The Bombardment Of Antwerp
There was something typically British in the way those Englishmen
went about the defense of Antwerp. In the streets and barracks, and
more especially at the Hotel St. Antoine, British Staff Headquarters,
where I stayed until its doors were closed, I saw them at close range
during that week of horror. Once when I was eating with a company
of marines near their temporary barracks, they gave me the
password to the trenches, and, although I only got out as far as the
inner line of forts on that day, it gave me an opportunity to observe
the work of the men under long-range firing. At the St. Antoine, ten or
a dozen officers were quartered; others clanked in and out for hurried
conferences in the corridors or disappeared into the smoking-room,
whose heavy doors with the sign, "Reservee pour la Gouvernement
Anglaise," hid Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the English
Admiralty, and his portmanteau of war maps.
Here was Belgium's last stronghold on the verge of downfall: the
outer line of forts had already fallen; Forts Wavre, St. Catherine,
Waelham, and Lierre were already prey to the Krupp mortars; the
German hosts were swarming across the River Nethe, six miles to
the city's south, and the cowering populace in their flight made the
streets terrible to look upon.
Yet at the St. Antoine there was no particular flurry--so far, at least,
as the officers were concerned. At night they worked over their war
maps; in the daytime they went out to the forts. They would get up in
the morning, an hour or two earlier than the average business man, have
a comfortable breakfast, smoke a cigar for half an hour or so, and talk
things over. Then their military automobiles came trembling and
sputtering to the doorsteps, and in groups of fours and fives they went
out to the firing line. If only two or three of a group returned, you
would naturally have to draw your own conclusions as to the fate of the
rest.
Those English gentlemen went about their jobs of life and death with
the same detached coolness as if their hunters were being saddled,
or they were waiting for the referee's whistle in Rugby football. Their
attitude was infernally exasperating; yet you couldn't help taking off
your hat to their sublime nerve and indifference.
I overheard a typical remark when matters were in this critical state. It
came from a handsome, curly-headed officer, noticeable not only for
his apparent efficiency, but because he didn't let the game of war
interfere with his attentions to the little Princess de Ligne. The latter
was nursing her brother, who had been shot through the back of the
neck during a raid through German lines. She was a princess in rank,
and a queen in looks. Thirty hours before the first shell burst into the
Place Verte--Monday morning, it was--this fellow rapped at my
door. He had wandered into the wrong pew, for his words were
obviously intended to hurry up a brother officer with whom he was to
take the morning ride to the firing line. Sticking his curly, sunburnt
head around the corner he drawled in inimitable British intonation:-
"I say, old chap, do hurry along; this is no ORDINARY occasion, you
know."
In the Royal Belgian Palace there happened a few hours before the
bombardment an incident revealing the simplicity and kindliness of
King Albert's character. In connection with it, it is necessary to speak
of Harold Fowler, a New Yorker and Columbia College graduate, who
helped to save the public buildings of Antwerp, and later entered the
Allied ranks as a fighter. When the war broke out, Fowler was private
secretary to Ambassador Page in London. In November he got a commission
in the Royal Horse Guards, known as the "Blues." While the Germans were
pressing hard on Antwerp, the German commander, as I have mentioned
elsewhere, asked that a diagram of the city of Antwerp, with plans and
location of the cathedral, the Hotel de Ville, and the more important
works be sent to him in order that he might find the range and avoid
firing on them. Neutrals were to carry the plans through; and Fowler
and Hugh Gibson, secretary to the American Minister at Brussels (Brand
Whitlock), volunteered.
Two days before the bombardment Gibson went to the Royal Palace
at Antwerp where General de Guise and his staff were in conference.
Fowler trailed along, but, not liking to enter, walked up and down the
hallway, hands in his pockets, admiring the portraits half-hidden in the
darkness of the foyer. A tall figure approached and in French asked
who he was. Fowler replied that he was an American and was waiting
for Gibson.
"I see," said the figure, then speaking in English, "that you are
interested in pictures."
"Very much," answered Fowler.
"Then, would you like to see those in the Royal Chambers upstairs?"
Fowler hesitated, feeling like an intruder, but the figure insisted upon
leading him upstairs. When they got into the light, Fowler turned to
examine his kind friend. To his utter astonishment he saw that it was
Albert, King of the Belgians!
By that time we of Antwerp were getting a very fair imitation of a city
besieged. Water supply had already been cut off for some days.
There was just enough for cooking purposes; bathing and such
pleasantries were out of the question--even for Royalty. According
to the French maid in my corridor, Winston Churchill managed to get
a shave by ordering tea sent to his room and using the hot water for
shaving lather.
Monday, October 5th, the night before the city emptied itself of
non-combatants, was almost a festive occasion at the St. Antoine. The
British entry gave tremendous confidence to the stricken city and the
tired Belgian soldiers--a bit of pride before the fall. New faces turned
up, friends in the English army met, shook hands, and discussed the
outlook. One was even reminded of lighter occasions, such as the
Copley-Plaza in Boston or the Hotel Taft in New Haven before an
annual Harvard-Yale battle. At the head of a long table in the center
of the dining-room sat the First Lord of the British Admiralty, looking
rather thoughtful, his baldish head and Trinity House uniform standing
out in contrast to the service uniforms of the younger men around
him. At the same table were commissary officers, sergeants,
aide-de-camps, Hugh Gibson, Harold Fowler, and somewhat farther down the
Russian Minister and my curly-headed officer, chatting over his coffee
with little Princess de Ligne.
In the flash of an eye these scenes changed to scenes of terror.
The news leaked out, and spread like wildfire, that the Kaiser's men
had crossed the River Nethe and had placed their big guns within
range of the city. It was not until forty-eight hours later that the
populace saw a handful of Flemish posters pasted in out-of-the-way
corners--posters signed by the Civil Government--which thanked
the populace "for retaining until the present time their praiseworthy
sangfroid, and regretting that the responsibilities of their office
necessitated their own removal to a neighborhood more safe."
Queen Elizabeth, whom danger made a democrat, walked right into
my hotel, if you please, and stopped casually to say good-bye to the
Russian Minister. The crowd outside did not know she was leaving for
Ostend under cover of darkness--they cheered her loudly just the
same. She is a spunky sort of queen.
Then came the flight. You knew the fear of the Germans had got into
their blood when waiters dropped their plates and dishes and ran;
when shops, houses, hotels closed and the people melted away;
when the French chambermaid besought with frightened eyes that
Monsieur take her away to England, and when the hotel proprietor
disappeared without even asking for his bill.
There were other sights that did one good to see: such as gray-haired
Mrs. Richardson, venerable figure of a British nurse, with six wars to
her credit and a breastful of decorations from four different
governments, who refused to leave her hospital even if it was blown
to pieces, so long as there were men to help and wounds to heal.
When the St. Antoine closed I took her to the American Consulate to
find a house where she could stay. That night and the next loads of
English Red Cross busses with their households of pain and ether
rumbled over the pontoon bridge across the Scheldt, went past Fort
Tete de Flandre, and disappeared in the swampy meadows on the
road to Ghent. I never saw her again, but I have always hoped that
Mrs. Richardson was among the nurses who went with them.
When on Wednesday morning I was turned out of my room, I made
my way past a pressing throng of foreign faces to the Queen's Hotel
on the water front. There I found Arthur Ruhl and James H. Hare,
who had just come over from England. The hotel overlooked the
River Scheldt, forming a wide crescent on the city's north, and was
within fifty yards of one of the longest pontoon bridges constructed in
modern warfare.
Here was a sight to come again and rend the memory. The crowds
were endeavoring to get away over one of the two avenues of
escape still open. I estimated that between five in the afternoon and
the following dawn three hundred thousand persons must have
passed through the city's gates. They were the people of Antwerp
itself, swelled by exiles from Alost, Aerschot, Malines, Termonde, and
other cities to the south and west. Intermittently for two days and
nights I watched them from my room in the Queen's. From five yards
beneath my window ledge came the shuffle, shuffle of unending feet,
the creak and groans of heavy cart wheels, the talk and babble of
guttural tongues, the yelp of hounds, as the thousands moved and
wept and surged and jostled along throughout the night and into the
uncertain mist of that October morning. They were so close I could
have jumped into their carts or dropped a pebble on their heads.
Infinitely more impressive than the retreat of the allied armies or the
victorious entry of the Germans a little later, was the pageant of this
pitiful army without guns or leaders.
The twenty-foot entrance to that pontoon bridge seemed to me like
the mouth of a funnel through which poured the dense misery of an
entire nation. Think of this army's composition: a great city was
emptying itself of human life; not only a great city, but all the people
driven to it from the outside, all who had congregated in Belgium's
last refuge and its strongest fort. They bore themselves bravely, the
greater number plodding along silently in the footsteps of those who
went ahead, with no thoughts of their direction, some of them even
chatting and laughing. You saw great open wagons carrying baby
carriages, perambulators, pots and kettles, an old chair, huge
bundles of household goods, and the ubiquitous Belgian bicycle
strapped to the side. There were small wagons, and more great
wagons crowded with twenty, thirty, forty people: aged brown women,
buried like shrunk walnuts in a mass of shawls, girls sitting listlessly
on piles of straw, and children fitfully asleep or very much awake and
crying lustily.
Sometimes the men and boys mounted their bicycles, rode for a
dozen yards, were stopped by the procession, and then, for want of
better occupation, rang their bells. One saw innumerable yelping
dogs: big Belgian police hounds harnessed to the cart and doing their
share of work, others sniffing along the outskirts and plainly
advertising for an owner. There were noisy cattle, too, some of which
escaped. Long after the city was evacuated I saw a cow bellowing
under an archway of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
In this way the city emptied itself, but so slowly that the very slowness
of the movement wore the marchers out. Each family group was
limited to the speed of its oldest member. Hundreds gave it up and
lay by the road, or formed little gypsy camps under the trees. At night
these were lighted by fires, overshadowed by the greater fire from the
distant burning city, and beside them stretched dumb-looking souls,
watching vaguely those who still had strength to move.
Watching these wretches got so on my nerves that I had to get out
and do something. With a British intelligence officer, formerly of Sir
John French's staff, I wandered down to the southern quarter of the
city known as Berchem. As usual, the guns at the outer forts had
been booming throughout the evening. From the city's ramparts you
could not only feel the shudder of the earth, but you could see
occasional splashes of flame from the Belgian batteries, answered, in
the dim distance to the south, by smaller, less vivid splashes issuing
from the mouths of the German instruments of "Culture" which
throughout the night pounded ruthlessly on the unprotected houses
without the city limits.
On the way home we stopped in at the British field hospital to see a
wounded British friend.