SIEGE OF LIEGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15746, 22 October 1914, Page 5

SIEGE OF LIEGE.

GENERAL LEMAN'S STORY. HUGE GERMAN SHELLS. FORTS REDUCED TO RUBBLE. Rome, October 20. General Leman, the defender of Liege, who is in captivity at Magdeburg, is writing a memoir of the ">iege of Liege, of which excerpts have been published in Berlin. They state that the Germans occupied the city on August 7. They were then able to bombard the forts •on the inner side. They commenced to bombard Fort Lovein on August 11 with 7 and 11-centimetre guns. On the loth they commenced using 16jin guns, hurling grenades weighing a thousand kilos (22001b). Their explosive force surpassed anything known. Their approach was heralded by an acute buzzing, and they burst with a thunderous roar, raising clouds of missiles and stones. The bombardment on the 15th commenced at five o'clock in the morning, and continued 1 unbroken until two o'clock in the afternoon.

\ grenade 'wrecked an arcade under which the Belgian General Staff was sheltering. The officers were almost asphyxiated by the horrible •rases. General Leman, inspecting an exterior fort, found it reduced to a rubble heap. The slopes and counter-slopes were a chaos of rubbish. Huge tongues of flame were shooting from the cupola. His only thought then was to save the remnant of the garrison, but when traversing the gallery again he was violently flung to the earth. When consciousness returned he found the Germans bending over him.