DESTROYING THE PRICELESS MONUMENTS OF CIVILIZATION
THE INEXPIABLE GERMAN CRIME, LOUVAIN -- ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY
-- REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES -- PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN
TREASURER -- A MODERN POMPEII -- BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC --
INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS.
All through Belgium and all through the country of the Franco-German
border line are towns and cities filled with treasures of art and
history--some of the richest, indeed, that centuries of civilization
have amassed. Under the guns of both sides of the mighty conflict these
paintings and shrines and storied buildings have been exposed to
destruction, and many of them have been wantonly sacrificed, shattered
beyond hope of restoration.
Under the latest Hague proposals, Article XXVIII, historic monuments are
supposed to be respected even by warring nations, yet both Germany and
France have accused each other of violating this convention. The whole
of civilized humanity rises in protest against such sacrilege.
Among all the black crimes of the German invasion of Belgium none is
blacker than the sack and burning of Louvain, the fairest city of
Belgium and the intellectual metropolis of the Low Countries. According
to a bitter statement of Frank Jewett Mather, the well-known American
art critic, “Louvain contained more beautiful works of art than the
Prussian nation has produced in its entire history.”
ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY
There was hardly a building within the ramparts but breathed the air of
some romance of the Middle Ages or marked a stepping-stone in its
stirring history. Once before war robbed it of its commercial prestige,
only to permit it to rise, phœnix-like, as the center of learning during
the sixteenth century. At the opening of the present war it still
boasted of the largest university in Belgium, in which thousands of
antique volumes and prints were stored. Its museums and its churches
housed scores of paintings of the old Flemish masters.
Louvain has passed through successive periods of culture and barbarity
ever since Julius Caesar established a permanent camp there during his
campaigns against the Belgians and the Germans. In the eleventh century
it became the residence of the long line of Dukes of Brabant, and was
the capital until Brussels wrested this distinction from it during an
uprising of weavers against their feudal masters. In the fourteenth
century it had gained a population of between 100,000 and 150,000, and
there were no fewer than 2,400 woolen manufactories. The weavers were a
turbulent lot, however, and when they rose against the Duke Wencelaus he
conquered them and forced thousands of them to flee to Holland and
England. It was then that Brussels became the capital and Louvain lost
its prestige as a center of the cloth-making industry.
[Illustration: THE VOICE OF THE COLOGNE CHURCH SPEAKS:
“Louvain, thou wast built on my foundations, spirit of my spirit, heart
of my heart.”]
Scholars began to pour into the town, however, to glean what learning
they could from the old parchments and books which its castles
contained. In 1423 Duke John IV of Brabant founded Louvain University.
Students flocked there from all over the world. In the sixteenth century
it had 4,000 students and forty-three colleges.
The library occupied a large room with fine wood panels, carved in
intricate designs. It held 150,000 volumes and thousands of manuscripts,
valuable beyond price. It contained a colossal group representing a
scene from the Flood, sculptured by Geerts in 1839.
One block to the north of the university is the Grande Place, on which
faced the Hôtel de Ville, one of the finest examples of the late Gothic
style of architecture in Europe. It surpassed the town halls of Bruges,
Brussels, and Ghent in elegance of detail and harmony of design. It was
erected in 1448 by Mathieu de Layens, and it was from the upper windows
of this building that thirteen magistrates of noble birth were hurled to
their death on the spears of the populace in the streets below during
the weavers’ uprising.
Across the Grande Place stood the church of St. Pierre, a magnificent
type of the Gothic style built on a cruciform plan and flanked by
chapels holding reliquaries of the saints, life-sized wooden figures,
and priceless carvings and paintings. There might have been seen the
works of Van Papenhoven, Roger van der Weyden, Dierick Bouts, and De
Layens.
REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES
The notification of the sacking of Louvain was contained in the notice
issued by the British Press Bureau on Friday, August 28, 1914, which
read as follows: “On Tuesday evening a German corps, after receiving a
check, withdrew in disorder into the town of Louvain. A German guard at
the entrance to the town mistook the nature of this incursion and fired
on their routed fellow-countrymen, mistaking them for Belgians. In spite
of all denials from the authorities the Germans, in order to cover their
mistake, pretended that it was the inhabitants who had fired on them,
whereas the inhabitants, including the police, had been disarmed more
than a week before. Without inquiry and without listening to any
protests the German commander-in-chief announced that the town would be
immediately destroyed. The inhabitants were ordered to leave their
dwellings; a party of the men were made prisoners and the women and
children put into trains, the destination of which is unknown. Soldiers
furnished with bombs set fire to all parts of the town. The splendid
church of St. Pierre, the University buildings, the library, and the
scientific establishment were delivered to the flames. Several notable
citizens were shot. A town of 45,000 inhabitants, the intellectual
metropolis of the Low Countries since the fifteenth century, is now no
more than a heap of ashes.”
PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER
The town treasurer of Louvain, who managed to escape from the sacked
city, gave in the London Times the following account of the destruction:
“At last, on Tuesday night, there took place the unspeakable crime, the
shame of which can be understood only by those who followed and watched
the different phases of the German occupation of Louvain.
“It is a significant fact that the German wounded and sick, including
their Red Cross nurses, were all removed from the hospitals. The Germans
meanwhile proceeded methodically to make a last and supreme requisition,
although they knew the town could not satisfy it. Toward six o’clock the
bugle sounded, and officers lodging in private houses left at once with
arms and luggage. At the same time thousands of additional soldiers,
with numerous field pieces and cannon, marched into the town to their
allotted positions. The gas factory, which had been idle, had been
worked through the previous night and day by Germans, so that during
this premeditated outrage the people could not take advantage of
darkness to escape from the town. A further fact that proves their
premeditation is that the attack took place at eight o’clock, the exact
time at which the population entered their homes in conformity with the
German orders--consequently escape became well-nigh impossible. At 8.20
the full fusillade with the roar of the cannons came from all sides of
the town at once.
“The cavalry charged through the streets sabring fugitives, while the
infantry, posted on the foot-paths, had their fingers on the triggers of
their guns waiting for the unfortunate people to rush from the houses or
appear at the windows, the soldiers praising and complimenting each
other on their marksmanship as they fired at the unhappy fugitives.
Those whose houses were not yet destroyed were ordered to quit and
follow the soldiers to the railway station. There the men were separated
from mothers, wives, and children, and thrown, some bound, into trains
leaving in the direction of Germany. They saw their carefully-collected
art and other treasures being shared out by the soldiers, the officers
looking on. Those who attempted to appeal to their tormentors’ better
feelings were immediately shot. A few were let loose, but most of them
were sent to Germany.
“On Wednesday at daybreak the remaining women and children were driven
out of the town--a lamentable spectacle--with uplifted arms and under
the menace of bayonets and revolvers. The day was practically calm. The
destruction of the most beautiful part of the town seemed momentarily to
have soothed the barbarian rage of the invaders. On Thursday the remnant
of the Civil Guard was called up on the pretext of extinguishing the
conflagration; those who demurred were chained and sent with some
wounded Germans to the Fatherland, whilst the population had to quit.”
A MODERN POMPEII
Fair Louvain is now a place of desolation and ashes. Its treasures have
been madly sacrificed to the god of war. A graphic description of the
ruin has been written by Professor E. Gilson, of the University of
Louvain, in the form of a letter to the Belgian Minister of Justice. It
says in part:
“At the ‘Seven Corners’ Louvain reveals itself to my eyes like a
luminous panorama in the glade of a forest. The center of the city is a
smoking heap of ruins. Houses are caved in, nothing remains but smoking
ruins, and a mass of brick. It is a veritable Pompeii. But how much more
tragic and vivid is the sight of this new Pompeii! An oppressive silence
everywhere. Everybody has fled; at the windows of cellars I see
frightened faces, and at the street corners Prussian sentinels, sordid,
immovable and silent.
“In the center stand the walls of St. Pierre, now a grinning silhouette,
roof and belfry gone, the walls blackened and caved in. In front stands
the Hôtel de Ville, dominating everything and almost intact. Further on,
the remains of Les Hales, entirely destroyed, except for the arcade of
big pillars of the Salle des Pas Perdus. The library and its treasures
are entirely gone.
“In the Petite Rue Louis Nelsens everything is destroyed. At the foot of
the statue, in a flower bed all tramped underfoot, there is an irregular
hillock covered with a few dead leaves. An old woman, recognizing me,
comes out of her cellar and tells me: ‘Monsieur, this is the grave of
Monsieur David and his son, the best people that ever lived.’ She cries.
They were killed by shrapnel fired upon them as they were leaving their
house. The Capuchin brothers made temporary graves for the dead.
“Graves were found nearly everywhere. In front of the statue, near a
house, I find traces of fire. ‘In this place,’ the old woman tells me,
‘the Prussians burned a body after soaking it in petroleum. Some men
buried the charred remains.’ I pick up a key which must have belonged to
the dead man--a memento of this monstrous incident.
“In the center of the city the sight is extraordinarily
picturesque--gloomy, abominable, and more so in the evening when the
full moon is shining over the mass of ruins, it is really fantastic,
diabolical.
“The center of old Louvain, the old city of the Dukes of Brabant, exists
no longer; a new city will have to be built in the center of the
quarters spared by the torch.
BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC
“A villager told me that the soldiers had two ways of setting fire to
the houses: One was to break the windows of the first floor, to throw
petroleum on the floor, and throw in torches of burning straw, while
others were engaged in shooting at the upper-story windows to prevent
the inhabitants from throwing missiles on those setting fire to their
homes.”
INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS
Indignant protest against the outrageous sacrifice of Louvain arose from
every quarter of the civilized world. The London Tablet, commenting on
the desolation of Belgium and the sacrifice of her temples, said:
“The irreparable crime of Louvain and the ruthless damage done to the
Cathedral of Malines while Cardinal Mercier was absent in Rome have left
Belgium’s cup of bitterness still unfilled. We do not understand the
reason of these remorseless attacks upon venerable places of worship,
and particularly upon Roman Catholic churches. We do not fully discern
why even the modern Huns should be so eager to violate these peaceful
sanctuaries, destroying one, bombarding another with zest, stabling
their horses in a third, as they have undoubtedly done. One would almost
fancy that the late Professor Cramb was right after all, that Germany
regards the Christian creed as outworn, and that she dreams, when she
has imposed her will upon the world (if she can), of founding a new
religion, with the Kaiser as its inspired expositor. We wonder what the
pious people of Bavaria and Austria-Hungary think of this persistent
desecration of Catholic shrines. The meaning of the sack of Dinant is,
however, sufficiently clear. Thousands of travelers know that pleasant
little town, which clustered beneath the old citadel on the banks of the
Meuse. They will learn with horror and distress that it has shared the
fate of Louvain, that it has been shelled and burned, that many of its
defenseless men have been shot, and that its women are hunted and
homeless. We have not yet been told, but doubtless shall hear in due
course, that the splendid thirteenth-century church of Notre Dame, the
most complete example of pointed Gothic architecture in Belgium, has
perished amid the general destruction. The reason of this sack and
pillage of town after town in Belgium, with every accompaniment of
murderous barbarity--Termonde is another melancholy case in point--is
becoming obvious. It is due to the resolute resistance of Antwerp. The
Germans want to capture Antwerp, but can not spare enough men to invest
the fortress, and in any case hope to obtain it without paying the
price. They seek to terrorize Antwerp into submission by laying Belgium
waste, by razing her undefended cities to the ground, and by shedding
the blood of innocent Belgian citizens of both sexes. . . . The wilful
devastation of Belgium will have only one definite result. It will
increase the chorus of indignant denunciation of German methods of
warfare which now rises from every civilized country in the world.”
[Illustration: BURNING OF THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS.
This noble building, one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture in
the world, was bombarded by German shells and set on fire. Much of the
priceless statuary and the entire roof were destroyed.]
[Illustration: THE SACKING OF LOUVAIN.
According to the official report of the Commission of Inquiry into the
German atrocities at Louvain and other places, men were brutally
separated from their wives and children, and after having been subjected
to abominable treatment by the Germans were herded out of the town. The
corpses of many a civilian encumbered the streets and squares.]