DEFENDER OF LIEGE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 98, 22 October 1914, Page 7

DEFENDER OF LIEGE

WRITING A MEMOIR OF THE SIEGE. HOW HE WAS CAPTURED. ROME, 20th October. General Leman, the defender of Liege, who is in captivity at Magdeburg, is writing a memoir of the siege of Liege, excerpts from which have been pubJished in Berlin. He states that the Germans occupied the city on 7th August, and were then able to bombard the forts on the inner side. They commenced to bombard Lovein (1 Louveigne) on 11th August with seven and eleven centimetre guns. On 15th August they commenced using 16|-inch guns, hurling grenades weighing a thousand kilograms (about one ton), the explosive force of which surpassed anything known. Their approach was heralded by an acute buzzing, and they burst with a thunderous roaVj raising clouds of missiles and stones. The' bombardment on 15th August commenced at 5 o'clock in the morning,' -and was maintained until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. A grenade wrecked the arcade under which the General Staff was sheltering. The officers wefe almost asphyxiated with the horrible gases. General Leman, while inspecting the exterior of the fort, found it reduced to a rubble heap, the slopes and counterslopes were a chaos of rubbish, and huge tongues of flame were shooting from the cupola. His only thought then was to save the remnant of the garrison, but while, retraversing the gallery he was violently flung to the earth, and wlien consciousness returned found the German* bending over him. j [ I I