Notwithstanding the fact that the British Army had earlier designated Penang Island as a fortress, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival then ordered a withdrawal from Penang. Not only did the British Army abandon the Batu Maung Fort on the island, they also surreptitiously evacuated Penang's European population, leaving the colony's Asian populace to the mercy of the impending Japanese occupation. To this day, it has been agreed that the withdrawal and the covert evacuation of Europeans led to the loss of the British sense of invincibility, and that "the moral collapse of British rule in Southeast Asia came not in Singapore, but in Penang".