Race to the Bridge

Fortress Antwerp was heavily bombed by the Germans, and on 8 October 1914, the Belgian field army withdrew across the river Schelde into the province of West Flanders. Tliey eventually dug in behind the river IJzer. Tlie British forces too withdrew on October 9''' and returned home via Ostend. By …

1914-10-09

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Fortress Antwerp was heavily bombed by the Germans, and on 8 October 1914, the Belgian field army withdrew across the river Schelde into the province of West Flanders. Tliey eventually dug in behind the river IJzer. Tlie British forces too withdrew on October 9''' and returned home via Ostend. By train, by foot, it was a race to the safe zone. Marines from the Royal Marine Brigade, the rearguard of the British army, did their best to protect the bridges used for retreat or to delay the pursuing German army. Some 900 men were taken prisoner together with Belgian soldiers by the Germans, when their train was halted at Moerbeke-Waas. Some other battalions were late receiving the order to retreat, if at all, and missed the trains that would take them away. Some 1,500 men from the First Boyal Naval Brigade were trapped when the German ring dosed on the border between Belgium and Holland,

Antwerp, Belgium

The Siege of Antwerp was an engagement between the German and the Belgian, British and French armies around the fortified city of Antwerp during World War I. German troops besieged a garrison of Belgian fortress troops, the Belgian field army and the British Royal Naval Division in the Antwerp area, after the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914. The city, which was ringed by forts known as the National Redoubt, was besieged to the south and east by German forces. The Belgian forces in Antwerp conducted three sorties in late September and early October, which interrupted German plans to send troops to France, where reinforcements were needed to counter the French armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

Wikipedia: Siege of Antwerp (1914)

German

British