manufacturing industries, so to say, radiated from the cathedral.
It printed missals and breviaries. It made lace for ecclesiastical
vestments, and then other lace. It cut and carved heavy oak into
furniture for churches, and then it made other furniture. Every shell
launched against the cathedral was therefore launched against the very
being and essence of Malines city.
I am not ashamed to confess that when I, an Irish Catholic, walked
into the Grand’ Place and saw the stamp of Berlin imprinted on those
good grey walls I did not think at once of material injury, or money,
or subscriptions. What came was anger against the desecration of a
holy place. My mind said to me, “This is how Nietzsche has, from his
grave, spat, as he wished to spit, upon Nazareth.” A picture came of
that sinister Quixote, who made cruelty his sacrament, and who was
yet so humanly dear in some of his moods, standing behind a great
Krupp howitzer and shouting, “Charlottenburg _contra_ Christ. I back
Charlottenburg!”
One notices in some of the English papers protests against the too
ready acceptance of unanalysed and unconfirmed “atrocities.” So liable
is panic to mix myth with fact that I have pleaded more than once for
the constitution of an International Commission to examine all the
evidence. But in the meantime we find it difficult to divest ourselves
of the faculty of inference. If you come, during time of war, upon a
civilian, hanging by the neck, with his hands tied behind his back,
and a fire burning under him, the theory of suicide or accident does
not seem to embrace the full scope of the fact. A similar process of
reasoning forces you to the conclusion that the Germans would not have
hit Malines Cathedral so often if they had not aimed at it. The other
buildings struck by shells are either on the line of fire to the Grand’
Place or in its immediate neighbourhood.
The city was three times bombarded. Unlike Termonde, it is open and
without the least trace of fortification. None of the bombardments
achieved any military object. No attempt was made to capture, fire,
shell, or in any way diminish in efficiency the State railway works.
I fear that the case looks complete. The Germans deliberately broke
through the laws of civilised war, and, just as deliberately, broke
through the walls of the cathedral.
To describe in detail, and to put an estimate on the damage done,
is a task for experts with ample time at their command. The Belgian
Commission were to open a formal enquiry on the day following my
visit, and kindly invited me to accompany them, but it was impossible.
The following invoice of Hunnery is, therefore, only provisional.
There is not a whole pane of glass left in the cathedral. The middle
lateral window on the assailed flank of the edifice was itself struck;
the others were shattered by the detonation. The stained glass is,
I believe, modern, but as you saw it lying heaped on the pavement,
like the shards of a rainbow, it looked beautiful enough to have been
spared. A great gulf has been torn through the groined roof near its
junction with the tower. The tower itself is blotched here and there
a pallid white by the exploding shells. The great clock, the largest
in Belgium, had been also struck, and its hands flapped in the wind
like torn ribbons. The famous carillon, or peal of bells, does not,
however, seem to have been injured.
In the left aisle the charred remnant of a canvas still hung in its
frame, but what the picture was no one could tell me. The pavement
itself was torn up here and there like ground uprooted by swine. The
equestrian monument near the southerly entrance has, as to the horse,
suffered decapitation, and the figure has lost an arm. Fragments
chipped off mouldings and capitals lie about in desolate heaps. And to
complete the desolation, all the precious objects have been removed
from the cathedral as from the other churches and public buildings. The
ciboria, the chalices, the candlesticks, the rich orphreyed vestments
have been removed to Antwerp.
Thither have gone Van Dyck’s “Crucifixion,” and Rubens’s “Miraculous
Draught of Fishes.” In its own way the most bizarre inhibition imposed
by the war is that which prevents you from seeing a Rubens in Antwerp.
They are all hidden away from the cultured burglars of Berlin. The
“carnal ideal,” which Verhaeren discovers behind the great strokes
of his spiritual ancestor would, it is feared, prove irresistible to
Attila.
On the day of my visit Cardinal Mercier had returned. I had last met
him at Louvain--not in the flesh, but in his books. This master of
psychology is one of those who have dared to think that the Latin
definiteness of Thomas of Aquin is closer to the sound soul of Europe
than the fog of Koenigsberg, or the cloudy intoxication of Hegel. The
scholar, called to rule, has also been called to suffer. He was passing
through the Grand’ Place as a long procession of women stood formed
up outside the door of the municipal offices waiting wretchedly for
bread. There was a stir, cheering, excitement which he repressed with a
gesture. To those who approached him he said: “Your cheers are due to
the army and the King, not to me. I am a Belgian citizen, no more.”
The ruin of the civil population does not, as in Termonde, brand itself
on your eyes, but it is, of course, none the less real. The city is a
mere cemetery of shutters. The bombardments came after Louvain had been
taught its lesson, and the Malinois did not stop to write notes on the
text of that lesson. They fled _en masse_. One sees them in the rain
and wind-swept bathing machines at Ostend. You hear them at Folkestone
and in London. I saw still another packed trainload leaving Malines
for Heyst-sur-Mer, from which many will disperse over the littoral
generally, and others will filter into England. In Malines itself a few
cafés, a few bakeries, and other shops of prime necessity are open.
Everything else is as in a city of plague.
Consider what that means. It means, very bluntly, the triumph of German
terrorism. If the Hague Convention is worth anything, and is not
merely another “scrap of paper,” the lace-makers and the chair-makers
of Malines should, under its protection, be now at work, and not in
forced idleness and exile.
Readers must be weary of hearing the Prussian method characterised
as one of scientific blackguardism. But that is what it is. There is
nothing incoherent, tumultuous, or spasmodic about it; it goes on a
well-formulated principle. And it has succeeded. By producing a panic
among the civil population it has created the problem of the refugees.
It inflicts day by day on Belgium an economic loss, the size of which
cannot even be guessed at. Can nothing be done to check its operation?
Can nothing be done to guarantee Malines against the fate of Termonde?
The Belgian Commission in its last report stated the case with such
concentrated force that no apology is needed for recalling their words--
“The true motives behind the atrocities, of which we have collected
such heart-breaking evidence, can only be, on the one hand, the desire
to terrorise and demoralise the civil population, conformably to the
inhuman theories of German military writers, and, on the other hand,
the desire to pillage. A shot fired, no one knows where, or by whom, or
at whom, by a drunken soldier, or an excitable official, serves as a
pretext for the sacking of a whole city. Individual looting is followed
by the levying of war contributions so large as to be unpayable, and
by the taking away of hostages to be shot or held prisoners till the
payment of the full ransom, after the approved and classical method of
brigandage. It must also be remembered that all resistance opposed by
the regular army is, according to the needs of the situation, ascribed
to the inhabitants, and that the invader invariably avenges on the
civil population the checks which he suffers during the campaign, and
even his own mistakes.
“In the course of this enquiry we cite only facts supported by
conclusive evidence. It is further to be observed that so far we
have been able to signalise only a small part of a mass of crimes
against law, humanity, and civilisation which will fill one of the
most sinister and revolting pages in contemporary history. If an
international enquiry, such as that made in the Balkans by the Carnegie
Commission, could be made in Belgium, we are convinced that it would
establish the truth of our assertions.”
Why can it not be made? There are two public opinions in the United
Kingdom--one sensational and weak, the other slow and strong. The
first demands, so to say, a photograph of every limb of every corpse,
and then “registers a protest.” The second demands iron for iron and
blood for blood. It is of the second that we have need. Accumulate and
examine your evidence by all means, but then act. A nation, with sword
in hand, is not a public meeting; its function is not to protest, but
to punish. A joint declaration by the Allies that every commanding
officer, up to the Kaiser himself, guilty of an infraction of the laws
of war, will be brought to trial and retribution, either immediately on
capture, or after the victory, would, I am convinced, effectively stop
the present plan of terrorism.
And what about America? Does her moral prestige not impose upon her a
clear duty of initiative in this matter of an International Enquiry?
Can she ultimately afford to keep such familiar company with the cloudy
murderers of Berlin? These questions are hot for an answer.
* * * * *
The guns were hammering away all day over towards Termonde, and before
I got back to Antwerp I had walked into a warm skirmish of patrols.
They are at present the settled order of the day. Both sides keep
nibbling away, but neither is in a position at present to risk a real
mouthful.
V.--IN OSTEND
_Sept. 24, Ostend._
From the military point of view Belgium is a backwater. It has no tide
of its own. All its future movement depends on the ebb and flow of the
immense struggle in France. The advance posts, or wandering patrols--if
I may change the image--snarl and snap at one another continually.
Every day, almost, from here to Antwerp, a German “Taube”--surely the
most ill-omened dove that ever invaded the skies--hums over us. But
Belgium has not yet got its cue.
The Belgian army would risk too much in a swoop on Brussels. The
Germans, on the other hand, while less depleted than might have been
anticipated, and strong enough to hold their own, are not strong enough
to take the offensive with effect. We hear every day two scare stories.
One is that Brussels has been evacuated; the other that von Goltz is
pounding the forts at Antwerp. The mere mathematics of war rules out
both; one for the present, the other, we hope and believe, for all time.
The weather has cleared. The equinox would seem to have spent its
showers, and the bloody and desperate pause on the Aisne should soon
be resolved to our advantage. The moment that happens the “pistol of
Antwerp” will go off. But the revenge is not yet.
It ought to be remembered that Belgium is one of the allied countries
which had to sacrifice, and did sacrifice without a murmur, her
richly beautiful capital, to the large strategical game which General
Joffre has played with such brilliant success. She has since rejected
temptations to peace offered under flag of truce at Antwerp by the
Germans. With a noble faith and restraint she has put herself last, and
the law of Europe first.
Meantime the Germans are reported to spend most of their time digging
trenches north of Brussels. A very interesting traveller, who has
just got back from the capital, tells us that the invaders call the
Belgians “the little black rats,” because of the effectiveness with
which our pioupious pop up, pick off their men, and pop down again into
invulnerability.
At Brussels French newspapers find their subterranean way through the
whole population. The Hunnish attempt to kill knowledge of facts as
they are born has been a gross failure. According to this witness,
the whole temper of the population has changed. They have “learned
the great language, caught the clear accent” of that magnificent
Burgomaster of theirs, with the explosive name, M. Max. They no longer
allow themselves to be bullied.
President Wilson once wrote that in order to be moral you must
cultivate the feeling that somebody is always looking on. In Brussels
the American Minister, Mr. Brand Whitlock, is looking on. As lawyer,
politician, and novelist, he possesses a triple intensity of vision.
There will be no Termondes while that eye is levelled.
One is glad to say that, amid the general softness and protestations,
King Albert’s Government is standing for the salutary, strong law. At
Sempst, near Malines, yesterday a German trooper was captured in a
farmyard, in which he had just killed two children. He was taken to
Waelhem, the facts were briefly established, and, without further ado,
he was shot.
I notice that the Right Hon. G. W. E. Russell asks in _The Daily News_
if we have the right to kill. Have we the right to spare? One thing we
cannot escape from: the duty to punish. Nobody talks of revenge, or
vindictiveness, or cruelty. But since we are fighting for justice, and
since the gospel of murder--murder of the body and of the spirit--has
been loosed against Europe, we have no choice.
We cannot restore Louvain, but we can give back to Belgium the glory
of her own Rubens now exiled in the great gallery of Munich. We cannot
call back Rheims out of its smoke of dissolution, but we can put
Cologne again under the care of civilised France. We must not spoil or
ravage one monument of humane effort, religious or secular, in Germany.
But the Denkmal at Bingen has got to go, and the Column of Insolence at
Berlin has got to go. Mr. Lowes Dickinson has said that Germany must
not be humiliated. Not Germany, but Prussia must be humiliated. Berlin
militarism must pass under the Caudine Forks, and the forks must be set
so low as to sweep the spike of the helmet as it passes.
I saw a mad Belgian soldier taken away from the Ostend Infirmary a few
days ago. Of course, I don’t know, of my own personal observation,
why he went mad. But one of the attendants told me that the soldier
told him that he had remained the only survivor of a Belgian patrol
which had repelled the attack of a much heavier German advance post.
Reinforcements arrived; all his comrades were killed, and he was taken
prisoner. His captors roped him up against a tree, in the posture of
crucifixion, but without lifting his feet from the ground.
A firing party was ordered to take its stand at the usual twelve paces.
Time after time their rifles went up to the “present!” Sometimes a
volley was at that moment fired behind him. At last he was cut down;
somehow or other he scrambled within reach of the Red Cross. They were
very kind to him in Ostend, but he kept on babbling about crucifixions
and a crucifixion near Jerusalem.
The story is wholly “unverified,” but the man himself so far believed
it as to go mad. And since _L’Indépendance Belge_ has thought that it
should be published, I, who also saw the madman, also put it in print.
TREATING BELGIUM DECENTLY
_August 31, 1914._
Perhaps the finest thing in the whole colossal business in which we
are now engaged is the frankness with which the French and British
War Offices, and the Press in these countries, admit the checks and
even actual reverses which the Allies are sustaining, and are bound
in certain areas to sustain. It is understood that we cannot romance
ourselves into victory. For the rest the censorship has been very
prudently exercised, and is now much mitigated.
These circumstances make it difficult to understand the bald ambiguity
of the news from Namur. Is it the town that has fallen or is it the
forts? If the first, nothing; if the second, a new twist to the
campaign. We are bound to assume, as all the military writers do, that
the circle of forts has been captured or surrendered.
I do not want to say one word as to the military significance of the
affair. And if a torrential German advance has, after enormous losses,
swamped the defence, I do not want to say anything at all. But if, by
chance, the defenders of Namur lacked the spirit of those of Liége; if,
overwhelmed by the picture of blood, devastation, and panic which the
south-east of Belgium now presents, they yielded up their position;
then the question, “Are we treating Belgium decently?” has a grave and
urgent meaning.
I arrived yesterday from Belgium, knowing nothing of Namur. It seemed
to me a clear duty to attempt in a small way to bring home to the
people of these islands the appalling price that Belgium has had to pay
for holding to the path of honour and courage. Nothing said here is a
criticism of the purely military aspects of the prologue now concluded.
It was inevitable that in the clash of millions, Belgium and her two
hundred thousand soldiers should have been treated as a mere right-wing
pawn. But think what the gambit meant to a Belgium patriot. It meant,
in any and all circumstances, the devastation of Liége and the country
behind it. It meant the surrender not only of the capital, but of the
whole country except Antwerp. And the Belgians were under no illusions
as to the terrorisation of non-combatants which is an essential part of
the Prussian art of war. I quote from a Belgian journal the following
summary of it. It is headed--
“THUS SPAKE... BISMARCK IN 1870
“True strategy consists in hitting your enemy, and hitting him
hard. Above all, you must inflict on the inhabitants of invaded
towns the maximum of suffering, so that they may become sick of
the struggle, and may bring pressure to bear on their Government
to discontinue it. You must leave the people through whom you
march only their eyes to weep with.
“In every case the principle which guided our general was that
war must be made terrible to the civil population, so that it may
sue for peace.”
And so on, and so on. Little Belgium--her gallant soldiers and her
laborious peasants alike--has been mashed to a bloody pulp where the
heel of the Prussian, shod with iron and with this damnable philosophy,
has passed. And all the time the Belgians kept on asking in hope,
in despair, “Where are the English? Where are the French?” Can you
wonder if in the end they began to ask it in anger? Would it be a
contradiction of all the laws of human nature to suppose that the panic
terror which swept over the undefended land may have penetrated through
the steel blinds of the forts of Namur, taken the heart out of the
troops, impelled to surrender?
Let us examine our consciences. What have we done to show our
appreciation of Belgium? There was the Royal message. There was
Lord Sydenham’s noble letter in _The Times_ which has been quoted
everywhere. There is a subscription on foot. There is the promised
loan. So far so good. But it is not enough. The stunned sense of having
been delivered to Armageddon is noticeable everywhere, but especially
in Flanders. The Flemish journals such as the _Laatste Nieuws_ are full
of violent anti-French, and in a less degree of anti-English articles.
Germanophiles are harping on the kinship of the Flemish tongue, the
Flemish stock and manners, to Germany. People sneer at the loan. My
Flemish barber said to me on Sunday: “Oh! you are a fine people, you
English. You look for business among the corpses. You will kindly lend
us money at a good, whacking rate of interest. You philanthropists!”
What, then, is needed? War means blood and treasure. That faded phrase
has been lit up suddenly, and we know what it means. The proof of blood
the gallant soldiers of the two great Western Allies have already given
at Mons and along the Sambre. I am convinced that the United Kingdom
would be acting with fruitful generosity if Parliament were not to
sanction a loan, but to vote a free grant.
Conjoined with that I hope and assume that Sir Edward Grey will
renew the solemn pledges already given that, come what may, we mean
to see Belgium through. The fear is general that the Germans may be
allowed to get such a footing in Belgium as to have some plausible
case in international law for proclaiming annexation. Let Parliament
announce--and these dramatic cries and gestures of diplomacy are
necessary--that so long as there is one shot left and one soldier to
fire it, the Allies will never allow one foot of Belgian soil to remain
under German domination.
What I have written is not inspired by even the least touch of
discouragement. The breakneck advance on the German right seems to
me not the stride of conquerors, but the mad hurry of columns flung
forward in a frenzied gamble. Sursum corda! But let us remember that
all alliances need delicate handling. Belgium is in agony. A stroke,
swift and generous, such as suggested, will recall her, and all her
people, to the glorious courage of Liége. Antwerp, and the field army
now sheltered about it, have still a great part to play.
BELGIUM IN PEACE
WORK OF THREE GENERATIONS--COMPARISONS WITH IRELAND--SOME MEMORIES
It is an irony characteristic of this scurvy and disastrous time that
Belgium should have first found her way to the general imagination of
these countries through the waste redness of war. Peace was her whole
being. For eighty years, trusting to the good faith of Europe, she
had pursued an economical evolution without parallel. For national
defence she had relied on that most solemn treaty of the nineteenth
century. Even a little time ago, even since Agadir, her army, although
unsuspectedly alert in technique, was still a jest of vaudeville. In
temper and fibre, the Belgian people was the least militarist on the
Continent. It is true that in recent years, wise foreseeing men of arms
and men of politics, troubled by the audacity of Prussian apostles
of conquest like Bernhardi, had begun to take alarm. Brialmont, the
great engineer, had fortified Liége against Germany, and improved the
defences of Namur against France. He had also, of course, planned the
new entrenched position of Antwerp, the war-capital, and incidentally
provided us with the first-class mystery of its subsequent easy fall.
De Broqueville had carried a new army scheme which in due development
would have given Belgium at need a million bayonets to defend her
neutrality instead of three hundred thousand. King Leopold, couched
like a super-spider behind his fine-drawn webs of diplomacy and
finance, had made way for King Albert of the simpler gospel. But on
the whole the temper of Belgium was not radically changed. When in
1912 the Kaiser, receiving General Heimburger, Governor of Liége, at
Aix-la-Chapelle during manœuvres, expressed his astonishment at the
improvement of the defences on the Belgo-German frontier, the latter
had no stronger reply than: “Well, Majesty, we soldiers had a chance of
getting something extra out of our Government, and we took it.” Neither
your courteous and subtle Liégois, nor your genial and abundant citizen
of Brussels, nor your four-square indomitable Flamand really believed
that the treaty would ever be violated, or that he would ever be called
on to die for his independence.
We know now how that treaty was respected. There will be pens, and to
spare, to celebrate the heroic defence of the valley of the Meuse,
the stubborn withdrawal of an outmatched but unbroken army, the tide
of rapine and devastation that marched with the Treaty-Breakers, the
driving into exile of a gallant people, the rosary of desolation,
Liége, Visé, Louvain, Termonde, Namur, Ypres. For my part I should
like to recall something of what Belgium was in peace, and what she did
give or was in train of giving to the triumphs of civilisation.