The Sentinel=record. (Hot Springs, Ark.) 1900-current, 1914-10-20
TRIED TU SPARE The CITY
Only Smaller Shells Were Dropped in
Different Quarters of the City to
Convince Belgians of Hopeessness
of Further Resistance.

Antwerp, via London, Oct. 10
1920 p. m.-German staff officers in
command told the Associated Press
correspondent on his arrival here to-
day that the city had fallen eight
days earlier than was expected EX-
cept in the warehouse section the
city was not materially damaged.
The Belgians, they said, seemed to
have been disheartened by nine weeks
of defeat and by the weak resistance
offered by the fortified positions on
the River Nethe, which were carried
October ands7
The city at present is guarded by
bluejackets and marine infantrymen
from the German stations at Kiel
Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven.
Detachments of sailors among them
recruited from the German merchant
marine, were armed only with cut.
lashes and revolvers. They lay sew.
eral weeks behind the army, taking
no part in the fighting and evidently
are destined for sea duty after the
capture of part.
AS the correspondent drove through
miles of the streets of Antwerp tbs
city appeared to have suffered less
from the bombardment than had
been believed Damage was observed
in all quarters of the city, but the de-
struction usually was confined to in
dividual houses at widely scattered
points, the great mass of intervening
buildings being untouched.
German headquarters said the Ger
mans tried to convince Antwerp that
the minimum of damage that the city
was at the mercy of their guns, and
that further resistance was useless.
Shells from the smaller mortars only
were dropped throughout the place,
few in each section until every quar-
ter had been visited
How accurately the public buildings
were avoided seemed to have been
proved by shell hole in the pave.
ment at the side entrance to the city
hall and in the destruction of a house
across the street from that building.
The church, the pride of Antwerp. has
hole eight or ten feet in diameter
in one transept window and in an ad-
joining wall 80 feet above the floor.
The artillery park of the Germans
before Antwerp was stronger than
was generally known. In addition TO
their widely heralded 16-inch mortars
and large number of 12inch siege
guns, they had two Austrian automo-
bile batteries of II guns
The effect of the big guns on Ant
werps outer Notifications was more
striking than at Liege. Two armored
turrets at Fort de Wavre-St Gather
inc were put out of action with
single shot their steel beds being
broken in two and the heavy masses
of metal hurled five or six yards
away. In another for the concrete
embankment was pierced like an egg
she'll and the steel turret uprooted,
Still another turret was completely
up-ended and lies with its base point
ing skyward and its gun buried un.
derneath.
Behind Fort Waelhem, where a 12-
inch shell penetrated the magazine, a
heavy steam engine which furnished
power for the light plant was blown
| 20 yards from its base. The entire
top of the fort acre was torn off and
sixty men of the garrison are said to
have been buried beneath the debris.
The officers declare that after 81
German shells had been dropped in
Antwerp the burgomaster Of the city
offered to surrender, but was told
that the terms of capitulation could
be arranged only with the Belgian
military authorities. The burgomas.
ter's plea that these officers could not
CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO.