of the British Consul-General, Sir Cecil Hertslet, some days before,
the enormous British interests in Antwerp had been confided to
American protection. The concierge, who knew me and seemed
decidedly relieved to see me, made no objection to opening the
consulate and letting me in. While deliberating as to the best
method of transmitting the keys which had been entrusted to me to
the German military governor without informing him of the
embarrassing fact that the American and British interests in the city
were without official representation, those Americans and British
who had remained in the city during the bombardment began to
drop in. Some of them were frightened and all of them were plainly
worried, the women in particular, among whom were several British
Red Cross nurses, seeming fearful that the soldiers might get out of
hand. As there was no one else to look after these people, and as I
had formerly been in the consular service myself, and as they said
quite frankly that they would feel relieved if I took charge of things, I
decided to "sit on the lid," as it were, until the Consul-General's
return. In assuming charge of British and American affairs in
Antwerp, at the request and with the approval what remained of the
Anglo-American colony in that city, I am quite aware that I acted in a
manner calculated to scandalize those gentlemen who have been
steeped in the ethics of diplomacy. As one youth attached to the
American Embassy in London remarked, it was "the damndest
piece of impertinence" of which he had ever heard. But he is quite a
young gentleman, and has doubtless had more experience in
ballrooms than in bombarded cities. I immediately wrote a brief note
to the German commander transmitting the keys and informing him
that, in the absence of the American Consul-General I had assumed
charge of American and British interests in Antwerp, and expected
the fullest protection for them, to which I received a prompt and
courteous reply assuring me that foreigners would not be molested
in any way. In the absence of the consular staff, Thompson
volunteered to act as messenger and deliver my message to the
German commander. While on his way to the Hotel de Ville, which
was being used as staff headquarters, a German infantry regiment
passed him in a narrow street. Because he failed to remove his hat
to the colours a German officer struck him twice with the flat of his
sword, only desisting when Thompson pulled a silk American flag
from his pocket. Upon learning of this occurrence I vigorously
protested to the military authorities, who offered profuse apologies
for the incident and assured me that the officer would be punished if
Thompson could identify him. Consul-General Diederich returned to
Antwerp on Monday and I left the same day for the nearest
telegraph station in Holland.
The whole proceeding was irregular and unauthorized, of course,
but for that matter so was the German invasion of Belgium. In any
event, it seemed the thing to do and I did it, and, under the same
circumstances I should do precisely the same thing over again.
Though a very large force of German troops passed through
Antwerp during the whole of Friday night in pursuit of the retreating
Belgians, the triumphal entry of the victors did not begin until
Saturday afternoon, when sixty thousand men passed in review
before the military governor, Admiral von Schroeder, and General
von Beseler, who, surrounded by a glittering staff, sat their horses in
front of the royal palace. So far as onlookers were concerned, the
Germans might as well have marched through the streets of ruined
Babylon. Thompson and I, standing in the windows of the American
Consulate, were the only spectators in the entire length of the mile-
long Place de Meir--which is the Piccadilly of Antwerp--of the great
military pageant. The streets were absolutely deserted; every
building was dark, every window shuttered; in a thoroughfare which
had blossomed with bunting a few days before, not a flag was to be
seen. I think that even the Germans were a little awed by the
deathly silence that greeted them. As Thompson drily remarked, "It
reminds me of a circus that's come to town the day before it's
expected."
For five hours that mighty host poured through the canons of brick
and stone:
Above the bugle's din,
Sweating beneath their haversacks,
With rifles bristling on their backs,
The dusty men trooped in.
Company after company, regiment after regiment, brigade after
brigade swept by until our eyes grew weary with watching the ranks
of grey under the slanting lines of steel. As they marched they sang,
the high buildings along the Place de Meir and the Avenue de
Keyser echoing to their voices thundering out "Die Wacht Am
Rhein," "Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles" and "Ein Feste Burg
ist Unser Gott." Though the singing was mechanical, like the faces
of the men who sang, the mighty volume of sound, punctuated at
regular intervals by the shrill music of the fifes and the rattle of the
drums, and accompanied always by the tramp, tramp, tramp of iron-
shod boots, was one of the most impressive things that I have ever
heard. Each regiment was headed by its field music and colours,
and when darkness fell and the street lights were turned on, the
shriek of the fifes and the clamour of the drums and the rhythmic
tramp of marching feet reminded me of a torchlight political parade
at home.
At the head of the column rode a squadron of gendarmes--the
policemen of the army--gorgeous in uniforms of bottle-green and
silver and mounted on sleek and shining horses. After them came
the infantry: solid columns of grey-clad figures with the silhouettes of
the mounted officers rising at intervals above the forest of spike-
crowned helmets. After the infantry came the field artillery, the big
guns rattling and rumbling over the cobblestones, the cannoneers
sitting with folded arms and heels drawn in, and wooden faces, like
servants on the box of a carriage. These were the same guns that
had been in almost constant action for the preceding fortnight and
that for forty hours had poured death and destruction into the city,
yet both men and horses were in the very pink of condition, as keen
as razors, and as hard as nails; the blankets, the buckets, the
knapsacks, the intrenching tools were all strapped in their appointed
places, and the brown leather harness was polished like a lady's tan
shoes. After the field batteries came the horse artillery and after the
horse artillery the pom-poms--each drawn by a pair of sturdy
draught horses driven with web reins by a soldier sitting on the
limber--and after the pom-poms an interminable line of machine-
guns, until one wondered where Krupp's found the time and the
steel to make them all. Then, heralded by a blare of trumpets and a
crash of kettledrums, came the cavalry; cuirassiers with their steel
helmets and breastplates covered with grey linen, hussars in
befrogged grey jackets and fur busbies, also linen-covered, and
finally the Uhlans, riding amid a forest of lances under a cloud of
fluttering pennons. But this was not all, nor nearly all, for after the
Uhlans came the sailors of the naval division, brown-faced,
bewhiskered fellows with their round, flat caps tilted rakishly and the
roll of the sea in their gait; then the Bavarians in dark blue, the
Saxons in light blue, and the Austrians--the same who had handled
the big guns so effectively--in uniforms of a beautiful silver grey.
Accompanying one of the Bavarian regiments was a victoria drawn
by a fat white horse, with two soldiers on the box. Horse and
carriage were decorated with flowers as though for a floral parade at
Nice; even the soldiers had flowers pinned to their caps and
nosegays stuck in their tunics. The carriage was evidently a sort of
triumphal chariot dedicated to the celebration of the victory, for it
was loaded with hampers of champagne and violins!
The army which captured Antwerp was, first, last and all the time, a
fighting army. There was not a Landsturm or a Landwehr regiment
in it. The men were as pink-cheeked as athletes; they marched with
the buoyancy of men in perfect health. And yet the human element
was lacking; there was none of the pomp and panoply commonly
associated with man; these men in grey were merely wheels and
cogs and bolts and screws in a great machine--the word which has
been used so often of the German army, yet must be repeated,
because there is no other--whose only purpose is death. As that
great fighting machine swung past, remorseless as a trip-hammer,
efficient as a steam-roller, I could not but marvel how the gallant,
chivalrous, and heroic but ill-prepared little army of Belgium had held
it back so long.