eight o'clock in the morning
They believed the fort as good as won , and with cheers of exultation pressed on to the final assault . But at the corners of the forts quick-firing guns were stationed , and these and the infantry lining the parapets mowed them down as surely as the big guns . In the wide spaces between the forts the Belgian field army had entrenched , and with rifle-fire and frequent bayonet attacks frustrated every attempt of the German infantry to break through . The infantry assaults lasted until eight o'clock in the morning , when the Germans withdrew , heavily shaken . They had hoped to rush the forts with heavy masses of infantry , supported only by light artillery , and they had failed . They now waited for the heavy guns , which were already on the road , to arrive , and very soon forts Fléron and Chaudfontaine were deluged with an accurate fire of enormous shells , so powerful as to overturn the massive cupolas and to pierce concrete walls twelve feet thick as though they were made of butter . Such shells as these they had never been built to withstand , and it was not long before they succumbed , thus opening a way for the invaders towards the town itself .