Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER H The First German Flag Taken (August 5, 1914) Prom The Account Given By Deputy Staff Major Collyns Of The I2th Llne Regiment On leaving Vise", I went to Milmort, where, on August 5th, I received an order from General Leman to go immediately to Wandre and to prevent, at any cost, the Germans crossing the bridge over the Meuse. On arriving, I made a brief survey of the position. As my Battalion was only four hundred strong, the defence meant principally the construction of barricades and the utilising of houses and walls for firing obliquely and from all sides over the bridge of the Meuse, over the canal bridge to the west, and over the roads leading to these bridges. With feverish activity, the soldiers set to work. In the various houses indicated, they broke the window-panes, arranged the bedding and sacks of earth against the windows, in order to shelter those who were firing. They then dragged carts, carried planks of wood and barrels, and all kinds of other material, to the bridge over the Meuse, piling everything up in such a way as to leave only a narrow passage, scarcely sufficient for one man to cross at a time. A barricade was then put up on the road from Her- stal to Vivegnis. The walls of the cemetery, a huge rectangle between the road and the canal, were pierced to form loopholes and so transformed into a regular redoubt. In a very short time, my men were posted behind the windows of the houses and the loopholes of the cemetery, with their Mausers ready, on the look-out for the enemy. These preparations evidently interfered with the plans of the Germans and their spies set to work to move us away. One of their agents transmitted to me, by telephone, an order from the Staff to leave Wandre. As I had received an order to defend the bridge at a...