just outside Mons village, said that the German artillery fire was
good; once the enemy’s gunners got the range they did well.
Their shooting was every bit as good as ours, and although our battery
made excellent practice, three of our men were killed, and twenty out
of thirty-six were wounded. I lay on the field all night, and was
rescued the next morning. Fortunately, the Germans did not come and
find me during those long hours of loneliness.
In such tales of these men in hospital, and in the letters they have
written home, there is a common agreement that the German rifle
shooting is beneath contempt--“they shoot from the hip and don’t seem
to aim at anything in particular;” but their artillery practice is
spoken of with respect and admiration. The German artillery is very
good, writes Private Geradine, of the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers,
but their aeroplanes help them a lot. It is a pretty sight to see the
shells burst in the night, he adds--it’s like Guy Fawkes Day!
I like too, such robust cheerfulness and gay good-humour in face of the
horrors of death as sounds through the letter of Sapper Bradley:
I have never seen our lads so cheery as they are under great trials.
You couldn’t help being proud of them if you saw them lying in the
trenches cracking jokes or smoking while they take pot shots at the
Germans.... We have very little spare time now, but what we have we
pass by smoking concerts, sing-songs, and story-telling. Sometimes we
have football for a change, with a German helmet for a ball, and to
pass the time in the trenches have invented the game of guessing where
the next German shell will drop. Sometimes we have bets on it, and the
man who guesses correctly the greatest number of times takes the stakes.
And surely no less do I like the equally courageous but more sombre
outlook of the Scottish Private who complained of the famous retreat
from Mons, It was “Retire! retire! retire!” when our chaps were longing
to be at them. But they didn’t swear about it, because being out there
and seeing what we saw makes you feel religious.
I like that wonderful diary kept by a driver of the 4th Ammunition
Column, 3rd section, R.F.A. It was sent over from Paris by Mr. Harold
Ashton, _The Daily News_ correspondent, and is as naïvely and minutely
realistic as if it were a page out of Defoe. The driver’s interests
are naturally centred in his horses, they hold the first place in his
regard, the excitements of the war coming second. He records how he
went from Hendon to Southampton on the 21st August:
Got horses on board all right, though the friskiest of them kicked a
lot. Got to Havre safe. Food good--rabbit and potatoes and plenty of
beer, not our English sort, but the colour of cyder. Us four enjoyed
ourselves with the family, had a good time, and left ten o’clock next
day well filled up. Our objective was Compiègne. We got through all
right, watering our horses on the way from pumps and taps at private
houses. The people were awful kind, giving us quantities of pears, and
filling our water-bottles with beer. That was all right. Our welcome
was splendid everywhere. At Compiègne we got into touch with the
Germans. Very hot work. We marched from Compiègne about eleven o’clock
on the 31st, which was Sunday. The way was hard. Terrible steep hills
which knocked out our older and weaker horses. Collick broke out among
them, too, and that was bad. We lost a good many.... Slept until 5
a.m. and then marched on again, still retreating. Hot as ----. Nothing
to eat or drink. Plenty of tea, but nothing to boil it with. At last
we got some dry biscuits and some tins of marmalade. Bill ----, whose
teeth were bad, went near mad with toothache after the jam.... No dead
horses, thank God, to-day. I hope we have checked that ---- collick,
but my horse fell into a ditch going through the wood and could not get
out for over an hour. I couldn’t go for help, because the Germans had
got the range of the place and their shells were ripping overhead like
blazes. Poor old Dick (the horse), he was that fagged out by the long
march. At last I got him out and went on, and by luck managed to pick
up my pals.... The Germans were lambing in at us with their artillery,
and poor old Dick got blowed up. I thank God I wasn’t on him just
then. Sept. 2.--More fighting and worser than ever. I don’t believe we
shall ever get to Paris.... Now we come to Montagny, and fighting all
the time. Rabbits and apples to eat gallore, but still no money, and
no good if we had because we carnt spend it. Sept. 3.--We progressed
this day four miles in twelve hours. Took the wrong road, and had to
crawl about the woods on our stummoks like snakes to dodge the German
snipers. We had one rifle between four of us, and took it in turns to
have goes. We shot one blighter and took another prisoner. They was
both half starved and covered with soars. Then the rifle jammed, and we
had nothing to defend ourselves with. At last we found the main body
again. They wanted more horses, and we were just bringing them up and
putting them to the guns when a German areyplane came over us and flue
round pretty low. The troops tried to fetch him down, and some bullets
went through the wings, but then he got too high. He dropped a bomb in
the middle of us, but it exploded very weak and nobody was hurt. Next
day we started on a night march, and got to Lagny Thorigny, and camped
outside the town, where the people fed us on rabbits again. I said I
was sick of rabbits, and me and Bill walked acrost to a farmhouse and
borrowed three chickens, which we cooked. It was fine.... Outside Lagny
there was more fierce fighting--20 miles of it--and the Germans were
shot down like birds. Sept. 3 (continued).--Firing is still going on,
but it is not so fierce, though scouts have come in and told us there
are 10,000 Germans round us this day. To-night I got two ounces of
Navy Cut. It was prime. Sept. 8.--We are marching on further away from
Paris. We shall never get there, I guess. Sept. 12.--In the village of
Crecy. Plenty of food and houses to sleep into. Here we have got to
stay until further orders. Collick still very bad.
The calm matter-of-fact air with which he encounters whatever comes
to him, the keen joy he takes in small pleasures by the way; his
philosophic acceptance of the fate of “poor old Dick”--the whole thing
is so unruffled, so self-possessed, so Pepysian in its egoism and so
artlessly humorous that one hopes this phlegmatic driver will keep a
full diary of his campaignings, and that Mr. Ashton will secure and
publish it.
III
THE DESTRUCTION OF LOUVAIN
“_Such food a tyrant’s appetite demands._”
WORDSWORTH.
The stupid arrogance of the German military caste has always made them
ridiculous in the eyes of decent human creatures; it was surprising,
amusing, and yet saddening, too, to see an intelligent people strutting
and playing such war-paint-and-feathers tricks before high heaven, but
it appears that the primitive impulses that survive in their character
are stronger and go deeper than we had suspected. There are brave
and chivalrous spirits among Germany’s officers and men; that goes
without saying; but the savage and senseless barbarities that have
marked her conduct of the present war will make her name a byword for
infamy as long as it is remembered. There seems no doubt--the charges
are too many and too widely spread--that her troops have murdered
the wounded, have shot down women and children, have even used them
as shields, driving them in front of their firing line; they have
ruthlessly murdered unarmed civilians, and have blasted farmsteads
and villages into ashes on the flimsiest provocation; sometimes, so
far as one can learn, without waiting for any provocation whatever.
Even if their hands were clean of that innocent blood, the wanton,
insensate destruction of such a city as Louvain is sufficient of
itself to put them outside the pale of civilised societies. No doubt
they were smarting with humiliation that they had been so long delayed
breaking through the stubborn opposition of the Belgians at Liège; but
Louvain was an unfortified city and they were allowed to take peaceable
possession of it. Nevertheless, on August 25th whilst the fighting
round Mons was at its hottest and Russia was sweeping farther and
farther over the frontiers of East Prussia, in some sort of burst of
vengeful frenzy they laid one of the loveliest old cities of the world
in ruins, burnt or shattered most of its priceless art treasures, and
left its citizens homeless. Of course they have been busy ever since
trying to cover up their shame with excuses, but such a wanton crime is
too great and too glaringly obvious to be hidden or excused.
Four impressively realistic descriptions of what happened when the
Germans thus went mad in Louvain have been published in the _Daily
Telegraph_:
1. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Folkestone Correspondent, Saturday, August
29th:
Among the refugees arriving here to-day were women and children from
Louvain and soldiers from Liège, all narrating thrilling adventures.
Some of the refugees had obviously hurriedly deserted their homes,
wrapping a few of their belongings in sheets of newspaper.
One woman from Louvain tore down the curtains from her windows, wrapped
them round some wearing apparel, and ran from her house with her two
children. In the street she became involved in a stampede of men,
women, and children tearing away from the burning town, whither she
knew not. This woman’s story was so disjointed, so interspersed with
hysterical sobs and exclamations, that it is impossible to make a full
and coherent narrative of it. Periodically she clasped her children,
gazed round upon the English faces, and thanked God and bemoaned her
fate alternately.
Although suffering from extreme nervous excitement, another woman
had intervals of comparative calmness during which she described her
experiences as follows:
“Ah! m’sieu,” she exclaimed, “I will tell you, yes, of the burning of
Louvain. We had pulled down some of the buildings so that the Germans
should not mount guns on them when they came. I believe that was the
reason. We were in a state of terror because we had heard of the
cruelties of the Germans.”
Every time the poor woman referred to the Germans she paused to utter
maledictions upon them.
“Well,” she proceeded, “they came, and all we had heard about them
was not so bad as we experienced. In the streets people were cruelly
butchered, and then on all sides flames began to rise. We were prepared
for what we had regarded as the worst, but never had we anticipated
that they would burn us in our homes.
“People rushed about frantic to save their property. Pictures of
relatives were snatched from the walls, clothing was seized, and the
people were demented.
“What was the excuse given? Well, they said our people had shot at
them, but that was absolutely untrue. The real reason was the pulling
down of the buildings. My house was burning when I left it with my
three children, and here I am with them safe in England, beautiful
England. But what we have suffered! We were part of a crowd which
left the burning town, and kept walking without knowing where we were
going. Miles and miles we trudged, I am told we walked over seventy
miles before we came to a railway. I never regarded a railway as I did
then. I wanted to bow down and kiss the rails. I fell exhausted, having
carried my children in turn. Footsore, broken-hearted, after the first
joy of sighting the railway, I felt my head whirling, and I wondered
whether it was all worth while. Then I thought of my deliverance, and
thanked God.
“What did Louvain look like? Like what it was, a mass of flame
devouring our homes, our property--to some, perhaps, our relatives. It
was pitiful to behold. Most of us women were deprived of our husbands.
They had either fallen or were fighting for their country. In the town
everybody who offered any opposition was killed, and everyone found
to be armed in any way was shot. Wives saw their husbands shot in the
streets.
“I saw the burgomaster shot, and I saw another man dragged roughly away
from his weeping wife and children and shot through the head. Well, we
got a train and reached Boulogne, and now for the first time we feel
really safe.”
* * * * *
2. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam correspondent, Sunday, August
30th.
The following account of the appalling and ruthless sacking of
Louvain by the Germans is given by a representative of the _Nieuwe
Rotterdamsche Courant_, who himself witnessed the outrages:
I arrived at Louvain on Tuesday afternoon, and, accompanied by a German
officer, made my way through the town. Near the station were the
Commander and Staff and many of the military, for a food and ammunition
train had just arrived. Suddenly shots rang out from houses in the
neighbourhood of the station. In a moment the shooting was taken up
from houses all over the town.
From the window of the third floor of an hotel opposite the station
a machine gun opened fire. It was impossible to know which of the
civilians had taken part in the shooting, and from which houses they
had fired. Therefore the soldiers went into all the houses, and
immediately there followed the most terrible scenes of street fighting.
Every single civilian found with weapons, or suspected of firing, was
put to death on the spot. The innocent suffered with the guilty.
There was no time for exhaustive inquiry. Old men, sick people, women
were shot. In the meanwhile, part of the town was shelled by artillery.
Many buildings were set on fire by the shells. On others petrol was
poured and a match applied. The German officer advised me to go away,
as several houses being still intact more firing was expected.
Under a strong escort two groups of men and women arrived, each a
hundred strong. They were hostages. They were stood in rows by the
station, and every time a soldier was shot in the town ten of these
pitiful civilians were slaughtered. There was no mercy. Tears and
pleadings were in vain. The good suffered with the bad. At night the
scene was terrible, burning buildings shedding a lurid glow over this
town, which was running with tears of blood.
This was no time for sleep. The sight of this terrible awfulness drove
away all thoughts and desire for rest. Towards dawn the soldiers took
possession of all buildings which had not been destroyed.
With the rising of the sun I walked on the boulevards, and saw them
strewn with bodies, many of them being of old people and priests.
Leaving Louvain for Tirlemont one passed continuously through utterly
devastated country.
* * * * *
A Dutchman who escaped from Louvain says that when the German artillery
began to demolish the houses and the German soldiers began looting
everything he and his little son hid in a cellar beneath a pile of
pneumatic tyres. One woman took refuge in a pit, in which water was up
to her waist. Such was the terrible plight of the civilians in Louvain.
Peeping out they saw that neighbours had been driven to the roof of a
burning building, where they perished.
While still concealed in the cellar the Dutchman and his son discovered
to their horror that the house above them was in flames. The situation
was terrible, as the people who dared to leave their houses were shot
like rabbits leaving burrows. They heard floor by floor, and then
the roof, crash down above them. The situation was desperate. It was
impossible to remain in the cellar. Driven out by dire necessity, they
fled. They were immediately stopped by military rifles at the “present.”
“Do not fire, I am German,” said the Dutchman in German, seized with
a sudden inspiration. This secured his safe conduct to the railway
station. The journey through the town was, said this refugee, “like
walking through hell.” From burning houses he heard agonised cries of
those perishing in the conflagrations. While he was waiting at the
station fifty people arrived there, driven by troops, who asserted
that they found them hiding in houses from which shots had been
fired. These people swore by all they held sacred they were innocent,
but notwithstanding all were shot. The Dutchman is of opinion that the
first firing was not by civilians, but by the German outpost on German
soldiers retreating to Louvain from Malines.
_Note:_--There is no confirmation whatever of the Dutch correspondent’s
assertion with regard to the firing on the German troops. On the
contrary it has been expressly said by the Belgian Government that the
Germans fired on their own men by mistake.
[Illustration:
_Drawn by E. Matania._ _Copyright of The Sphere._
GERMAN SOLDIERS DRIVING THE INHABITANTS OF LOUVAIN BEFORE THEM DURING
THE SACKING OF THE TOWN.]
3. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam Correspondent, Monday, August
31st:
“With a crowd of other men, I was marched out of Louvain, and at
nightfall ordered into a church,” said an escaped Dutchman to a _Nieuwe
Rotterdamsche Courant_ representative. “All was dark, till suddenly,
through the windows, I saw the lurid glow of the neighbouring burning
houses. I heard the agonised cries of people tortured by the flames.
Six priests moved among us, giving absolution. Next morning the priests
were shot--why, I know not. We were released, and allowed to go to
Malines. We were compelled to walk with our hands in the air for fear
of arms being concealed.”
* * * * *
A Dutchman who has arrived at Breda from Louvain gives the _Nieuwe
Rotterdamsche Courant_ the following account of the massacre:
Several German soldiers were billeted on us, and just as we were
sitting down to the midday meal on August 25th the alarm was sounded
and the soldiers rushed out. Immediately firing started, and, knowing
the terrible consequences of civilians appearing in the streets at such
times, we sought refuge in the cellar. Next morning we attempted to
reach the railway station. We were arrested.
My wife was taken away from me, and the Mayor, the Principal of the
University, and I, with other men, were taken to a goods shed and
our hands bound. I saw 300 men and boys marched to the corner of the
Boulevarde van Tienen, and every one was massacred. The heads of police
were shot. We were then marched towards Herent, and on the way the
soldiers thought the enemy was approaching, and ordered us to kneel
down. Then they took cover behind us. Only after many such hardships
were we permitted to return to Louvain and escape by train.
4. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam correspondent, Wednesday,
September 2nd:
A Dutchman who has just arrived at Breda from Louvain gives the
following vivid description of his terrible experiences in Louvain,
where he was present at the burning of the city:
We Dutchmen in Louvain at first had nothing to fear from the German
soldiers, but all the houses abandoned by their owners were ransacked,
notwithstanding the warnings from the military authorities forbidding
the troops to pillage. In Louvain, as in all other towns they have
occupied, the Germans imprisoned as hostages of war the Burgomaster,
two magistrates, and a number of influential citizens.
Before the Germans entered the town the Civic Guard had been disarmed,
and all weapons in the possession of the population had to be given up.
Even toy guns and toy pistols and precious collections of old weapons,
bows and arrows, and other antique arms useless for any kind of modern
warfare had to be surrendered, and all these things--sometimes of great
personal value to the owner--have since been destroyed by the Germans.
The value of one single private collection has been estimated at about
£1,000. From the pulpits the priests urged the people to keep calm, as
that was the only way to prevent harm being done to them.
A few days after the entry of the German troops, the military
authorities agreed to cease quartering their men in private houses, in
return for a payment of 100,000 francs (£4,000) per day. On some houses
between forty and fifty men had been billeted. After the first payment
of the voluntary contribution the soldiers camped in the open or in the
public buildings. The beautiful rooms in the Town Hall, where the civil
marriages take place, were used as a stable for cavalry horses.
At first everything the soldiers bought was paid for in cash or
promissory notes, but later this was altered. Soldiers came and asked
for change, and when this was handed to them they tendered in return
for the hard cash a piece of paper--a kind of receipt.
On Sunday, the 23rd, I and some other influential people in the town
were roused from our beds. We were informed that an order had been
given that 250 mattresses, 200 lbs. of coffee, 250 loaves of bread,
and 500 eggs, must be on the market-place within an hour. On turning
out we found the Burgomaster standing on the market-place, and crowds
of citizens, half naked, or in their night attire, carrying everything
they could lay hands on to the market, that no harm might befall their
Burgomaster. After this had been done the German officer in command
told us that his orders had been misinterpreted, and that he only
wanted the mattresses.
On Tuesday, the 25th, many troops left the town. We had a few soldiers
in our house. At six o’clock, when everything was ready for dinner,
alarm signals sounded, and the soldiers rushed through the streets,
shots whistled through the air, cries and groans arose on all sides;
but we did not dare leave our house, and took refuge in the cellar,
where we stayed through long and fearful hours. Our shelter was lighted
up by the reflection from the burning houses. The firing continued
unceasingly, and we feared that at any moment our houses would be burnt
over our heads. At break of day I crawled from the cellar to the street
door, and saw nothing but a raging sea of fire.
At nine o’clock the shooting diminished, and we resolved to make a dash
to the station. Abandoning our home and all our goods except what we
could carry, and taking all the money we had, we rushed out. What we
saw on our way to the station is hardly describable, everything was
burning, the streets were covered with bodies shot dead and half-burnt.
Everywhere proclamations had been posted, summoning every man to assist
in quenching the flames, and the women and children to stay inside the
houses. The station was crowded with fugitives, and I was just trying
to show an officer my legitimation papers when the soldiers separated
me from my wife and children.
All protests were useless, and a lot of us were marched off to a big
shed in the goods yard, from where we could see the finest buildings of
the city, the most beautiful historical monuments, being burned down.
Shortly afterwards German soldiers drove before them 300 men and lads
to the corner of the Boulevard van Tienen and the Maria Theresia
Street, opposite the Café Vermalen. There they were shot. The sight
filled us with horror. The Burgomaster, two magistrates, the Rector of
the University, and all police officials had been shot already.
With our hands bound behind our backs we were then marched off by the
soldiers, still without having seen our wives or children. We went
through the Juste de Litsh Street, along the Diester Boulevard, across
the Vaart and up the hill.
From the Mont Cesar we had a full view of the burning town, St. Peter
in flames, while the troops incessantly sent shot after shot into the
unfortunate town. We came through the village of Herent--one single
heap of ruins--where another troop of prisoners, including half-a-dozen
priests, joined us. Suddenly, about ten o’clock, evidently as the
result of some false alarm, we were ordered to kneel down, and the
soldiers stood behind us with their rifles ready to fire, using us as
a shield. But fortunately for us nothing happened.
After a delay of half-an-hour, our march was continued. No conversation
was allowed, and the soldiers continually maltreated us. One soldier
struck me with all his might with the heavy butt-end of his rifle.
I could hardly walk any further, but I had to. We were choked with
thirst, but the Germans wasted their drinking water without offering us
a drop.