The Log of a Noncombatant

Antwerp, the temporary capital of Belgium, was at this time invested, but not yet besieged, by the German army. On the south the city was already cut off by several regiments of the Ninth and Tenth German Army Corps under General von Boehn. The River Scheldt and the Dutch border formed a wall on the north and west. It was to Antwerp, therefore, that we determined to go. After listening to the usual flood of warnings against entering the fighting zone, and drinking our fill of stories of atrocity and hate which every refugee brought across the border into Holland, we took a couple of reefs in our baggage, and, hoisting our knapsacks, set our course for the temporary Belgian capital.