Belgian Battles 85 The outstanding fact about Belgian " battles " up to this time was that the great wave of German ad- vance from Metz to the Dutch frontier was moving forward, gaining rather than losing headway, and that on the whole line the Belgian forces were fall- ing back, skirmishing as they went. For the rest, apart from the first efforts to storm Liege, the fight- ing, both in numbers employed and losses, was rela- tively trivial and precisely what was to be expected as a great forward movement developed. The newly reported capture of the Huy fort by the Ger- mans was in itself an indication of their progress. Indeed, the general success of the German advance already infallibly suggested that the Allies had de- liberately elected to fight a delaying war until Rus- sian armies should come up or that a French offen- sive was shortly to break out in another field.