fall of Namur there was what one British newspaper described as a whole degringolade of fortresses. Lille was dismantled, La Fere and Rheims were abandoned in turn. Laon fell, Mezieres capitulated, the entire northern barrier of French fortresses gave up the struggle, with a celerity which astounded the world. It is idle, of course, to believe that French mili- tary men were ignorant of the weakness of their forts. Indeed, as we now know, they had tested one with their own cannon and reduced it to dust in a few minutes. The prompt fall of Jaroslav, after a short bombardment by Russian big guns, similarly suggests that the heavy artillery of all the big armies has hopelessly distanced the defensive art of engineers and that what Germany has already done may be repeated by France at Metz and Strassburg, by Russia at Posen and Breslau, if the chance comes.

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