A DESOLATE MAJOR
One can readily realize that a journey to Antwerp under the escort of a
German soldier had rather humiliated me. I wrote a letter of protest to
Major Von Wilm, relating all the incidents of the day.
A few days afterwards I received a reply from this officer, who
explained that my arrest was owing to a denunciation; that he had
supplied the German military police with all necessary information;
that everything was now properly arranged, and that I need have no
inquietude as to the future.
I succeeded in taking with me to the prison later this letter written
by Major Von Wilm, and I also was able to smuggle it out of Germany
on my release. The reader will find the letter reproduced elsewhere
in this story. It is a document which I consider of the greatest
importance. In it the chief of the German military police in Antwerp is
on record as declaring over his signature that I need not be uneasy as
to the future, as I should be allowed to enjoy immunity.
This immunity, however, was to be of short duration. On June 2, when I
believed I had been freed from all annoyance, two soldiers presented
themselves at the house and requested me to accompany them to Antwerp.
I felt convinced that surely this time it was to be a simple visit to
an office of some kind, but unaccompanied by inconvenience or vexation.
I left the house without hesitation, taking with me only my walking
cane. One of the soldiers spoke French. He appeared to think my call to
Antwerp was a mere formality, and that I might be allowed to return to
Capellen the same evening.
Arriving in Antwerp, the soldiers conducted me to a hall situated near
the kommandantur on des Recollets street. In this hall I saw a large
number of people whose appearance was not very reassuring. There were
men and women who, judging by appearance, were all more or less bad
characters.
Left alone by the two soldiers I made a close observation of this
doubtful-looking crowd, and the non-commissioned officer who was in
charge of them. I tried in vain to recall the place where I was, and so
decided to secure the information from the non-commissioned officer.
“Well,” said I to him. “What place is this? What am I brought here for?
What do they wish to get from me? Do you know?” The non-commissioned
officer did not answer. He just shrugged his shoulders as though he did
not understand what I said. I thereupon gave him my card, together with
a message for the major. A few minutes later an officer appeared and
requested me to follow him. It turned out to be Major Von Wilm’s office
into which I was now introduced.
“Mr. Beland,” he said, “I am desolate. New instructions have just
arrived from Berlin and I must intern you.”
I had not time to express surprise or utter a word of protest before
he added: “But you will be a prisoner of honor. You will lodge here in
Antwerp at the Grand Hotel, and you will be well treated.”
“But this,” I said, “does not suit me. First of all, my wife and family
are not aware of what is happening to me. In any event I must go back
and inform them of my predicament and obtain the clothing I shall need
at this hotel.”
Visibly embarrassed through being unable to grant my request even for
one hour the major was unable to reply at once. He pondered, walked
a few paces in front of his desk, then what was Prussian in the man
asserted itself and he said: “No, sir, I cannot permit you to return to
Capellen. You may write to madame; tell her what has happened, and I
will forward the letter by messenger.” This was done.
The major made every effort to convince me that my detention would
be of short duration; that all that was required was evidently to
establish my quality as a practising physician; that as soon as
documentary proof of this could be placed in the hands of the German
authorities I should be liberated and restored to my family.
[Illustration: A SAMPLE OF GERMAN PERFIDY
Antwerpen, 21./5. 15.
Werten Herr Beland!
In diesem Moment erhalte ich Ihren freundlichen Brief
vom 19. Ich hoffe, daß Ihre Vorladung beim Meldeamt ein
befriedigendes Resultat gehabt hat; ich habe nochmals mit dem
Vorstand des Meldeamtes gesprochen und höre, daß Sie diese
Unannehmlichkeiten einer Denunziation zu verdanken haben.
Die Sache ist jetzt in Ordnung und wird sich nicht wiederholen.–
ergebenst
Von J. Wilm
Major.
TRANSLATION
Antwerp, May 21st, 1915.
Dear M. Beland!
I receive at this moment your kind letter of the 19th.
I hope that your appearance before the Police Bureau has had
a satisfactory outcome; I have spoken once more with the head
of the Police Control office and I learn that you owe this
inconvenience to a denunciation and it will never occur again.
Sincerely
(signed) Von J. Wilm
Major.]
One can easily come to believe what one fervently desires. I deluded
myself with the hope that my sojourn in this hotel was only temporary.
A young officer was ordered to accompany me to the Grand Hotel. On the
way he allowed me to stop at a stationer’s store long enough to buy a
few books. Shortly afterwards we arrived at the hotel.
Every public hall had been converted into military offices. The officer
who accompanied me, having exchanged a few words with some of the
soldiers, the latter glanced at me as though I were a curious animal.
“He must be an Englishman–yes, he’s English, all right,” several of
those repeated in turn, all the time staring at me unsympathetically.
Finally I was conducted to the topmost floor of the hotel and there
shown into a room. I was locked in and a sentry kept guard outside.
My jailers had the extreme kindness to inform me that I must take my
meals in my room; that I must pay for them and also pay the rent of the
room. His German Majesty refused to feed his prisoner of honor!
On the following day, Friday, June 4, my wife arrived at the hotel,
more dead than alive. She was, as one may easily imagine, in a state of
great nervousness. Before coming she had asked and obtained permission
to occupy the room with me and share my imprisonment. Well, as one
should bear all things philosophically, and as we were in war times,
as many millions of people were much worse off than we might be at
this hotel, we accepted the inevitable and settled down to our present
little annoyance with perfect resignation.
On the following Saturday the children came to visit us. We saw them
enter the courtyard on their way to apply for a permit to see us. As
they waited we hailed them from the window. Two soldiers immediately
rushed from the office and addressed us with bitter invective because
we had dared to speak to our own children and because the children had
been “audacious” enough to speak to us! What a terrible provocation
that children should exchange greetings with their parents!
The children were cavalierly ejected from the courtyard and we saw them
no more that day. But on the following morning, by special permission,
they were allowed to speak for a few minutes with us. The same day, at
noon, the major visited us in our room, transformed into a jail cell.
His face was gloomy. His whole bearing betrayed much anxiety and
uneasiness. He brought us bad news.
“I am desolate,” he said again. “I am heart-broken, but Mr. Beland must
leave to-day without fail for Germany.”
Imagine the dismay of my wife and of myself at this abrupt announcement!
I ventured to protest. I reminded the major of the assurances he
had previously given me. I repeated to him that in my quality as a
physician I ought not to be deprived of my liberty. I asked him why was
it that the competent authorities at Berlin had not been informed of
the medical services I had been rendering at the hospital and to the
civil population since the beginning of the war? Altogether I made a
very strong plea in protest against the execution of the latest order.
Perturbed and embarrassed the major mumbled some sort of an
explanation. The instructions had “come from someone higher in
authority than himself”; he had “tried to explain my case to them,”
but they “would not hear him”; “all the British subjects in Germany
and occupied territory were to be interned without delay.” The major
assumed an air of haughtiness I had not noticed hitherto.
“At two o’clock this afternoon you will have to depart,” he said. “A
non-commissioned officer will accompany you to Berlin and thence to
Ruhleben.”
Ruhleben is the internment camp for civilians of British nationality.
The shadow of a very real sorrow pervaded that room. I did not know
what to say. Two hours only remained in which my wife and I might
be together. She persisted in her entreaties that she might bear me
company to Germany, only to meet with an absolute refusal every time.
The Major had the delicacy (?) to inform her that her company, even to
the station merely, was not desirable!
Punctually at two o’clock on June 6 a non-commissioned officer stood in
the room to which during the past three days we had become reconciled,
as to a new little home where the children, living only a few miles
away, might visit us once or twice a week.
All was declared ready for my departure. It was a solemn moment, and
profoundly sad. My wife and I were separated. I did not know then–and
it was perhaps better–that I should never see her again in this world.
At three o’clock the train arrived at Brussels, where we had to wait
for an hour to connect with the express which ran from Lille to Libau
in Russia.
By four o’clock we were steaming at a good speed in the direction of
Berlin, passing through the country sights of Belgium. We crossed
through Louvain, which had been burned, and through a large number of
towns and villages which showed the effects of bombardment and other
horrors of war; thence through Liege, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne,
where we arrived at about nine o’clock.