GENERAL THYS
By degrees Brussels calmed down. But the Germans wore startled
expressions all that grey wet Sunday, as though realising that within
that pent-up city was a terribly dangerous force, a force that had been
restrained and kept in order all this time by the very man they had been
foolish enough to imprison because Brussels found herself unable to pay
up her cruelly-imposed millions.
Later, on that Sunday afternoon, I fulfilled my promise and went to call
on General Thys, the father of one of my Aerschot acquaintances.
I found the old General in that beautiful house of his in the Chaussée
de Charleroi, sitting by the fireside in his library reading the Old
Testament.
"The only book I can read now!" the General said, in a voice that shook
a little, as if with some burning secret agitation.
I remember so well that interview. It was a grey Sunday afternoon, with
a touch of autumn in the air, and no sunlight. Through the great glass
windows at the end of the library I could see that Brussels garden, with
some trees green, and some turning palely gold, already on their way
towards decay.
Seated on one side of the fire was the beautiful young unmarried
daughter of the house, sharing her father's terrible loneliness, while
on the other side sat the handsome melancholy old Belgian hero, whose
trembling voice began presently to tell the story of his beloved nation,
its suffering, its heroism, its love of home, its bygone struggles for
liberty.
And outside in the streets Germans strode up and down, Germans stood on
the steps of the Palais de Justice, Germans everywhere.
Mademoiselle Thys, a tall, fair, very beautiful young girl, chats away
brightly, trying to cheer her father. Presently she talks of M. Max.
Brussels can talk of nothing else to-day. She shows him to me in a
different aspect. Now I see him in society, witty, delightful, charming,
débonnaire.
"I did so love to be taken into dinner by M. Max!" exclaims the bright
young belle. "He was so interesting, so amusing. And so nice to flirt
with. He did not dance, but he went to all the balls, and walked about
chatting and amusing himself, and everyone else. Before one big fancy
dress ball--it was the last in Brussels before the war--M. Max announced
that he could not be present. Everyone was sorry. His presence always
made things brighter, livelier. Suddenly, in the midst of the ball a
policeman was seen coming up the stairs, his stick in his hand. Gravely,
without speaking to anyone he moved down the corridors. 'The Police,'
whispered everyone. 'What can it mean?' And then one of the hosts went
up to the policeman, determined to take the bull by the horns, as you
say in Angleterre, and find out what is wrong. And voilà! It is no
policeman at all. It is M. Max!"
Undoubtedly, the hatred and terror of Germany at this time was all for
Russia.
In Russia, Germany saw her deadliest foe. Every Belgian man or woman
that I talked with in Brussels asserted the same thing. "The Germans are
terrified of Russia," said the old General. "They see in Russia the
greatest enemy to their plans in Asia Minor. They fear Russian
civilisation--or so they say! Civilisation indeed! What they fear is
Russian numbers!"
It was highly interesting to observe as I was forced to do a little
later, how completely that hatred for Russia was passed on to England.
The passing on occurred _after English troops were sent to the
assistance of Antwerp!_
From then on, the blaze of hatred in Germany's heart was all for
England, deepening and intensifying with extraordinary ferocity ever
since October 4th, 1914.
And why? The reason is obvious now.
Our effort to save Antwerp, unsuccessful as it was, yet by delaying
200,000 Germans, enabled those highly important arrangements to be
carried out on the Allies' western front that frustrated Germany's hopes
in France, and stopped her dash for Calais!