distinctions quickly had them shattered. The fact that a man wore a
private's uniform and sat behind the steering-wheel of your car and
respectfully touched his cap when you gave him an order did not
imply that he had always been a chauffeur. Roos, who drove my car
throughout my stay in Belgium, was the son of a Brussels
millionaire, and at the beginning of hostilities had, as I think I have
mentioned elsewhere, promptly presented his own powerful car to
the Government. The aristocracy of Belgium did not hang around
the Ministry of War trying to obtain commissions. They simply
donned privates' uniforms, and went into the firing-line. As a result
of this wholehearted patriotism the ranks of the Belgian army were
filled with men who were members of the most exclusive clubs and
were welcome guests in the highest social circles in Europe. Almost
any evening during the earlier part of the war a smooth-faced youth
in the uniform of a private soldier could have been seen sitting amid
a group of friends at dinner in the Hotel St. Antoine. When an officer
entered the room he stood up and clicked his heels together and
saluted. He was Prince Henri de Ligne, a member of one of the
oldest and most distinguished families in Belgium and related to half
the aristocracy of Europe. He, poor boy, was destined never again
to follow the hounds or to lead a cotillion; he was killed near
Herenthals with young Count de Villemont and Philippe de Zualart
while engaged in a daring raid in an armoured motorcar into the
German lines for the purpose of blowing up a bridge.
When, upon the occupation of Brussels by the Germans, the capital
of Belgium was hastily transferred to Antwerp, considerable difficulty
was experienced in finding suitable accommodation for the staffs of
the various ministries, which were housed in any buildings which
happened to be available at the time. Thus, the foreign relations of
the nation were directed from a school-building in the Avenue du
Commerce--the Foreign Minister, Monsieur Davignon, using as his
Cabinet the room formerly used for lectures on physiology, the walls
of which were still covered with blackboards and anatomical charts.
The Grand Hotel was taken over by the Government for the
accommodation of the Cabinet Ministers and their staffs, while the
ministers of State and the members of the diplomatic corps were
quartered at the St. Antoine. In fact, it used to be said in fun that if
you got into difficulties with the police all you had to do was to get
within the doors of the hotel, where you would be safe, for half of the
ground floor was technically British soil, being occupied by the
British Legation; a portion of the second floor was used by the
Russian Legation; if you dashed into a certain bedroom you could claim
Roumanian protection, and in another you were, theoretically, in Greece;
while on the upper floor extra-territoriality was exercised by the
Republic of China. Every evening all the ministers and diplomats met
in the big rose-and-ivory dining-room--the white shirt-fronts of the
men and the white shoulders of the women, with the uniforms of the
Belgian officers and of the British, French and Russian military
attaches, combining to form a wonderfully brilliant picture. Looking
on that scene, it was hard to believe that by ascending to the roof
of the hotel you could see the glare of burning villages and hear the
boom of German cannon.
As the siege progressed and the German lines were drawn tighter,
the military regulations governing life in Antwerp increased in
severity. The local papers were not permitted to print any accounts
of Belgian checks or reverses, and at one time the importation of
English newspapers was suspended. Sealed letters were not
accepted by the post office for any foreign countries save England,
Russia and France, and even these were held four days before
being forwarded. Telegrams were, of course, rigidly censored. The
telephone service was suspended save for governmental purposes.
At eight o'clock the trams stopped running. Save for a few
ramshackle vehicles, drawn by decrepit horses, the cabs had
disappeared from the streets. The city went spy-mad. If a man
ordered Sauerkraut and sausage for lunch he instantly fell under
suspicion. Scarcely a day passed without houses being raided and
their occupants arrested on the charge of espionage. It was
reported and generally believed that those whose guilt was proved
were promptly executed outside the ramparts, but of this I have my
doubts. The Belgians are too good-natured, too easy-going. It is
probable, of course, that some spies were executed, but certainly
not many.
One never stirred out of doors in Antwerp without one's papers,
which had to be shown before one could gain admission to the post
office, the telegraph bureau, the banks, the railway stations, or any
other public buildings. There were several varieties of "papers."
There was the plain passport which, beyond establishing your
nationality, was not worth the paper it was written on. There was
the permis de sejour, which was issued by the police to those who
were able to prove that they had business which necessitated their
remaining in the city. And finally, there was the much-prized
laisser-passer which was issued by the military government and
usually bore the photograph of the person to whom it was given,
which proved an open sesame wherever shown, and which, I might add,
was exceedingly difficult to obtain.
Only once did my laisser-passer fail me. During the final days of the
siege, when the temper and endurance of the Belgian defenders
were strained almost to the breaking-point, I motored out to witness
the German assault on the forts near Willebroeck. With me were
Captain Raymond Briggs of the United States army and Thompson.
Before continuing to the front we took the precaution of stopping at
division headquarters in Boom and asking if there was any objection
to our proceeding; we were informed that there was none. We had
not been on the firing-line half an hour, however, before two
gendarmes came tearing up in a motor-car and informed us that we
were under arrest and must return with them to Boom. At division
headquarters we were interrogated by a staff major whose temper
was as fiery as his hair. Thompson, as was his invariable custom,
was smoking a very large and very black cigar.
"Take that cigar out of your mouth!" snapped the major in French.
"How dare you smoke in my presence?"
"Sorry, major," said Thompson, grinning broadly, "but you'll have to
talk American. I don't understand French."
"Stop smiling!" roared the now infuriated officer. "How dare you
smile when I address you? This is no time for smiling, sir! This is a
time of war!"
Though the major was reluctantly forced to admit that our papers
were in order, we were nevertheless sent to staff headquarters in
Antwerp guarded by two gendarmes, one of whom was the bearer
of a dossier in which it was gravely recited that Captain Briggs and I
had been arrested while in the company of a person calling himself
Donald Thompson, who was charged by the chief of staff with
having smiled and smoked a cigar in his presence. Needless to say,
the whole opera-bouffe affair was promptly disavowed by the higher
authorities. I have mentioned the incident because it was the sole
occasion on which I met with so much as a shadow of discourtesy
from any Belgian, either soldier or civilian. I doubt if in any other
country in the world in time of war, a foreigner would have been
permitted to go where and when he pleased, as I was, and would
have met with hospitality and kindness from every one.
The citizens of Antwerp hated the Germans with a deeper and more
bitter hatred, if such a thing were possible, than the people of any
other part of Belgium. This was due to the fact that in no foreign city
where Germans dwelt and did business were they treated with such
marked hospitality and consideration as in Antwerp. They had been
given franchises and concessions and privileges of every
description; they had been showered with honours and decorations;
they were welcome guests on every occasion; city streets had
been named after leading German residents; time and time again,
both at private dinners and public banquets, they had asserted,
wineglass in hand, their loyalty and devotion to the city which was
their home. Yet, the moment opportunity offered, they did not scruple
to betray it. In the cellar of the house belonging to one of the most
prominent German residents the police found large stores
of ammunition and hundreds of rifles and German uniforms. A
German company had, as a result of criminal stupidity, been
awarded the contract for wiring the forts defending the city--and
when the need arose it was found that the wiring was all but
worthless. A wealthy German had a magnificent country estate the
gardens of which ran down to the moat of one of the outlying forts.
One day he suggested to the military authorities that if they would
permit him to obtain the necessary water from the moat, he would
build a swimming-pool in his garden for the use of the soldiers.
What appeared to be a generous offer was gladly accepted--but
when the day of action came it was found that the moat had been
drained dry. In the grounds of another country place were
discovered concrete emplacements for the use of the German
siege-guns. Thus the German residents repaid the hospitality of
their adopted city.
When the war-cloud burst every German was promptly expelled
from Antwerp. In a few cases the mob got out of hand and smashed
the windows of some German saloons along the water-front, but no
Germans were injured or mistreated. They were merely shipped,
bag and baggage, across the frontier. That, in my opinion at least, is
what should have been done with the entire civil population of
Antwerp--provided, of course, that the Government intended to hold
the city at all costs. The civilians seriously hampered the
movements of the troops and thereby interfered with the defence;
the presence of large numbers of women and children in the city
during the bombardment unquestionably caused grave anxiety to
the defenders and was probably one of the chief reasons for the
evacuation taking place when it did; the masses of civilian fugitives
who choked the roads in their mad flight from Antwerp were in large
measure responsible for the capture of a considerable portion of the
retreating Belgian army and for the fact that other bodies of troops
were driven across the frontier and interned in Holland. So strongly
was the belief that Antwerp was impregnable implanted in every
Belgian's mind, however, that up to the very last not one citizen in a
thousand would admit that there was a possibility that it could be
taken. The army did not believe that it could be taken. The General
Staff did not believe that it could be taken. They were destined to
have a rude and sad awakening.
III. The Death In The Air
At eleven minutes past one o'clock on the morning of August 25
death came to Antwerp out of the air. Some one had sent a bundle
of English and American newspapers to my room in the Hotel St.
Antoine and I had spent the evening reading them, so that the bells
of the cathedral had already chimed one o'clock when I switched off
my light and opened the window. As I did so my attention was
attracted by a curious humming overhead, like a million
bumblebees. I leaned far out of the window, and as I did so an
indistinct mass, which gradually resolved itself into something
resembling a gigantic black cigar, became plainly apparent against
the purple-velvet sky. I am not good at estimating altitudes, but I
should say that when I first caught sight of it it was not more than a
thousand feet above my head--and my room was on the top floor of
the hotel, remember. As it drew nearer the noise, which had at first
reminded me of a swarm of angry bees, grew louder, until it
sounded like an automobile with the muffler open. Despite the
darkness there was no doubting what it was. It was a German
Zeppelin.
Even as I looked something resembling a falling star curved across
the sky. An instant later came a rending, shattering crash that shook
the hotel to its foundations, the walls of my room rocked and reeled,
about me, and for a breathless moment I thought that the building
was going to collapse. Perhaps thirty seconds later came another
splitting explosion, and another, and then another--ten in all--each,
thank Heaven, a little farther removed. It was all so sudden, so
utterly unexpected, that it must have been quite a minute before I
realized that the monstrous thing hovering in the darkness overhead
was one of the dirigibles of which we had read and talked so much,
and that it was actually raining death upon the sleeping city from the
sky. I suppose it was blind instinct that caused me to run to the door
and down the corridor with the idea of getting into the street, never
stopping to reason, of course, that there was no protection in the
street from Zeppelins. But before I had gone a dozen paces I had
my nerves once more in hand. "Perhaps it isn't a Zeppelin, after all,"
I argued to myself. "I may have been dreaming. And how perfectly
ridiculous I should look if I were to dash downstairs in my pyjamas
and find that nothing had happened. At least I'll go back and put
some clothes on." And I did. No fireman, responding to a night
alarm, ever dressed quicker. As I ran through the corridors the
doors of bedrooms opened and sleepy-eyed, tousle-headed
diplomatists and Government officials called after me to ask if the
Germans were bombarding the city.
"They are," I answered, without stopping. There was no time to
explain that for the first time in history a city was being bombarded
from the air.
I found the lobby rapidly filling with scantily clad guests, whose teeth
were visibly chattering. Guided by the hotel manager and
accompanied by half a dozen members of the diplomatic corps in
pyjamas, I raced upstairs to a sort of observatory on the hotel roof. I
remember that one attache of the British Legation, ordinarily a most
dignified person, had on some sort of a night-robe of purple silk and
that when he started to climb the iron ladder of the fire-escape he
looked for all the world like a burglarious suffragette.
By the time we reached the roof of the hotel Belgian high-angle and
machine-guns were stabbing the darkness with spurts of flame, the
troops of the garrison were blazing away with rifles, and the
gendarmes in the streets were shooting wildly with their revolvers:
the noise was deafening. Oblivious of the consternation and
confusion it had caused, the Zeppelin, after letting fall a final bomb,
slowly rose and disappeared in the upper darkness.
The destruction wrought by the German projectiles was almost
incredible. The first shell, which I had seen fall, struck a building in
the Rue de la Bourse, barely two hundred yards in a straight line
from my window. A hole was not merely blown through the roof, as
would have been the case with a shell from a field-gun, but the three
upper stories simply crumbled, disintegrated, came crashing down
in an avalanche of brick and stone and plaster, as though a Titan
had hit it with a sledge-hammer. Another shell struck in the middle of
the Poids Public, or public weighing-place, which is about the size of
Russell Square in London. It blew a hole in the cobblestone-
pavement large enough to bury a horse in; one policeman on duty
at the far end of the square was instantly killed and another had
both legs blown off. But this was not all nor nearly all. Six people
sleeping in houses fronting on the square were killed in their beds
and a dozen others were more or less seriously wounded. Every
building facing on the square was either wholly or partially
demolished, the steel splinters of the projectile tearing their way
through the thick brick-walls as easily as a lead-pencil is jabbed
through a sheet of paper. And, as a result of the terrific concussion,
every house within a hundred yards of the square in every direction
had its windows broken. On no battlefield have I ever seen so
horrible a sight as that which turned me weak and nauseated when I
entered one of the shattered houses and made my way, over heaps
of fallen debris, to a room where a young woman had been
sleeping. She had literally been blown to fragments. The floor, the
walls, the ceiling, were splotched with--well, it's enough to say that
that woman's remains could only have been collected with a shovel.
In saying this, I am not speaking flippantly either. I have dwelt upon
these details, revolting as they are, because I wish to drive home
the fact that the only victims of this air-raid on Antwerp were
innocent non-combatants.
Another shell struck the roof of a physician's house in the
fashionable Rue des Escrimeurs, killing two maids who were
sleeping in a room on the upper floor. A shell fell in a garden in the
Rue von Bary, terribly wounding a man and his wife. A little child
was mangled by a shell which struck a house in the Rue de la
Justice. Another shell fell in the barracks in the Rue Falcon, killing
one inmate and wounding two others. By a fortunate coincidence
the regiment which had been quartered in the barracks had left for
the front on the previous day. A woman who was awakened by the
first explosion and leaned from her window to see what was
happening had her head blown off. In all ten people were killed, six
of whom were women, and upwards of forty wounded, two of them
so terribly that they afterwards died. There is very little doubt that a
deliberate attempt was made to kill the royal family, the General
Staff and the members of the Government, one shell bursting within
a hundred yards of the royal palace, where the King and Queen
were sleeping, and another within two hundred yards of staff
headquarters and the Hotel St. Antoine.
As a result of this night of horror, Antwerp, to use an inelegant but
descriptive expression, developed a violent case of the jim-jams.
The next night and every night thereafter until the Germans came in
and took the city, she thought she saw things; not green rats and
pink snakes, but large, sausage-shaped balloons with bombs
dropping from them. The military authorities--for the city was under
martial law--screwed down the lid so tight that even the most rabid
prohibitionists and social reformers murmured. As a result of the
precautionary measures which were taken, Antwerp, with its four
hundred thousand inhabitants, became about as cheerful a place of
residence as a country cemetery on a rainy evening. At eight o'clock
every street light was turned off, every shop and restaurant and cafe
closed, every window darkened. If a light was seen in a window after
eight o'clock the person who occupied that room was in grave
danger of being arrested for signalling to the enemy. My room,
which was on the third floor of the hotel, was so situated that its
windows could not be seen from the street, and hence I was not as
particular about lowering the shades as I should have been. The
second night after the Zeppelin raid the manager came bursting into
my room. "Quick, Mr. Powell," he called, excitedly, "pull down your
shade. The observers in the cathedral tower have just sent word
that your windows are lighted and the police are downstairs to find
out what it means."
The darkness of London and Paris was a joke beside the darkness
of Antwerp. It was so dark in the narrow, winding streets, bordered
by ancient houses, that when, as was my custom, I went to the
telegraph office with my dispatches after dinner, I had to feel my
way with a cane, like a blind man. To make conditions more
intolerable, if such a thing were possible, cordons of sentries were
thrown around those buildings under whose roofs the members of
the Government slept, so that if one returned after nightfall he was
greeted by a harsh command to halt, and a sentry held a rifle-muzzle
against his breast while another sentry, by means of a dark lantern,
scrutinized his papers. Save for the sentries, the streets were
deserted, for, as the places of amusement and the eating-places and
drinking-places were closed, there was no place for the people to
go except to bed. I was reminded of the man who told his wife that
he came home because all the other places were closed.
I have heard it said that Antwerp was indifferent to its fate, but it
made no such impression on me. Never have I lived in such an
atmosphere of gloom and depression. Except around the St.
Antoine at the lunch and dinner-hours and in the cafes just before
nightfall did one see anything which was even a second cousin to
jollity. The people did not smile. They went about with grave and
anxious faces. In fact, outside of the places I have mentioned, one
rarely heard a laugh. The people who sat at the round iron tables on
the sidewalks in front of the cafes drinking their light wines and beer
--no spirits were permitted to be sold--sat in silence and with solemn
faces. God knows, there was little enough for them to smile about.
Their nation was being slowly strangled. Three-quarters of its soil
was under the heel of the invader. An alien flag, a hated flag, flew
over their capital. Their King and their Government were fugitives,
moving from place to place as a vagrant moves on at the approach
of a policeman. Men who, a month before, were prosperous
shopkeepers and tradesmen were virtual bankrupts, not knowing
where the next hundred-franc note was coming from. Other men
had seen their little flower-surrounded homes in the suburbs razed
to the ground that an approaching enemy might find no cover.
Though the shops were open, they had no customers for the people
had no money, or, if they had money they were hoarding it against
the days when they might be homeless fugitives. No, there was not
very much to smile about in Antwerp.
There were amusing incidents, of course. If one recognizes humour
when he sees it he can find it in almost any situation. After the first
Zeppelin attack the management of the St. Antoine fitted up
bedrooms in the cellars.
A century or more ago the St. Antoine was not a hotel but a
monastery, and its cellars are all that the cellars of a monastery
ought to be--thick-walled and damp and musty. Yet these
subterranean suites were in as great demand among the
diplomatists as are tables in the palm-room of the Savoy during the
season. From my bedroom window, which overlooked the court, I
could see apprehensive guests cautiously emerging from their cellar
chambers in the early morning. It reminded me of woodchucks
coming out of their holes.
As the siege progressed and the German guns were pushed nearer
to the city, those who lived in what might be termed "conspicuous"
localities began to seek other quarters.
"I'm going to change hotels to-day," I heard a man remark to a
friend.
"Why?" inquired the other.
"Because I am within thirty yards of the cathedral," was the answer.
The towering spire of the famous cathedral is, you must understand,
the most conspicuous thing in Antwerp--on clear days you can see it
from twenty miles away--and to live in its immediate vicinity during a
bombardment of the city was equivalent to taking shelter under the
only tree in a field during a heavy thunderstorm.
Two days before the bombardment began there was a meeting of
the American residents--such of them as still remained in the city--at
the leading club. About a dozen of us in all sat down to dinner. The
purpose of the gathering was to discuss the attitude which the
Americans should adopt towards the German officers, for it was
known that the fall of the city was imminent. I remember that the
sense of the meeting was that we should treat the helmeted
intruders with frigid politeness--I think that was the term--which,
translated, meant that we were not to offer them cigars and buy
them drinks. Of the twelve of us who sat around the table that night,
there are only two--Mr. Manly Whedbee and myself--who remained
to witness the German occupation.