consequences which might result to Ghent from this encounter,
which had taken place within an hour after the burgomaster had
assured the German commander that there were no Belgian
soldiers in the city. Now Mr. Julius Van Hee is what is popularly
known in the United States as "a live wire." He is a shirt-sleeve
diplomatist who, if he thought the occasion warranted it, would not
hesitate to conduct diplomatic negotiations in his night-shirt.
Appreciating that as a result of this attack on German soldiers,
which the Germans would probably characterize as treachery,
Ghent stood in imminent danger of meeting the terrible fate of its
sister-cities of Aerschot and Louvain, which were sacked and
burned on no greater provocation, Mr. Van Hee jumped into his car
and sought the burgomaster, whom he urged to accompany him
without an instant's delay to German headquarters. The burgomaster,
who had visions of being sent to Germany as a hostage, at first
demurred; but Van Hee, disregarding his protestations, handed
him his hat, hustled him into the car, and ordered the chauffeur
to drive as though the Uhlans were behind him.
They found General von Boehn and his staff quartered in a chateau
a few miles outside the city. At first the German commander was
furious with anger and threatened Ghent with the same punishment
he had meted out to other cities where Germans had been fired on.
Van Hee took a very firm stand, however. He reminded the general
that Americans have a great sentimental interest in Ghent because
of the treaty of peace between England and the United States which
was signed there a century ago, and he warned him that the burning
of the city would do more than anything else to lose the Germans
the sympathy of the American people.
"If you will give me your personal word," said the general finally,
"that there will be no further attacks upon Germans who may enter
the city, and that the wounded soldiers will be taken under American
protection and sent to Brussels by the American Consular
authorities when they have recovered, I will agree to spare Ghent
and will not even demand a money indemnity."
In the course of the informal conversation which followed, General
von Boehn remarked that copies of American papers containing
articles by E. Alexander Powell, criticizing the Germans' treatment of
the Belgian civil population, had come to his attention, and he
regretted that he could not have an opportunity to talk with their
author and give him the German version of the incidents in
question. Mr. Van Hee said that, by a curious coincidence, I had
arrived in Ghent that very morning, whereupon the general asked
him to bring me out to dinner on the following day and issued a safe
conduct through the German lines for the purpose.
We started early the next morning. As there was some doubt about
the propriety of my taking a Belgian military driver into the German
lines I drove the car myself. And, though nothing was said about a
photographer, I took with me Donald Thompson. Before we passed
the city limits of Ghent things began to happen. Entering a street
which leads through a district inhabited by the working classes, we
suddenly found our way barred by a mob of several thousand
excited Flemings.
Above a sea of threatening arms and brandished sticks and angry
faces rose the figures of two German soldiers, with carbines slung
across their backs, mounted on work-horses which they had
evidently hastily unharnessed from a wagon. Like their unfortunate
comrades of the motor-car episode, they too had strayed into the
city by mistake. As we approached the crowd made a concerted
rush for them. A blast from my siren opened a lane for us, however,
and I drove the car alongside the terrified Germans.
"Quick!" shouted Van Hee in German. "Off your horses and into the
car! Hide your rifles! Take off your helmets! Sit on the floor and keep
out of sight!"
The mob, seeing its prey escaping, surged about us with a roar. For
a moment things looked very ugly. Van Hee jumped on the seat.
"I am the American Consul!" he shouted. "These men are under my
protection! You are civilians, attacking German soldiers in uniform.
If they are harmed your city will be burned about your ears."
At that moment a burly Belgian shouldered his way through the
crowd and, leaping on the running-board, levelled a revolver at the
Germans cowering in the tonneau. Quick as thought Thompson
knocked up the man's hand, and at the same instant I threw on the
power. The big car leaped forward and the mob scattered before it.
It was a close call for every one concerned, but a much closer call
for Ghent; for had those German soldiers been murdered by
civilians in the city streets no power on earth could have saved the
city from German vengeance. General von Boehn told me so
himself.
A few minutes later, as playlets follow each other in quick
succession on a stage, the scene changed from near tragedy to
screaming farce. As we came thundering into the little town of
Sotteghem, which is the Sleepy Hollow of Belgium, we saw, rising
from the middle of the town square, a pyramid, at least ten feet high,
of wardrobe-trunks, steamer-trunks, bags, and suit-cases. From the
summit of this extraordinary monument floated a huge American
flag. As our car came to a halt there rose a chorus of exclamations
in all the dialects between Maine and California, and from the door
of a near-by cafe came pouring a flood of Americans. They proved
to be a lost detachment of that great army of tourists which, at the
beginning of hostilities, started on its mad retreat for the coast,
leaving Europe strewn with their belongings. This particular
detachment had been cut off in Brussels by the tide of German
invasion, and, as food-supplies were running short, they determined
to make a dash--perhaps crawl would be a better word--for Ostend,
making the journey in two lumbering farm wagons. On reaching
Sotteghem, however, the Belgian drivers, hearing that the Germans
were approaching, refused to go further and unceremoniously
dumped their passengers in the town square. When we arrived they
had been there for a day and a night and had begun to think that it
was to be their future home. It was what might be termed a mixed
assemblage, including several women of wealth and fashion who
had been motoring on the Continent and had had their cars taken
from them, two prim schoolteachers from Brooklyn, a mine-owner
from West Virginia, a Pennsylvania Quaker, and a quartet of
professional tango-dancers--artists, they called themselves--who
had been doing a "turn" at a Brussels music-hall when the war
suddenly ended their engagement. Van Hee and I skirmished about
and, after much argument, succeeded in hiring two farm-carts to
transport the fugitives to Ghent. For the thirty-mile journey the
thrifty peasants modestly demanded four hundred francs--and got it.
When I last saw my compatriots they were perched on top of their
luggage piled high on two creaking carts, rumbling down the road to
Ghent with their huge flag flying above them. They were singing at
the top of their voices, "We'll Never Go There Any More."
Half a mile or so out of Sotteghem our road debouched into the
great highway which leads through Lille to Paris, and we suddenly
found ourselves in the midst of the German army. It was a sight
never to be forgotten. Far as the eye could see stretched solid
columns of marching men, pressing westward, ever westward. The
army was advancing in three mighty columns along three parallel
roads, the dense masses of moving men in their elusive grey-green
uniforms looking for all the world like three monstrous serpents
crawling across the country-side.
The American flags which fluttered from our wind-shield proved a
passport in themselves, and as we approached the close-locked
ranks parted to let us pass, and then closed in behind us. For five
solid hours, travelling always at express-train speed, we motored
between walls of marching men. In time the constant shuffle of
boots and the rhythmic swing of grey-clad arms and shoulders grew
maddening, and I became obsessed with the fear that I would send
the car ploughing into the human hedge on either side. It seemed
that the interminable ranks would never end, and so far as we were
concerned they never did end, for we never saw the head of that
mighty column. We passed regiment after regiment, brigade after
brigade of infantry; then hussars, cuirassiers, Uhlans, field batteries,
more infantry, more field-guns, ambulances with staring red crosses
painted on their canvas tops, then gigantic siege-guns, their grim
muzzles pointing skyward, each drawn by thirty straining horses;
engineers, sappers and miners with picks and spades, pontoon-wagons,
carts piled high with what looked like masses of yellow silk but which
proved to be balloons, bicyclists with carbines slung upon their backs
hunter-fashion, aeroplane outfits, bearded and spectacled doctors of
the medical corps, armoured motor-cars with curved steel rails above
them as a protection against the wires which the Belgians were in the
habit of stringing across the roads, battery after battery of pom-poms
(as the quick-firers are descriptively called), and after them more
batteries of spidery-looking, lean-barrelled machine-guns, more
Uhlans--the sunlight gleaming on their lance-tips and the breeze
fluttering their pennons into a black-and-white cloud above them, and
then infantry in spiked and linen-covered helmets, more infantry and
still more infantry--all sweeping by, irresistibly as a mighty river,
with their faces turned towards France.
This was the Ninth Field Army, composed of the very flower of the
German Empire, including the magnificent troops of the Imperial
Guard. It was first and last a fighting army. The men were all young,
and they struck me as being as keen as razors and as hard as
nails. Their equipment was the acme to all appearances ordinary
two-wheeled farm-carts, contained "nests" of nine machine-guns
which could instantly be brought into action. The medical corps was
magnificent; as businesslike, as completely equipped, and as
efficient as a great city hospital--as, indeed, it should be, for no
hospital ever built was called upon to treat so many emergency
cases. One section of the medical corps consisted wholly of
pedicurists, who examined and treated the feet of the men. If a
German soldier has even a suspicion of a corn or a bunion or a
chafed heel and does not instantly report to the regimental
pedicurist for treatment he is subject to severe punishment. He is
not permitted to neglect his feet--or for that matter his teeth, or any
other portion of his body--because his feet do not belong to him but
to the Kaiser, and the Kaiser expects those feet kept in condition to
perform long and arduous marches and to fight his battles.
At one cross-roads I saw a soldier with a horse-clipping machine.
An officer stood beside him and closely scanned the heads of the
passing men. Whenever he spied a soldier whose hair was a
fraction of an inch too long, that soldier was called out of the ranks,
the clipper was run over his head as quickly and dexterously as an
expert shearer fleeces sheep, and then the man, his hair once more
too short to harbour dirt, ran to rejoin his company. They must have
cut the hair of a hundred men an hour. It was a fascinating
performance. Men on bicycles, with coils of insulated wire slung on
reels between them, strung field-telephones from tree to tree, so
that the general commanding could converse with any part of the
fifty-mile-long column. The whole army never slept. When half was
resting the other half was advancing. The German soldier is treated
as a valuable machine, which must be speeded up to the highest
possible efficiency. Therefore he is well fed, well shod, well clothed--
and worked as a negro teamster works a mule. Only men who are
well cared-for can march thirty-five miles a day, week in and week
out. Only once did I see a man ill-treated. A sentry on duty in front of
the general headquarters failed to salute an officer with sufficient
promptness, whereupon the officer lashed him again and again
across the face with a riding-whip. Though welts rose at every blow,
the soldier stood rigidly at attention and never quivered. It was not a
pleasant thing to witness. Had it been a British or an American
soldier who was thus treated there would have been an officer's
funeral the next day.
As we were passing a German outpost a sentry ran into the road
and signalled us to stop.
"Are you Americans?" he asked.
"We are," said I.
"Then I have orders to take you to the commandant," said he.
"But I am on my way to dine with General von Boehn. I have a pass
signed by the General himself and I am late already."
"No matter," the man insisted stubbornly. "You must come with me.
The commander has so ordered it."
So there was nothing for it but to accompany the soldier. Though we
tried to laugh away our nervousness, I am quite willing to admit that
we had visions of court-martials and prison cells and firing parties.
You never know just where you are at with the Germans. You see,
they have no sense of humour.
We found the commandant and his staff quartered at a farmhouse a
half-mile down the road. He was a stout, florid-faced, boisterous
captain of pioneers.
"I'm sorry to detain you," he said apologetically, "but I ordered the
sentries to stop the first American car that passed, and yours
happened to be the unlucky one. I have a brother in America and I
wish to send a letter to him to let him know that all is well with me.
Would you have the goodness to post it?"
"I'll do better than that, Captain," said I. "If you will give me your
brother's name and address, and if he takes the New York World,
he will read in to-morrow morning's paper that I have met you."
And the next morning, just as I had promised, Mr. F. zur Nedden of
Rosebank, New York, was astonished to read in the columns of his
morning paper that I had left his soldier-brother comfortably
quartered in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Renaix, Belgium, in
excellent health but drinking more red wine than was likely to be
good for him.
It was now considerably past midday, and we were within a few
miles of the French frontier, when I saw the guidon which signified
the presence of the head of the army, planted at the entrance to a
splendid old chateau. As we passed between the stately gateposts,
whirled up the splendid, tree-lined drive and came to a stop in front
of the terrace, a dozen officers came running out to meet us. So
cordial and informal were their greetings that I felt as though I were
being welcomed at a country-house in America instead of the
headquarters of a German army in the field. So perfect was the
field-telephone service that the staff had been able to keep in touch
with our progress ever since, five hours before, we had entered the
German lines, and had waited dinner for us. General von Boehn I
found to be a red-faced, grey-moustached, jovial old warrior, who
seemed very much worried for fear that we were not getting enough
to eat, and particularly enough to drink. He explained that the
Belgian owners of the chateau had had the bad taste to run away
and take their servants with them, leaving only one bottle of
champagne in the cellar. That bottle was good, however, as far as it
went. Nearly all the officers spoke English, and during the meal the
conversation was chiefly of the United States, for one of them had
been attached to the German Embassy at Washington and knew
the golf-course at Chevy Chase better than I do myself; another
had fished in California and shot elk in Wyoming; and a third had
attended the army school at Fort Riley. After dinner we grouped
ourselves on the terrace and Thompson made photographs of us.
They are probably the only ones--in this war, at least--of a German
general and an American war correspondent who is not under
arrest. Then we gathered about a table on which was spread a staff
map of the war area and got down to serious business.
The general began by asserting that the accounts of atrocities
perpetrated by German troops on Belgian non-combatants were
lies.
"Look at these officers about you," he said. "They are gentlemen,
like yourself. Look at the soldiers marching past in the road out
there. Most of them are the fathers of families. Surely you do not
believe that they would do the unspeakable things they have been
accused of?"
"Three days ago, General," said I, "I was in Aerschot. The whole
town is now but a ghastly, blackened ruin."
"When we entered Aerschot," was the reply, "the son of the
burgomaster came into the room where our officers were dining and
assassinated the Chief of Staff. What followed was retribution. The
townspeople got only what they deserved."
"But why wreak your vengeance on women and children?" I asked.
"None have been killed," the general asserted positively.
"I'm sorry to contradict you, General," I asserted with equal
positiveness, "but I have myself seen their bodies. So has Mr.
Gibson, the secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, who
was present during the destruction of Louvain."
"Of course," replied General von Boehn, "there is always danger of
women and children being killed during street fighting if they insist
on coming into the streets. It is unfortunate, but it is war."
"But how about a woman's body I saw with the hands and feet cut
off? How about the white-haired man and his son whom I helped to
bury outside of Sempst, who had been killed merely because a
retreating Belgian soldier had shot a German soldier outside their
house? There were twenty-two bayonet wounds in the old man's
face. I counted them. How about the little girl, two years old, who
was shot while in her mother's arms by a Uhlan and whose funeral I
attended at Heyst-op-den-Berg? How about the old man near
Vilvorde who was hung by his hands from the rafters of his house
and roasted to death by a bonfire being built under him?"
The general seemed taken aback by the exactness of my
information.
"Such things are horrible if true," he said. "Of course, our soldiers,
like soldiers in all armies, sometimes get out of hand and do things
which we would never tolerate if we knew it. At Louvain, for
example, I sentenced two soldiers to twelve years' penal servitude
each for assaulting a woman."
"Apropos of Louvain," I remarked, "why did you destroy the library?"
"We regretted that as much as anyone else," was the answer. "It
caught fire from burning houses and we could not save it."
"But why did you burn Louvain at all?" I asked.
"Because the townspeople fired on our troops. We actually found
machine-guns in some of the houses. And," smashing his fist down
upon the table, "whenever civilians fire upon our troops we will teach
them a lasting lesson. If women and children insist on getting in the
way of bullets, so much the worse for the women and children."
"How do you explain the bombardment of Antwerp by Zeppelins?" I
inquired.
"Zeppelins have orders to drop their bombs only on fortifications and
soldiers," he answered.
"As a matter of fact," I remarked, "they destroyed only private
houses and innocent civilians, several of whom were women. If one
of those bombs had dropped two hundred yards nearer my hotel I
wouldn't be here to-day smoking one of your excellent cigars."
"That is a calamity which, thank God, didn't happen," he replied.
"If you feel for my safety as deeply as that, General," I said,
earnestly, "you can make quite sure of my coming to no harm by
sending no more Zeppelins."
"Well, Herr Powell," he said, laughing, "we will think about it. And,"
he continued gravely, "I trust that you will tell the American people,
through your great paper, what I have told you to-day. Let them
hear our side of this atrocity business. It is only justice that they
should be made familiar with both sides of the question."
I have quoted my conversation with General von Boehn as nearly
verbatim as I can remember it. I have no comments to make. I will
leave it to my readers to decide for themselves just how convincing
were the answers of the German General Staff--for General von
Boehn was but its mouthpiece--to the Belgian accusations. Before
we began our conversation I asked the general if my photographer,
Thompson, might be permitted to take photographs of the great
army which was passing. Five minutes later Thompson whirled
away in a military motor-car, ciceroned by the officer who had
attended the army school at Fort Riley. It seems that they stopped
the car beside the road, in a place where the light was good, and
when Thompson saw approaching a regiment or a battery or a
squadron of which he wished a picture he would tell the officer,
whereupon the officer would blow a whistle and the whole column
would halt.
"Just wait a few minutes until the dust settles," Thompson would
remark, lighting a cigar, and the Ninth Imperial Army, whose
columns stretched over the country-side as far as the eye could
see, would stand in its tracks until the air was sufficiently clear to get
a good picture.
A field battery of the Imperial Guard rumbled past and Thompson
made some remark about the accuracy of the American gunners at
Vera Cruz.
"Let us show you what our gunners can do," said the officer, and he
gave an order. There were more orders--a perfect volley of them. A
bugle shrilled, eight horses strained against their collars, the drivers
cracked their whips, the cannoneers put their shoulders to the
wheels, and a gun left the road and swung into position in an
adjacent field. On a knoll three miles away an ancient windmill was
beating the air with its huge wings. A shell hit the windmill and tore it
into splinters.
"Good work," Thompson observed critically. "If those fellows of
yours keep on they'll be able to get a job in the American navy when
the war is over."
In all the annals of modern war I do not believe that there is a
parallel to this little Kansas photographer halting, with peremptory
hand, an advancing army and leisurely photographing it, regiment
by regiment, and then having a field-gun of the Imperial Guard go
into action solely to gratify his curiosity.
They were very courteous and hospitable to me, those German
officers, and I was immensely interested with all that I saw. But,
when all is said and done, they impressed me not as human beings,
who have weaknesses and virtues, likes and dislikes of their own,
but rather as parts, more or less important, of a mighty and highly
efficient machine which is directed and controlled by a cold and
calculating intelligence in far-away Berlin. That machine has about
as much of the human element as a meat-chopper, as a steam-
roller, as the death-chair at Sing Sing. Its mission is to crush,
obliterate, destroy, and no considerations of civilization or chivalry or
humanity will affect it. I think that the Germans, with their grim, set
faces, their monotonous uniforms, and the ceaseless shuffle,
shuffle, shuffle of their boots must have gotten on my nerves, for it
was with a distinct feeling of relief that I turned the bonnet of my car
once more towards Antwerp and my friends the Belgians.
VI. On The Belgian Battle-Line