C'est a mon plus grand regret que les troupes Allemandes se voient
forcees de franchir la frontiere de la Belgique. Elles agissant sous
la contrainte d'une necessite inevitable la neutralite de la Belgique
ayant ete deja violee par des officiers francais qui, sous un
deguisement, aient traverse le territoire belge en automobile pour
penetrer en Allemagne.
Belges! C'est notre plus grand desir qu'il y ait encore moyen
d'eviter un combat entre deux peuples qui etaient amis jusqu'a
present, jadis meme allies. Souvenez vous au glorieux jour de
Waterloo ou c'etaient les armes allemandes qui ont contribue a fonder
et etablir l'independance et la prosperite de votre patrie.
Mais il nous faut le chemin libre. Des destructions de ponts, de
tunnels, de voies ferrees devront etre regardees comme des actions
hostiles. Belges, vous avez a choisir.
J'espere donc que l'Armee allemande de la Meuse ne sera pas contrainte
de vous combattre. Un chemin libre pour attaquer celui qui voulait
nous attaquer, c'est tout ce que nous desirons.
Je donne des garanties formelles a la population belge qu'elle n'aura
rien a souffrir des horreurs de la guerre; que nous payerons en
monnaye les vivres qu'il faudra prendre du pays; que nos soldats se
montreront les meilleurs amis d'un peuple pour lequel nous eprouvons
la plus haute estime, la plus grand sympathie.
C'est de votre sagesse et d'un patriotisme bien compris qu'il depend
d'eviter a votre pays les horreurs de la guerre.
Le General Commandant en Chef l'Armee de la Meuse!
Von Emmich.
It was a proclamation which was now posted everywhere, not only in the
districts occupied by the Germans, but it had also been secretly affixed
to walls by spies in Liege, Louvain, Charleroi, and even in Brussels
itself. By it, the Germans were hoping to secure the allegiance of the
Belgian people.
While this proclamation expressed regret that the German troops found
themselves obliged to cross the Belgian frontier, it pointed out that
only necessity compelled them to do so because French officers had
violated Belgian territory by crossing from France into Germany by
motor-cars. A poor excuse surely for the burning and sacking of all
those little undefended frontier towns--Vise, Argenteau, Soumagne,
Poulseur, and the rest.
"Belgians?" it went on. "It is our great desire that there may still be
means to avoid a combat between two peoples who were friends until now,
and were formerly even allies. Remember the glorious day of Waterloo,
where fought the German armies who contributed to found and establish
the independence and prosperity of your country.
"But we must have an open road. Any destruction of bridges, tunnels, or
railways must be regarded as hostile actions. Belgians, it is for you
to choose!
"I hope, then, that the German army of the Meuse will not be compelled
to wage war with you. An open way to attack those who wish to attack
us: that is all we desire.
"I give these formal guarantees to the Belgian population: that it will
suffer nothing from the horrors of war; that we will pay in gold for the
provisions that we find necessary to take from your country; that our
soldiers will show themselves to be the best friends of a people for
whom we cherish the highest esteem and the greatest sympathy.
"By your wisdom and patriotism, which we fully recognise, your country
will be spared the horrors of war.
"General Commander-In-Chief of the Army of the Meuse,--
"Von Emmich."
And yet the poor inhabitants of Vise had been outraged and shot by the
Kaiser's unrestrained savages! In all those villages lying across the
rippling Ourthe and the broad Meuse, the treatment of the inoffensive
civilians had been ruthless and merciless. Removal from the face of the
earth--a favourite phrase of the Germans themselves--was, from the
first, the invader's idea of how best to deal with the unarmed,
unoffending villagers, the only crime of whose hard-working people was
that they had fallen in the path of the blasphemous Prussian militarism.
A private who was reading the proclamation remarked to Edmond:
"What trickery--eh? I hear that the Uhlans yesterday shot the
Burgomaster of Esneux, over yonder, and propped his body against a wall
all day as a warning--because he had carried a revolver. Thirty men
were afterwards shot in the Place without any trial whatever, and women
and children were outraged and bayoneted and their bodies flung into the
river. Our women, they say, are being treated infamously, and all the
possessions of the villagers are being destroyed. May God curse those
Germans!"
"Yes," replied the _sous-officier_, and as he turned away with a sigh a
red light behind the hill gradually appeared, and then quickly grew
brighter. "There is another village on fire, over there. I suppose the
Uhlans will drive our people to reprisals so that excuse for further
cruelty may be found."
"And yet they post up this proclamation!" cried the man in Flemish, and
with the point of his bayonet he succeeded in tearing holes in the
notice, and eventually mutilated and obliterated it, saying:
"Death to the Alboches! Death to the Kaiser's murderers and brigands!
After all, the Emperor who makes war upon women and children is only a
brigand, just like those in Sicily. Surely a prize should be offered
for his head!"
Just as the man spoke they both saw, in the distance, sudden little red
flashes, which told that the troops were vomiting death upon the enemy
again, so they dashed back to their ditch, while in the trees above them
could already be heard the "phit" of the enemy's bullets as they struck
the branches.
Ere a few moments the order was given to fire, and quickly Edmond's
pom-pom again began its regular spitting of death, whilst on the flank
their invisible batteries also opened fire with destructive shrapnel.
The night grew darker, and the moon became, for a time, obscured behind
a bank of swiftly-drifting cloud. In the distance the fires lit up the
battle scene with a red, sinister glare, while, far away upon the hills
on the right, could be seen moving masses of Belgian soldiers, a Dantean
vision of hell, and whilst the men lay in their shallow ditch firing
away with monotonous regularity, bullets were whistling past, striking
the trees, or flattening themselves with muffled noise in the earth.
The fight was a hot one. In front were the millions of the Kaiser,
oncoming like a great irresistible tide, yet the gallant little Belgian
army, which for years had been jeered at by every Frenchman, soldier or
civilian, as a comic-opera force, were defending their country in a
manner so patriotic and desperate that it held the whole world in
surprise.
Confronted by a big and arrogant Empire, which for years had laid its
cunningly-devised plots for their destruction, the Belgian army stood
undaunted, and meant to strive on and defend their soil until France and
Great Britain could come to their aid.
That the Germans should never take Belgium had been resolved in the
hearts of all King Albert's subjects, while His Majesty himself, in the
uniform of a private of infantry, was daily in the trenches, and often
spoke quiet, homely words of encouragement to private and general alike.
The whole army knew how, two days before, he had been in the trenches
at Herstal, and had given private soldiers cigarettes with his own
hands. In some cases he had not, at first, been recognised, dressed in
a shabby, dusty uniform, just like themselves.
But he was a king--a king eventually without a country--and his name
will for ever go down in history as a wonderful example of self-denial,
personal bravery, and of human sympathy with his crushed and desolated
nation.
Suddenly, while Edmond was commanding his gun, a shrapnel burst just
behind him. A bullet struck his water-bottle, and a splinter passing
through it the water ran out down his leg. But at the same moment
another bullet struck in the head a man to whom he was giving an order
and he fell heavily forward on his face--dead.
In a moment the place seemed swept by lead. Two or three shells fell in
quick succession, the enemy having apparently advanced to a long copse
just across the river-bank.
"The brutes have occupied Esneux again, I believe," remarked a man close
by.
Away on the crest of one of the hills a small but very bright light
showed. It was flashing in Morse code. A signaller quite near read it
aloud.
"The enemy!" he shouted. "The message is in German!"
Yet they still plugged away with their rifles, undaunted at the enemy's
advance. The forts were speaking more frequently now, and continually
the very earth trembled beneath the great crashes of modern artillery of
the Brailmont system of defence.
Along that dark line of low hills was seen constant flashing in the
blackness; storm clouds had arisen to obscure the moon, and rain was now
threatening. The whole sky was now a deep, angry red, with patches of
crimson heightening and dying down--the reflections of the inferno of
war. The noise was deafening, and on every hand the gallant defenders
were sustaining heavy losses.
Of a sudden, before indeed they were aware of it, the whole edge of the
wood became lit up by an intense white brilliance, so dazzling that one
could not discern anything in front. A thousand headlights of
motor-cars seemed to be there focussed into one. The Germans had turned
one of their great field searchlights upon them, and a second later
shells fell and burst in all directions in the vicinity.
Handicapped by want of such modern appliances, the Belgians were unable
to retaliate. They could only remain there, in the actual zone of the
enemy's pitiless fire. Dozens of brave men fell shattered or dead amid
that awful whirlwind of bullets and fragments of steel, as slowly the
long ray of intense light moved along the line, searching for its prey,
followed by the enemy's artillery which never failed to keep up a
pitiless, relentless fire, with wonderful accuracy for a night
engagement.
From end to end swept that white line of brilliancy; then slowly--very
slowly--it came back again, causing the men to lie flat upon their
stomachs and wait in breathless anxiety until it had passed. Time after
time that long, shallow trench which was, after all, only a ditch, for
no opportunity had been afforded for military engineering--was swept by
both light and fire from end to end, and each time Edmond's comrades
were being placed _hors de combat_. That the situation was critical, he
knew. Yet not a single man stood dismayed. Their Mausers crackled with
just the same regularity, and, thanks to the fine spirit of his men, his
pom-pom continued to rain lead upon the trenches of Von Emmich's walls
of men across the river.
At last the "retire" was sounded. The position had by this time become
quite untenable. Edmond Valentin bit his nether lip. The same order
always. They retired, but never advanced. For them, the Teuton tide
seemed utterly overwhelming. Yet their spirit was never broken. The
Belgian is ever an optimist.
Surely Belgium would never fall beneath the Kaiser's rule, to be ground
under his iron heel and smashed by that "mailed fist" which had so long
been the favourite joke of the great caricaturists of Europe.
Impossible!
With alacrity the Maxim was dismounted, and with calm orderliness the
retirement was commenced at a moment when that annoying searchlight had
turned its attention to the right flank, and the great white beam lay
full upon it.
They were to withdraw towards Liege, first retiring into the wood.
"_Wat sullen wy doen_?" (what is to be done?) asked one of Edmond's men
in Flemish--the thickset man who had read the proclamation.
"Our general knows best, my comrade," Edmond reassured him in his own
language. "This may be only a strategic move. We shall sweep them off
our soil before long--depend upon it."
"_Gy hebt gelyk_," (You are right), muttered the man, panting beneath
his load--the barrel of the Maxim strapped across his shoulder.
"_Ik stem geheel met U_!" (I quite agree with you), murmured another of
the men in his soft, musical Flemish. "We will never surrender to those
brigands! Never, while there is breath left in us. They are assassins,
not soldiers!"
They marched forward along the wide, dark, dusty road, safe from the
enemy's fire at that point because of the rising ground between them and
the winding, peaceful valley of the Ourthe.
In their faces stood Liege, five miles distant. They were moving
forward, still in high spirits. Many of the men were whistling to
themselves as they marched, sturdy and undaunted. The Eighth Chasseurs
was one of the first regiments of King Albert, all men of splendid
bravery, and of finer physique than the average Belgian.
From Liege came still the continuous boom of artillery, for the forts
untaken were keeping up a regular fire, and the enemy, it was known,
were sustaining terrible losses both night and day.
The forts, built in a ring in the environs of the city, were safe
enough. But not so the town. The Germans, aided by their swarms of
spies in the place, had made a dozen attempts to take it during the past
forty-eight hours, but had always been repulsed.
They had resorted to every ruse. One party of Germans had dressed
themselves in British uniforms--whence they obtained them nobody has
ever known--and on entering the town were at once welcomed
enthusiastically as allies. But, fortunately, the ruse was discovered
when one was overheard to speak in German, and all were promptly shot.
Then another party appeared as Belgian Red Cross men, and they, on being
discovered to be enemies, shared a similar fate: they were shot in the
Place Cockerill. The Germans had requested an armistice for twenty-four
hours to bury their dead. This, however, was refused, because it was
well known that the big Krupp howitzers--"the German surprise to
Europe"--were being brought up, each drawn by forty horses, and that the
cessation of hostilities asked for was really craved in order to gain
time to get these ponderous engines of destruction into position.
As they were marching, the moon again shone out over the doomed city of
Liege, when of a sudden Edmond saw over it, in the sky, three black
points which immediately changed into a light cloud, and soon flames
were rising from the town. The Germans were now firing petrol-shells
upon the place!
They gained a small village called Angleur, a quaint little whitewashed
place, over which shot and shell had swept for the past three days,
until the villagers now took no notice. Here generous hearts offered
comfort to the tired soldiers, jugs of fresh milk and bread were brought
out though it was the middle of the night.
But they had no time to accept those gifts.
Presently they met some terrified people--men, women, and children--
fleeing from outside Liege, carrying bundles, all they could save from
their wrecked homes.
"The Germans are in the wood!" they cried.
Before them lay a blazing village.
Edmond's captain gave an order to halt, and they drew up. Then they saw
the disappearance into the red furnace of entire companies, and soon
afterwards the stretchers and ambulance corps following each other in
quick succession told them of the splendid heroism of their glorious
defenders.
Again they went forward, every man's mouth hard-set and determined, yet
in some cases with a grim joke upon their lips, for they resolved to
defend the lives of their dearly-loved ones, and to account for as many
of the enemy as they could.
"For God and Belgium?" shouted one man, a stout private from Malines,
who had lost his shako and his kit.
Then they all ran to death with but little hope left in them. Such an
illustration of bravery had been rare in this present century.
The remembrance of the Almighty, shouted by that fat private, had an
effect upon the religious men in the ranks, officers and privates alike,
and in that red glare of war, with blood showing in the very sky, they
dashed on with renewed hope and a spirit of splendid patriotism
unbroken.
They took cover in an orchard and, pulling down the hedges frantically,
soon saw, descending from the hill on their right, the batteries and
remains of their own much-tested regiments.
Stretchers were taken up to the woods on the left, and soon came down
again with the wounded. Edmond's "Flying Column" was protecting the
transport of these "braves," but an order was shouted that they had to
withdraw away up on to the plateaux. Then they rushed to the fort of
Flemalle, where they took up fighting positions. But the Germans did
not want to make another attempt. The mission of the Eighth Chasseurs
was over. Three hours later they moved forward again. The forts would
now defend their position in the campaigning army.
Such was a typical night of the defence of Liege.