BRUSSELS, TOURNAI, AND THE GERMAN FRONT
To penetrate into Belgium with a passport which proves, alas! too
clearly that the bearer of it has been twice to Berlin, once to
Constantinople, and often to Paris since the war broke out, and that he
has had his passport _visé_ at the various Consulates in London, is, as
a Belgian friend told me, asking for trouble.
My troubles really began before leaving Holland. The German Consul in
Flushing makes all foreigners who want to go to Belgium (though there
are few enough who attempt the adventure) sign a special declaration
saying that they take the full responsibility of their own act; no
passports are given to leave Belgium, and people going in are likely
to be kept there up to the end of the war.
The night before, at the Albion, an inn which arrogates to itself
the pompous name of Grand Hotel, I met two Belgian refugees who had
succeeded in escaping from Belgium two days before, crossing the
marshes and wireworks near Maesevck; and though I did not fancy this
way was a very comfortable one, I couldn't see why I should not use it
myself in case of necessity.
At any rate, I bravely signed the paper, with the idea that something
or somebody would get me out of trouble, and, as a matter of fact, I
did not have trouble during the first part of my journey.
I began to think that all that had been said about the cleverness
of the German police was a little exaggerated. But at the end of my
first day in Brussels, having retired to my room in the hotel, I was
just going to bed, when I received a visit from two gentlemen who, I
learned, were members of the German police. They were accompanied by
four helmeted and fully-armed soldiers, two of whom remained in the
corridor outside the door, while the other two stood like mummies, one
at each side of the bed. First one of the two civilians, who seemed
the higher-placed, informed me in excellent English that I was a very
suspicious person, that the police were perfectly aware of what I was
doing in Belgium, and that the Imperial Government would take against
me any steps it thought suitable.
I answered in French that I did not understand him, and that I had my
passport in perfect order. "It is easy to have a passport, but the
Imperial Government is not the dupe of such childish tricks." He then
ordered his companions to search the room. As for myself, the search
was made extremely easy by the simplified costume I happened to be
wearing.
I have had lately a few experiences of this sort, but the one in
Brussels easily beat all the former ones. The police inspector in
Berlin and the Turkish Custom House officers are as blind as bats and
as superficial as amateurs compared with this man, who I honestly
thought was Argus himself. He examined my luggage, my linen, my
clothes, assured himself that nothing was concealed underneath the
linings, looked for a double bottom in my bag, for receptacles in my
watch-case, and produced from his roomy pockets a miniature hammer with
which he made sure that the rather high heels of my boots were not
hollow.
I suppose I could not help smiling while he was taking all this useless
trouble, and the other man remarked that I need not make my position
still worse by behaving insultingly to the representative of the
Imperial police.
When he had finished searching my things, the polizeier talked to
his chief, and said in German, which language they did not know I
understood, that I had evidently concealed the documents somewhere
in the room. Lying on the floor or climbing on the chairs, helping
himself with an electric torch and with a sort of paper-knife which
belonged to the arsenal of his professional belongings, he searched the
carpet, the furniture, the bed, the shade of the electric light, the
pipes of the bath--in a word, everything.
The man seemed so keen on his job that I really felt sorry I had not
anything with me which would give him the pleasure of a sensational
discovery. He reminded me of a ratter in which the gift of search is
sure and instinctive.
When he thought he had found something behind the drawer of the
dressing-table his eyes shone with delight, and his voice had suddenly
an intonation of supreme joy. But he could only produce the catalogue
of a furrier, evidently left by one of the former occupants of the
room. Finally he had to give up searching, and the whole company
departed, taking my passport and all my papers with them, promising
another visit on the following morning, and informing me not to try
and leave the hotel, or even my room, because such an attempt would be
useless.
The next morning, at seven o'clock, only the two civilians came back,
and told me to dress as quickly as possible, and follow them to the
Kommandantur. I said I was quite ready to please them, but, to teach
them a little patience, had a comfortable bath, polished my nails to
the highest possible brightness, spent as long as possible in shaving,
dressing, and having my _petit déjeuner_, while the chambermaid was
packing my luggage.
When I followed the two polizeiern I said to her, "I hope you don't
believe I have taken anybody's pocket-book?" "Certainly not, sir," she
answered quite seriously. "All well-to-do people in Brussels have been
taken to the Kommandantur this year; _l'arrestation est très portée à
présent_."
Reassured by the assertion of the witty maid, which I acknowledged
with an extra tip, I went with my two companions to a smart motor-car
waiting for us outside. I feel indebted to the Germans for the only
motor ride I managed to have in Brussels, no public or private car
being allowed on the road, unless for military or police service.
At the police station a new and long interrogatory, followed by the
seizure of all the money I had on me. Then I was confronted with a spy
who had followed me about in my pilgrimage all over Belgium for five
days. Not a single one of my moves had been missed from the moment I
landed in Antwerp. A sort of long affidavit was drawn up containing all
the accusations against me (I do not know exactly even now what they
were), as well as my declaration and a complete list of the papers,
books, and money I had with me. I asked permission to communicate with
one of the neutral Consuls who are still in Brussels, but this was
denied me, so I had to wait four or five hours, after which, having had
a filthy German meal, always accompanied by my two polizeiern, in the
canteen of an infantry regiment, I was taken to the Kommandantur.
The canteen was prepared for the celebration of the Kaiser's birthday;
flags and pictures of the War Lord were all over the walls, and in a
passage were piles of little boxes, sent by the Berlin population to
the troops as a homage to the Kaiser, and containing sweets, tobacco,
chocolates, and dreadful-looking handkerchiefs with the whole royal
family printed on them.
The Kommandantur was in possession of the Palais de la Nation, and here
I was kept waiting two hours. Then, I suppose, not to rid me of a good
habit, I was searched once again, then asked to repeat exactly all that
was in my passport. As I could not say the exact date of one or another
_visé_ at the different Consulates, I was told that I had stolen the
passport and a lot of other nonsense of the kind.
I required all my large stock of patience and good humour to stand
this trying time. It was getting dark, and I began to think that I
should have to pass the night at the Kommandantur, when my adventure
suddenly came to an utterly unromantic end by the intervention of a
friend of mine who happens to be very influential in Brussels at the
present moment. I feel rather ashamed about it. A stout colonel with
the unavoidable iron cross, and the baldest head I have ever seen in my
life, was interrogating me for the hundredth time, when he was suddenly
put into the nicest of dispositions towards me by a letter sealed with
a coat-of-arms I know quite well. It was brought to him on a silver
tray by a Landsturm man.
The colonel began to apologise, saying that he felt certain I should
understand things, and that really nothing would have happened "if you
had not looked so extremely English."
I answered that I could not and did not wish to help my looks, and that
I had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. "We happen to stay at the same
hotel, I believe," he continued; "won't you dine with us to-night?"
I thought it was my turn to have a little of my own back, and, looking
straight at him, I answered in my very best argot, "Ah ça non par
example!" and I stepped out, enjoying thoroughly the servile bows of
the two men who had searched me in the morning.
They gave me back my luggage, papers, and money, but in German notes
instead of gold; and though I protested, as gold fetches in Belgium
about twenty-seven francs per pound, they simply answered that no gold
was allowed in Belgium, and I had to give in on this point. But I got
any amount of pleasure, quite worth the money they made me lose, by
telling them a few simple truths, which generally one cannot afford to
tell to a German unless one happens to meet him somewhere out of reach
of the police.
* * *
After my visit to the ruined towns of East Belgium I naturally expected
to see in Brussels the depressed appearance and the lifeless look of
the other parts of the country. I was therefore extremely surprised to
find the town with all its shops and its theatres open, and with its
everyday life in full swing.
The German authorities try to keep things as lively as possible in
Brussels, and, up to a certain point, they succeed in doing so.
Officers and men have received very special orders; they can do
anything they like in the small provincial towns, but they must be
fairly polite to the population in Brussels. As long as the capital has
not been pillaged, burned, or shelled, the German Government thinks to
have in its hands proof that no useless damage was done, and that the
tragic happenings in the other towns were indirectly the fault of the
"treacherous Belgians."
Another reason for this special treatment of Brussels is that though
the Ambassadors of foreign States have left for Le Havre, a few members
of the legations of neutral countries still remain in the town who
would be compromising and official witnesses of any useless acts of
cruelty. And this is why Brussels is the only Belgian town with a
garrison of crack troops and well-to-do officers, the only town in
which theatres are open (by special command of the Government of
Brussels), and the only town in which restaurants and cafés keep open
till eleven o'clock--some even till midnight, German time.
The question of time is really very curious. One of the first acts of
the invaders was to impose, or rather try to do so, the Berlin hour
on Belgium. Everybody stuck to the old Belgian time, which is an hour
earlier than the German.
Then the Germans forced the sacristans of the different churches to put
the steeple clocks back an hour, but, as by a miracle, the old clocks,
many of which had been going for centuries, developed trouble of some
kind or another, and suddenly stopped. Now it is only the Royal Palace
and station clocks that mark German time; all the others have stopped
or are undergoing endless repairs.
The time at which his watch is set is now a sign by which you can
detect the sympathies of a person. When you sit in a tramcar or in a
café, and somebody wishes to ask you a question, he glances first at
your wrist, and, from the time of your watch, knows whether you are a
friend or a foe.
The great majority of the Belgian population--I mean, of the Belgians
who stuck to their homes, as should have been done by everybody--behave
in a very dignified manner, and ignore the Germans almost completely.
Nearly everybody, rich and poor, wears a Belgian rosette or King
Albert's portrait in the buttonhole, and by so doing defy the Germans,
who regularly rage at the sight.
A little story on this subject is often repeated in Brussels. A German
officer asked a lady to take off the rosette she was wearing, but she
refused.
"Very well, then," he said, "I will do it myself," and catching hold of
the rosette he threw it on the floor and stamped his foot upon it. The
lady stared at him contemptuously, and said, "After all, a rosette is
much easier to take than Paris." She then walked away.
German soldiers have lately received the order not to bother about
such trifles in Brussels, and everybody who wishes to do so can wear
the colours of his country without serious consequences. I was really
astonished at the appearance of some of the Brussels shops. Belgian
flags and large pictures of the King and the Royal family, flanked by
engravings of the Sovereigns of England and Russia, were shown in the
windows, together with some clever caricatures and artistic etchings of
"Bruxelles pendant l'occupation," a legend which means that it is hoped
the occupation will cease as soon as possible.
To say at this moment that Belgium has been stricken by famine would
be an exaggeration. Food is certainly scarcer than before the war, but
the population is less, and consequently the prices have not risen
extraordinarily.
At the restaurants the only dishes that are dearer are those that
contain eggs; for the others, the higher cost to the caterers is made
up for by smaller portions.
Bread is really the only thing that is dear. The quality, of course,
varies, but the white, pure, wholesome bread formerly to be found
everywhere as part of the excellent Belgium cooking, is no more.
From the Antwerp bread, which has now a funny taste as of dust, and the
soft part of which is browny, full of dark spots, wet and granulous,
to the brown soldier-like _pain d'ammunition_ one gets in Tournai,
from the maize and millet bread of Malines, to the still white but
damp and curiously tasteless bread of Brussels--all the bread which
was served to me during my Belgian trip showed clearly all the tricks
used to provide the country with its indispensable daily bread. What in
ordinary times would have been judged only fit for animals is now sold
at very high prices and makes the base of the flour employed.
In places like Brussels, where a certain quantity of good flour is
still obtainable at very high prices, the bread is made with a mixture
of wheat, potato, and maize flour, but in most towns the wheat has been
used up, and the bread has to be made without it.
In all the western parts of Belgium, all that remains of the old supply
of corn is used for the wounded and the sick.
Pellagia, an old and almost forgotten ailment, caused by bad bread and
rotten food, has reappeared in most of the country places where the
food is worst. Some cases are really pathetic.
A doctor who is managing a hospital near Courtrai told me that it is
impossible to get the good, healthy food indispensable in illness.
Some cases of lemons and oranges for the Belgian hospitals which
were specially allowed through the Italian frontier, in spite of the
exportation bills, have been seized by the Germans.
Generally, German people and German hospitals in Belgium manage to get
the very best food; the native inhabitants have to be content with
what remains.
To eat, I will not say good, but passable bread, for instance, one must
go to one of the establishments regarded as "safe" by the Germans, one
of the establishments where the Germans feed, where they can do what
they like and drink Munich beer. Such places are allowed to keep open
an hour longer than the others.
German people have monopolised the fashionable restaurants, teashops,
and best hotels in the town. The Belgian population has completely
given up going into such establishments, and patronise only certain
others which manage, more or less, to keep the Germans away.
The famous Café des Augustins, on the Boulevard Anspach, the manager
of which has been plucky and clever enough to do so without giving the
Government a pretext for shutting up the place, has crossed from his
lists all German wines, liqueurs, and mineral waters. As the German
Government has stopped the production of Belgian beer, in order to be
able to send the stored oats and hops to Munich and to Pilsen, and to
favour the sale of German beer in Belgium at fairly high prices, no
more beer is sold in the establishment.
In the other restaurants, the Germanised ones, the new masters drink
beer and champagne, sing, shout, and discuss the war.
All the smart tea-places of the capital like Matisse, the Palace, etc.,
have been monopolised by the German officers, and a lady will not visit
them for anything on earth. "Ah non pas là; il y a trop de Boches!"
declares a Bruxelloise invited to visit such a place.
It is really a trying time for a lady in Brussels, as well as all
over Belgium. The German officers do not think it too base a thing
to look up in the Kommandantur books the names of the young women
whose husbands are either at the front or in a concentration camp in
Germany; and then a real hunting campaign begins, generally ended by
the lady leaving her own house and going to stay with relatives or
friends. The German officer's way of paying attentions to a lady varies
from following her about in the most persistent manner to sending her
bouquets of flowers, and even to operating day and night perquisition
of her house under some easily-found excuse, or without pretext at all.
I know some instances of such cases which are very common in Brussels.
The father of one lady, who received such a visit from an officer
accompanied by two soldiers at three o'clock in the morning, is a very
highly placed Belgian official. He protested at the Kommandantur, but
the answer he had was that the officer was perfectly right in so doing.
All German attempts to make friends with the population have failed.
I know of officers, once personal friends of Belgian families, who have
tried in vain to revive the old acquaintance.
Of course, there are a few families who have received the German
officers, and these are consequently in favour. In a family of parvenus
which hopes to take a better place in Brussels society if the German
occupation continues, the Kaiser's birthday was celebrated with a
dinner for officers, followed by a dance, permission being gladly
granted by the Kommandantur.
But Brussels society, needless to say, has completely ostracised these
people. Even the Germans at heart despise them.
"We go to the house," said the officer who told me of the Kaiser's
birthday-party, "because we have nowhere else to go, but we know
perfectly well they only do it because they think it will improve their
social position. They are not exactly the kind of people I shall like
to shake hands with when the war is over."
* * *
There is one part of Brussels which has never been properly
occupied--the part which lies on the other side of the port and of
the Bassin Vergote, the so-called Marolle, the East End of the Belgian
capital. During the first month of the occupation the Kommandantur
tried to establish a proper military police service there, as in the
other quarters of the town; but each night several of the men in the
patrol disappeared, and often a full patrol would meet a similar end.
The Brussels apaches have always been armed with long thin knives, and
they took no notice of the order to give up all arms to the police.
As the high powers of Berlin did not want a wholesale imprisonment
or the destruction of the entire quarter, which would have been the
only remedy, the Kommandantur has compromised. The Marolle is occupied
during the day, and free during the night. Patrols go through it in
daylight, but when evening comes they cross the water and retire into
the old "Luna Park," now converted into a large prison and barracks.
The high and smartest part of the town is completely given up to
the Germans. The Palais de la Nation, and the Palais du Roe, the
beautiful Palais des Beaux Arts, and the colossal Palais de Justice,
are the headquarters of the German Government of Belgium. New German
inscriptions tell the new uses of the palaces, and, what is rather
important, no reference is made to a temporary government of Belgium;
the inscriptions simply say, "German Empire--Government of the Belgian
Provinces."
Near the Palais de Justice, which occupies a dominating position on a
hill almost in the centre of the town, twenty large siege guns have
been placed, and near them artillery officers and men connected with
the Kommandantur by a camp telephone are ready to pour on the quiet
town death and destruction should the necessity of subduing riots arise.
The most important monuments, art galleries, and churches are said to
be mined, and the German authorities do not deny the rumour.
On the boulevards and down the beautiful Avenue Louise, at the
Cinquantenaire, and at the Bois de la Cambre, generally full of smart
people, of horse-riders, and of carriages and motor-cars, there are now
only old Landsturm soldiers drilling and very young officers riding,
often accompanied by ladies, who, even in this the smartest of sports,
cannot get rid of a certain Teutonic awkwardness.
The German nation has always been celebrated for her immoderate liking
for issuing long and complicated notices, warnings which are possible
only in Germany because in no other country would people take the
trouble to read them.
In Belgium this mania has reached its highest possible point. On
the ruins of the dead cities and on the trees in the open country,
on the gates of the gardens, and on the milestones of the country
roads, everywhere where there is space enough, the German Government
has posted notices, printed in three languages--German, Flemish,
and French--headed with the German eagle and signed by the
Governor-General.
Brussels is covered with a sort of incrustation of old and new official
notices; notices about closing time for shops and cafés, about grouping
in the streets, about meetings in clubs, about drinking spirits, about
singing forbidden songs, about buying or selling forbidden stuff,
about keeping arms, photographic cameras, or maps, about detaining
gold instead of giving it up to the banks, about giving hospitality to
refugees or foreigners, about everything on earth.
The list of things "verboten" would probably take more than a full
page, but what is most insisted upon and is the subject of five or six
different notices is the introduction of foreign papers into Belgium
and the sale, or possession, of newspapers of any kind besides the ones
sold openly in Belgium, a full list of which is given.
These are: a few Belgian papers, naturally issued under the vigilant
eye of the most particular of censors; some German papers, not all of
them, as many are considered much too advanced to be allowed into the
hands of Belgian people; and a Rotterdam sheet, which has the privilege
of being the only foreign journal allowed into Belgium, a privilege
more apparent than real, as the paper is notoriously in German hands.
It will easily be understood how the Belgian population feels more than
anything else this complete lack of real news, and how eager they are
for the information which is brought in by the few refugees who succeed
in going back or by the few foreign papers they manage to smuggle in at
great risk and great expense.
The other papers, the ones which are allowed, print the most fantastic
news. I was in Brussels the day of the Zeppelin raid on the British
coast; the aircraft, according to the news for Belgian consumption,
reached London and dropped bombs all over the metropolis. Every day
or two a great victory is claimed on either front, and the official
reports of foreign countries published in the papers are only mutilated
and distorted reductions of the real ones.
To be found in possession of forbidden papers is extremely dangerous.
A gentleman belonging to one of the best Brussels families was given
two months' concentration camp for translating articles from _The
Times_, and one of his office clerks, who got hold of the translations
and typed them and sold them, had to serve a six months' sentence. In
spite of all this, I managed to get a copy of _The Times_ nearly every
day, paying for it two francs fifty, which is certainly a fair price,
but not too high considering the difficulty of introducing it into
Belgium, and that it was generally only two days old.
Up to about two months ago people would gladly pay twenty-five francs
for a copy of the paper; refugees and Dutch people used to take it in
at great risk, but now with an admirable sense of adaptability, the
German soldiers, Custom House officers, and railway employees have
organised this delicate service.
They get _The Times_ or the _Figaro_ for twopence at the Dutch frontier
and sell it again to some agent in Brussels or straight to the public
at a nice profit. One must, of course, be extremely careful in buying
papers offered on sale by such people, as this is one of the favourite
victim-hunting systems of the numberless spies of the Kommandantur.
In a difficult moment like the present one the Belgian Press, or the
part of it which stuck to its place and kept independent from German
influence, has assumed a very dignified attitude.
_La Belgique_, _Le Bruxellois_, _La Patrie_, etc., publish the
different _communiqués_, French, German, English, and Russian, but
never forget to put, as an undertitle, "As transmitted to us by the
Censor." Very often the papers come out with large blank spaces, the
whole or part of an article having been censored.
At a famous restaurant near the "Halles," which is the meeting-place of
journalistic and literary folk in Brussels, I met an old friend, now
editor of a large Brussels paper.
He thought it was his duty not to leave the town and to try to give
the Belgian public as truthful news as possible about the war, but he
admitted the task he had assumed was almost impossible.
All communications with foreign countries have been interrupted, and
the papers must depend completely on the censor for news. The few items
of correspondence which he could manage to get through from England
and France were not allowed to be printed, and quotations from foreign
papers are strictly forbidden.
The German Government tried often with his paper, and with all the
others of a certain importance, to convert them into Germanophile
papers, offering large sums of money and great advantages of every
kind. Such offers were naturally refused, and now the Germans have
founded a new paper, the title of which sounds very Belgian, while the
editor and staff have been carefully selected amongst people who are,
at least as far as their name goes, thoroughly Belgian.
This is now the leading organ of the Germanophil movement.
"Many Belgians in London?" asked my friend, after a pause.
"Too many," I could not help answering.
"Oh, we know, we know. Twenty per cent. are perhaps _real_ refugees,
and the others are slackers, or people who fancy that, after all, a
season in London is the best way of dealing with the crisis.
"I wonder if the young men who left Belgium on the pretext of
enlisting, and who are now 'acting the referee' in London, know that we
consider them a disgrace to our country?
"If a man cannot fight with our King on the last bit of Belgian soil,
his duty is to stick to his town, to his village, or to his country
house. Especially if he is a man of wealth, and most Belgians now in
London are fairly well off, there is plenty for him to do here."
The very same thing was repeated to me by hundreds of people while I
was in Belgium.
A lady who ten or twelve years since has spent every winter in her
beautiful villa in Bordighera, and who, for the first time, did not
this year leave Brussels, where she is managing an emergency hospital
for children, said to me: "When you go back to England, please tell
the English that we Belgians do not want to be judged by those of us
who are now in London enjoying themselves in theatres and night clubs.
What they spend in an evening would be sufficient to keep one of our
starving families for a week. We know, from some refugees who have
come back, how even a number of young men are enjoying in England an
idle life and a free and large hospitality. Such people should not be
surprised if, when the war is over and they are back in Belgium, they
are considered as outcasts. We shall not have any room for them in our
society. They have deserted Belgium when she was most in need of them;
they have made us look like cowards in the eyes of the country which
has been helping us most gallantly, and they will not be surprised, I
think, to be ostracised by the rest of their countryfolk.
"This war," continued the lady, who bears one of the oldest and best
names of Belgium, "this war has produced in our country a new form of
socialism--a socialism which has nothing in common with the theories
of Bebel or Marx, but which seems to derive its origin from the
Commandments of the Bible.
"I know of ladies who would not, before the war, have thought it in
themselves to do any such useful work as looking after entire families
of refugees; others have been converted by the circumstances of war
into efficient sick nurses, relief organisers, and even into cooks for
our kitchens for the poor. I know of families who would have shivered
at the idea of having a stranger in their home, especially if that
stranger happened to be of low class, who are now giving hospitality
to whole families; I know of middle-aged gentlemen who almost every
week risk their lives to go into Holland to get letters from soldiers
fighting at the front and to bring back hope to hundreds of families.
These and our soldiers are the true Belgians."
Poor people often told me the same thing. "Do you think we are of the
kind to allow the Germans to turn us out of our own houses?" a little
Belgian woman asked me. She was living with her five children in a
little ruined cottage near Liége, while her husband was fighting at
the front. A piece of shell remained jutting from a wall of the little
house, which had newspapers at the windows instead of glass.
"I did not bother to have new glass put in just yet," said the little
woman, smiling; "first of all because we have no money to spare, and
also because we expect to see more fighting soon; at least, we hope
so. We know it will be hell when the Germans are pushed back, but we
are waiting anxiously for that moment. Ah! sir, this is not life; this
is worse than all being dead," she ended, kissing the fair head of her
last-born--born since the Germans came.
In many, many towns did I hear this very same hope expressed by all
kinds and conditions of people and in the same manner: "When are we
going to get rid of them?"
"_Get rid of them_" does not mean only that the Belgians desire to
reassume the dignity of a free nation, have their own rulers, nor see
any more pointed helmets, but also that they want to be able to start
business again, to live, to eat, to be free in every sense of the word.
The subject of a country which has not suffered invasion for centuries
and centuries can hardly realise what all this means.
* * *
Perhaps the most intolerable portion of the occupants are the
civilians, who have come down in big numbers, following in a week or
two the German Army. They have joined the other Germans, those who have
been preparing for years the ground for the future invasion. Some are
occupied at the Kommandantur, some are organising the railway service,
but most belong to the secret service and to the police offices.
The German waiters of the Palace, the Metropole, the Cecil, and all
other big hotels in Brussels appear to have been working their very
best for the Fatherland before the war began. Now they have left their
humble jobs, thrown away their mask, and found new employment with the
central police. In Brussels there are any number of such people, who
now carry themselves proudly with a white, black, and red armlet and a
pistol-case bulging beneath their coats on the left hip.
Very few motor-cars are seen in the streets, and during my stay of
more than a week I did not see a single car driven by a civilian. The
petrol question seems to have become extremely serious. All the motor
garages are closed, and it is impossible to obtain the spirit at any
price, not only in large quantities, but even in small bottles from a
chemist's shop.
This accounts for the boom in acetylene lamps and carbide. New large
shops selling these goods have opened all over the country. In most
villages gas and electric light have been cut off, and this is the only
means of obtaining any light.
Here, again, Brussels has very special treatment. The town at night is
as full of light as usual--probably because the Germans know perfectly
well that if the Allies should attempt an air attack they would almost
certainly damage the civilian population more than the occupiers. Very
often, in the daytime, a Zeppelin will appear over the town; people are
so used to the sight that they take little or no notice.
To sum up: the Brussels population has become accustomed very quickly
to the new situation. Nobody seems to mind the incessant rumble of the
guns in the distance, nor the food scarcity and high prices, nor the
abnormal life of the town. Nor the lack of amusements.
I have said some theatres are open; they are, but only for the Germans.
The Belgian people refuse to go to them for two good reasons. They
do not want to mix with the Germans, and they do not think it right
to enjoy themselves when their country is reduced to such pitiful
conditions and their King and the remnants of his army are fighting on
the last bit of Belgian soil.
For the Germans there are even music-hall shows and dances, and, with
that beautiful sense of tradition which, according to Nietzsche, is one
of the secrets of German clumsiness, even the decrepit institution of
Tango Teas is still kept alive. And there the Hun stuffs himself with
more champagne and costly food.
At ten miles' distance from Brussels the inhabitants of Forest have
been rationed at half a pound of brown bread per head.
* * *
It is very difficult to obtain from the German Kommandantur in Belgium
permission to travel anywhere past the line of Ghent, Brussels, and
Charleroi. The permits are not readily granted even to Germans and
Belgians, and a foreigner, whatever his nationality, finds it almost
impossible to secure one. The parties of American, Italian, and German
journalists taken to visit the trenches and the supposed firing line
were really shown only a few places previously arranged. In no case
were they allowed to see the things they really wanted to see, nor were
they permitted to talk to the population or to the soldiers.
If I wished to get near the front I realised that I must find a very
convincing pretext. I happened to have some friends, proprietors of
large motor works in Tournai, so I managed to obtain a pass for this
town, alleging some business transactions as my excuse.
From Brussels the train only took me as far as Enghien, from which
little town I had to proceed by road in an impossible vehicle pulled
by an old horse, so old and worn out that it had escaped German
requisition. It must have been a very old horse to escape that.
Curiously enough, the part of Belgium I crossed while approaching the
German front seemed to have suffered very little. No ruins and no
burned houses. Indeed, but for the sentries posted on the road every
quarter of a mile, one could have thought the country was at peace.
But a few miles before Tournai was reached the country began to assume
a warlike appearance.
Numerous trenches, which evidently had never been used, and which were
filled with ice-covered water, lay ready for an eventual retreat.
From this point up to the front there were long lines of trenches
at frequent intervals. Before reaching Tournai I passed a military
aerodrome, which had been arranged in a large treeless piece of ground
near Basècles. Two large Zeppelin shelters and some temporary hangars,
capable of holding about ten aeroplanes, had been erected.
One of the Zeppelins was just coming back from the direction of
Brussels when we passed; two aeroplanes had been taken out in the open
air, and a number of soldiers were busy round them.
Though Tournai is not very near the front the town is completely
occupied by German troops, and is treated as a town in the battle zone.
This is because the town occupies a very important position on the
River Schelde and because Lille, about twenty kilometres westward is
too close to the firing line to permit of its being used as a base.
All the bridges on the river are mined, most of the houses have been
converted into temporary hospitals for slightly wounded soldiers, and
the town is filled with officers and men just back from the trenches.
Never before had I seen German soldiers newly returned from the field
of battle. Nothing remained of the well-dressed, well-fed, and stiff
troops generally seen in Germany. Their uniforms were torn and dirty;
their faces unshaven, thin, and often unhealthy. They did not sing,
they were not noisy. I saw them in cafés and restaurants writing long
letters home, with a large glass of beer in front of them.
Often in the same establishment were groups of bright young soldiers in
comparatively fresh uniforms, soldiers who were cheering and singing
because next day they were going to the front. They were men of the
'95 and '96 classes who had just come from Germany. The veterans were
looking at them, and I heard one say to another, "They will cool down
soon; they don't know yet what the trenches are like."
Tournai has seen going through its streets most of the German wounded
on their way back to the Fatherland and most of the prisoners
travelling to the concentration camps in Germany. Nobody could tell
me, even approximately, the number of wounded that had gone through
the town, but everybody agreed the number was very large, though the
number of sick is still larger. Typhoid fever claims a large number of
victims, both amongst the troops and the civilian population.
Special notices warning everyone to drink no water unless it had been
boiled were to be seen everywhere. Lately numerous cases of lockjaw
(tetanus) have also made their appearance. It is said that soldiers get
the dreadful illness while working with barbed wire.
The station of Tournai, as well as two large hotels near it, have been
converted into depôts for the wounded who are to be sent to Germany.
Apparently the German Government does not like wounded or sick soldiers
to come into touch with civilians or with soldiers going to the front.
It is to avoid such contact that they are concentrated in Tournai,
and from there sent _viâ_ Mons, Liége, Aix-la-Chapelle, straight to
Germany. No civilians are allowed into the station at Tournai, and the
wounded always travel by special train.
For the prisoners it is different. They are marched through the town,
preceded and followed by German troops. The population offers them
cigars, sweets, and tobacco, to the great rage of the German soldiers,
who can never manage to make any friends. Very often the same group of
soldiers is made to march through the town many times to impress the
population with the large number of prisoners.
A lady who has been in Tournai since the beginning of the war told me
that she once noticed amongst a group of British soldiers a very tall,
thin, and red-haired Highlander, and she remarked to a lady friend with
her, "Isn't that man the living caricature of the Englishman as we
always see him on the stage?"
But two or three days later she saw a fellow exactly like the first
amongst another group of prisoners; she came to the conclusion that
the giraffe-like figures and ginger hair were rather common in the
British Army.
The next day brought another group of British prisoners and another
apparition of a very tall, red-haired "Tommy." She looked at him
interrogatively, at which he bowed and shouted out in a jolly voice:
"Here I am again, madam." The lady bid him good-bye, but the Tommy
laughed, and answered, "No, _au revoir_. I shall call again soon, I am
sure."
I wanted to get as near the firing line as possible, and I asked
permission to go to Lille. This was denied me, and as, considering the
enormous number of sentries on the roads, it would have been foolish
to try and go there without it, I decided to go instead to Courtrai,
a little town north of Tournai, which is only about twelve kilometres
(about eight miles) from the firing line.
Tournai, which is not at all damaged in the centre of the town, has
a number of houses destroyed in its northern part. The wonderful
cathedral, a mixture of twenty different styles, but, in spite of this,
quite harmonious and beautiful, has received a shell which luckily has
not done much damage.
Four large motor-vans passed in front of me on the road to Courtrai,
and my horse, which in former years had probably been a good charger,
reared and neighed loudly. They were Red Cross vans loaded with
wounded. Four or five times a day they go to Tournai carrying wounded,
and come back carrying sanitary material to the northern section of the
German front.
I crossed the Schelde by a temporary bridge made with curious concrete
flat boats. The bridge was guarded by numerous soldiers, and with them
was an Austrian officer, the only one I saw during the whole of my
journey in Belgium.
I had to get off the saddle and show my papers. While waiting for
the officer to look at them, my attention was attracted to an
extraordinary-looking boat drawn up near the river side. The boat was
just like one of the ordinary flat, large river boats which in Belgium
carry stones and coal on canals and rivers, but for an exceptionally
clean, smart appearance lent to it by a verandah covered with glass,
under which were numerous palm trees. The whole boat was painted
white, and on the top of it waved the Red Cross flag. On deck were
two white-clad nurses, and one or two wounded with bandaged heads sat
smoking and reading in basket-chairs on the verandah.
I was told that the boat is one of the Berlin Red Cross League floating
hospitals, and that the nurses are all ladies in society. These
hospital boats are specially intended for wounded or sick officers who
are likely to recover soon if properly treated.
* * *
Are there any inhabitants left in Courtrai? I did not see any during
my visit there. The hotels and the public buildings were taken up by
Germans; numerous platforms for guns were being constructed in the
western part of the town. A number of temporary fortification works
had already been prepared here. The line of the Lys seems to have
been carefully fortified down to Courtrai, and one almost gets the
impression that the Germans are seriously thinking of the possibility
of a retreat on this river, while a second and still better fortified
line has been prepared twenty kilometres (about thirteen miles) behind
on the Schelde.
At the base of the old fortifications of the town, where the famous
Bataille des Eperons d'Or was fought, the invaders have arranged a sort
of artillery depôt. The special carriages carry the fire-pieces from
Essen to this spot, where they are put together, and then sent to their
destination.
There are the enormous siege guns, as massive as elephants, and
as complicated as a cathedral organ; the quick-firing guns, light
and agile; the short and squat mortars; and on one side a sort of
cemetery of old artillery pieces; guns without carriages, smashed
wheels, distorted and broken remains of old arms blackened and made
unrecognisable by the explosions of hostile projectiles.
The number of soldiers here seemed enormous. Day after day trains
loaded with new troops kept coming. These men are only in part sent to
the front, the other part leaving for an unknown destination. I had
the impression that something was being prepared, probably a desperate
attack on the north-west in the direction of Ypres and Dixmude.
Courtrai is quite close to the trenches; often regiments which have
been for a week or ten days in the firing line come back, and are
replaced by fresh troops.
Every now and again a shell bursts in the town and causes some damage.
It is almost impossible to get anything to eat anywhere, and the
population is strictly rationed. To make sure that no light will give
away the position of the town at night, gas and electric light have
been cut off. At nine o'clock everybody must be indoors.
I don't know if civilians have all left the town by order of the
Governor, but it is certain that it seems to be only inhabited by
soldiers. Some houses with doors wide open are completely abandoned,
whilst others, the best ones, are inhabited by officers. A number have
been burned.
In no hotels was there a room to be had, and I spent the night on a
billiard-table covered with a mattress. Every now and again the guns
awakened me with their thunder-like rumble, which at night sounded
nearer and stranger. I could see the clouds in the distance reddened by
the flames of the explosions.
In the morning I went down to the cemetery of the town, which, being at
the extreme west, gave me opportunity to glance towards the forbidden
ground, the real firing line. In the distance, with the help of a good
pair of field-glasses, lent me by an officer, I could see something
moving slowly with smoke above it. Behind the leafless trees of the
road more smoke announced the German artillery position.
I told what I had seen to an officer, who happened to be a very nice
fellow, and I asked him: "Is a modern battlefield always so slow?"
"Yes, almost always."
"And this goes on for weeks?" I said.
"For months, sir!"
"And don't you think it likely that you or the others will try a
decided move one of these days?"
"We hope so," answered the officer; "we have not begun to fight yet."
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK STREET,
STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
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|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
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