register not one promise only, but a series of promises, an accumulation
of solemn pledges. It seemed worth while apparently to keep the Belgian
workmen at home. Let us record them here, in chronological order:
1st. September 2nd, 1914. Proclamation of Governor von der Goltz posted
in Brussels: _"I ask no one to renounce his patriotic sentiments..."_
2nd. October 18th, 1914. Letter of Baron von Huene, Military Governor of
Antwerp, to Cardinal Mercier, read in every church of the province in
order to reassure the people after the fall of Antwerp and to stop the
emigration: _"Young men need have no fear of being deported to Germany,
either to be enrolled in the army or to be subjected to forced labour."_
3rd. On the same day, a written declaration of the military authorities
of Antwerp to General von Terwisga, commanding the Dutch army in the
field, declaring without foundation "the rumour that the young men will
be sent to Germany."
4th. A few weeks later, this promise was confirmed verbally to Cardinal
Mercier _and extended to the other provinces_ under German rule by
Governor von der Goltz, two aide-de-camps and the Cardinal's private
secretary being present. (See letter from Cardinal Mercier to Baron von
Bissing, October 19th, 1916).
5th. November, 1914. Assurances given by the German authorities to the
Dutch Legation in Brussels in order to persuade the refugees to come
back: "_Normal conditions will be restored and the refugees will be
allowed to go back to Holland to look after their families_." (See also
the letter of the Dutch Consul in Antwerp urging the refugees to come
back to their homes.)
6th. July 25th, 1915. Placard of Governor von Bissing posted in
Brussels: "_The people shall never be compelled to do anything against
their country_."
7th. April, 1916: Assurances given to the neutral powers after the Lille
raids that _such deportations would not be renewed_.
* * * * *
Now, let us confront these texts, not even with the facts which come to
us from the most trustworthy sources, but with the German decrees and
proclamations preparing and ordering the recent deportations. We are not
opposing a Belgian testimony to a German one, neither are we, for the
present, propounding even our own interpretation of what occurred. We
will merely oppose a German document to another German document and let
them settle their differences as best they can.
The first trouble began in April and May, 1915, in Luttre, at the
Malines arsenal, and in several other Flemish towns, when the German
authorities exerted every possible pressure to compel the Belgian
workmen to resume work. They were brought, under military escort, to
their workshops, imprisoned, starved, and about two hundred of them were
deported to Germany, where they were submitted to the most cruel
tortures. (See the _Nineteenth Report of the Belgian Commission of
Enquiry_.) The threats and persecutions are sufficiently established by
three placards issued by the German authorities.
The first one, posted on the walls of Pont-à-Celles, near Luttre, says,
among other things: "If the workmen accept the above conditions (that is
to say, resume work with handsome wages) _the prisoners will be
released_...." The "prisoners" being several hundred workers who had
been imprisoned in their shops and deprived of food. (April, 1915.)
The second, _signed von Bissing_ (so that nobody could imagine that
these measures were taken by some too zealous subaltern) and posted in
Malines, on the 30th of May, tells us that "_the town of Malines must be
punished as long as the required number of workmen have not resumed
work_." These workmen were employed by the Belgian State--which owns the
country's railway--for the repair of the rolling stock. When they had
refused to resume work, at the beginning of the occupation, a few
hundred German workmen had filled their posts. These had been sent back
to their military depots. The patriotic duty of these Belgians was
evident enough: by resuming their work, they released German soldiers
for the front and increased the number of coaches and engines, of which
the enemy was in great need for the transport of troops. If you will
compare this poster with the one printed above and dated July 25th, you
will be confronted with one of the neatest examples of German duplicity.
Other people have broken their promises after making them. It was left
to Governor von Bissing to make them after breaking them.
The third document is still more conclusive. On June the 16th the
citizens of Ghent could read on their walls that: "The attitude of
certain factories which refuse _to work for the German Army_ under the
pretext of patriotism proves that a movement is afoot to create
difficulties for the _German Army_. If such an attitude is maintained I
will hold the communal authorities responsible and the population will
have only itself to blame if the great liberties granted to it until
now are suspended." This clumsy declaration is signed by
Lieutenant-General Graf von Westcarp. And to think that, even now,
Governor von Bissing perseveres in maintaining that no military work has
ever been asked or will ever be asked from the Belgian workers! As the
French proverb says: "On n'est jamais trahi que par les siens." [4]
But, like the man who marries his mistress after the birth of the first
child, the Governor General was thinking of "regularising the
situation." He knew that his attitude was illegal. He decided,
therefore, to concoct a few decrees in order to legalize it in the eyes
of the world. He had, you see, to save appearances. You cannot get on
with no law at all. It might shock neutrals. So, if you break all the
articles of the Hague Convention one by one, like so many sticks, the
only thing to do is to manufacture some fresh regulations to replace
them. And everything will again be for the best in the best of worlds.
That is where German subtlety comes in. You must not do things rashly,
at once. Like a skilful dramatist, you must prepare the public to take
in a situation. There is a true artistic touch in the way this General
of Cavalry succeeds in gradually legalizing illegality.
In a first decree, dated August 10th, 1915, a fortnight after his last
pledge, Governor von Bissing promises from fourteen days' to six months'
imprisonment to anyone dependent on public charity who refuses to
undertake work "without a sufficient reason" and a fine of £500 or a
year's imprisonment to anyone who encourages refusal to work by the
granting of relief. Notice that the accomplice is punished more heavily
than the principal culprit. The idea is clearly to deprive every striker
of the help of his commune and of the "Comité National." However, as it
is still left to Belgian tribunals to decide which reasons are
"sufficient" and which are not, this decree is not very harmful.
On May 2nd, 1916, the rising tide creeps nearer to us. The power of
deciding on the matter passes from the Belgian tribunals to the military
authority, and thereupon every striker becomes a culprit.
On May 13th, there is a new decree by which "the governors, military
commanders, and chiefs of districts are allowed to order the unemployed
_to be conducted by force_ to the spots where they have to work." This,
no doubt, in order to avoid the crowding of prisons, which would have
necessarily followed the last decree. It only remains to declare that
the workers can be deported to complete the process and to legalise
slavery.
This step was taken on October 3rd last, when an order, signed by
Quartier-Meister Sauberzweig and issued by the General Headquarters of
the German Army, was posted in all the communes of Flanders. This order
warned all persons "_who are fit to work_ that they may be compelled to
do so _even outside their places of residence,_" when "they should be
compelled to have recourse to public help for their own subsistence or
for the subsistence of the persons dependent on them."
[Footnote 4: Another poster dated from Menin (August, 1915) reads as
follows: "From to-day the town is forbidden to give any support whatever
even to the families, wives, or children of workmen who are not employed
_regularly on military work_.."]
* * * * *
But there is more to come in the story. Three guarantees were left,
which have been quoted again and again by the German Press and by Baron
von Bissing in his various answers to Cardinal Mercier. It was first
stated that the men seized would not be sent to Germany, then that only
the unemployed were taken, and finally that these would not be used on
military work. These last guarantees have been repeatedly broken.
Again, I will leave the Germans to condemn themselves.
In his decree published at Antwerp, on November the 2nd, General von
Huene (the same man who had given Cardinal Mercier his formal written
promise that no deportations should take place) declares that the men
are to be concentrated at the Southern Station, "whence ... they will be
conveyed in groups to _workshops in Germany_."
In a letter sent by General Hurt, Military Governor of Brussels and of
the province of Brabant, to all burgomasters, it is said that "where the
Communes will not furnish the lists (of unemployed) the German
administration will itself designate the men to be deported to Germany.
If then ... errors are committed, the burgomasters will only have
themselves to blame, for _the German administration has no time and no
means for making an inquiry concerning the personal status of each
person_."
Finally, an extraordinary proclamation of the "Major-Commandant
d'Etapes" of Antoing, dated October 20th, announces that "_the
population will never be compelled to work under continuous fire,"_ this
population being composed, according to the same document, of _men and
women_ between 17 and 46 years of age. If they refuse "they will be
placed in a _battalion of civil workers, on reduced rations_." Here is
the address of one of these militarised civilians dropped from a train
leaving for the Western front and picked up by a friend: X., 3 Comp.
Ziv. Arb. Bat. 27.--Et. Indp.--Armee No.
This did not prevent Governor von Bissing from declaring, a week later
(letter to Cardinal Mercier, October 26th), that: "No workman can be
obliged to participate in work connected with the war (_entreprises de
guerre_)"! [5]
The last fatal step has been taken. From decree to decree, from
proclamation to proclamation, the last threads of the curtain of
legality which remained between the victim and the tyrant have been cut
one by one. Between the acts of the German administration in Belgium and
those of the African slave drivers, we are now unable to discover any
difference whatever. The old plague which had been the shame of Europe
for more than two centuries has risen again from its ashes. It appears
before us with all its hideous characteristics. People are torn from
their homes and sent away to foreign lands without any hope of
returning. Any protest is crushed by the application of torture in the
form of starvation, exposure, and their kindred ills ... There is,
however, one new point about the modern slave: his face is as white as
that of his master.
The nineteenth century stamped out black slavery. It was left to the
twentieth century to reinstate white slavery. It is the purest glory of
the English-speaking people to have succeeded in eradicating the old
evil. It will be the eternal shame of the German-speaking people to have
replaced it by something worse. Civilisation forbade any man, sixty
years ago, to force another man to work for him. Civilisation to-day
does not forbid a man--a conqueror--to force another man to work against
himself. The old slave only lost his liberty. The new slave must lose
his honour, his dignity, his self-respect. He has only one other
alternative: death. And this, not the glorious death of a martyr which
makes thousands of converts and shines all over the world, not the death
of Nurse Cavell, but the anonymous death of X.Y.Z., the death of
hundreds and hundreds of unknown heroes who will die under the whip or
in the darkness of their cells in the German prison camps.
I had almost forgotten a last distinction between the old and the new
forms of slavery: The average slave driver of past days was only a
trader who sold human beings instead of selling oxen or sheep. When his
trade was prohibited, he took heavy risks and ran great danger of losing
his fortune and his life. But the German rulers of Belgium, whether they
be in Brussels or in Berlin, whether we call them von Bissing or
Helfferich, live in the comfort of their homes, surrounded by their
families, and when assailed by protests, can still play hide and seek
around the broken pillars of the Temple of Peace and wave arrogantly,
like so many flags, the torn articles of international law: "I assert,"
said Dr. Helfferich in the Reichstag (December 2nd)--"I assert that
setting the Belgian unemployed to work is thoroughly consonant with
international law. We therefore _take our stand, formally and in
practice, on international law, making use of our undoubted rights_."
Let Dr. Helfferich beware. He is not the only judge on international
law. His stand may come crashing down.
[Footnote 5: I should ask the reader to confront this declaration with
the statement made by the Belgian workmen in their appeal to the working
classes of the world. "On the Western Front they force them, by the most
brutal means, _to dig trenches_, construct aviation grounds...."
In his letter sent to the Belgian Ministers to the Vatican and to Spain,
Baron Beyens, the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, says: "The men
are sent to occupied France _to construct sets of trenches and a
strategic railway, Lille-Aulnaye-Givet."_
Among many trustworthy reports, we hear that the 5th
Zivilisten-Bataillon, including some men of Ghent and Alost, has been
forced to work, under threat of death, on the construction of a
strategic railway between Laon and Soissons. Some of the men, exhausted
by the bad treatment inflicted upon them, have been sent back to Belgium
in a critical condition, and have written a full statement relating
their experiences, signed by twenty of them. On the other hand, the
Belgian General Headquarters report that Belgian civilians, obliged to
dig trenches and dug-outs near Becelaere (West Flanders), were exposed
to the fire of the English guns.]
II. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON ...
"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we
remembered Zion."
What prophetic spirit inspired Cardinal Mercier when he chose this psalm
for the text of his sermon, on the occasion of the second anniversary of
their Independence (July 21st, 1916), which the Belgians celebrated in
exile and captivity? It was in the great Gothic church, in Brussels,
under the arches of Ste. Gudule, at the close of a service for the
soldiers fallen during the war, the very last patriotic ceremony
tolerated by the Germans. Socialists, Liberals, Catholics crowded the
nave, forgetting their old quarrels, united in a common worship, the
worship of their threatened country, of their oppressed liberties.
"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" His audience
imagined that the preacher alluded only to a spiritual captivity, that
he meant: "How shall we celebrate our freedom in this German prison?"
And they listened, like the first Christians in the catacombs, dreading
to hear the tramp of the soldiers before the door. The Cardinal pursued
his fearless address: "The psalm ends with curses and maledictions. We
will not utter them against our enemies. We are not of the Old but of
the New Testament. We do not follow the old law: an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, but the new law of Love and Christian brotherhood.
But we do not forget that even above Love stands Justice. If our brother
sins, how can we pretend to love him if we do not wish that his sins
should be punished...."
Such was the tenor of the Cardinal's address, the greatest Christian
address inspired by the war, uttered under the most tragic and moving
circumstances. For the people knew by then the danger of speaking out
their minds in conquered Belgium; they knew that some German spies were
in the church taking note of every word, of every gesture. Still, they
could not restrain their feelings, and, at the close of the sermon, when
the organ struck up the _Brabançonne_, they cheered and cheered again,
thankful to feel, for an instant, the dull weight of oppression lifted
from their shoulders by the indomitable spirit of their old leader.
What strikes us now, when recalling this memorable ceremony, is not so
much the address itself as the choice of its text: "For they that
carried us away captive required of us a song."
Many of those who listened to Cardinal Mercier on July 21st, 1916, have
no doubt been "carried away" by now, and they have sung. They have sung
the Brabançonne and the "Lion de Flandres" as a last defiance to their
oppressors whilst those long cattle trains, packed with human cattle,
rolled in wind and rain towards the German frontier. And the echo of
their song still haunts the sleep of every honest man.
* * * * *
For whatever Germany may do or say, the time is no longer when such
crimes can be left unpunished. Notwithstanding the war and the
triumphant power of the mailed fist, there still exists such a thing as
public conscience and public opinion. Nothing can happen, in any part of
the world, without awakening an echo in the hearts of men who apparently
are not at all concerned in the matter. The Germans are too clever not
to understand this, and the endless trouble which they take in order to
monopolise the news in neutral countries and to encounter every
accusation with some more or less insidious excuse is the best proof of
this. When one of them declared that Raemaekers' cartoons had done more
harm to Germany than an army corps, he knew perfectly well what he was
talking about. Only they rely so blindly on their own intellectual power
and they have such a poor opinion of the brains of other people that
they believe in first doing whatever suits their plans and then justify
their action afterwards. They divide the work between themselves: The
soldier acts, the lawyer and the professor undertakes to explain what he
has done. However black the first may become, there is plenty of
whitewash ready to restore his innocence.
If the unexpected resistance of Belgium has infuriated the Germans to
such an extent, it is not only because it wrecked their surprise attack
on France, it is also because, even after the retreat of the army, they
have been confronted by a series of men courageous enough and clever
enough to stand their ground and to come between them and the uneducated
mass of the population.
Since, for the sake of propaganda, they wanted to make a show of
respecting international law, they were taken at their word; so that
they were obliged either to give way or to put themselves openly in the
wrong. When they tried to break their promise to the municipality of
Brussels and to annihilate the liberties of the old Belgian communes,
Mr. Max stood in their way, calm and smiling, with no other weapon than
the law which they pretended to respect. Mr. Max was sent to a German
fortress, but Germany had torn up another scrap of paper--and the
civilised world knew it. When they wanted to establish extraordinary
tribunals for matters which belonged only to local tribunals, Mr.
Théodor and all the barristers of the country lodged protest after
protest and fought their case step by step. Mr. Théodor was deported,
but the German administration had blundered again--and the world knew
it. When Baron von Bissing tried to infringe the privileges of the
Church and to cow the Belgian priests into submission by forbidding them
to read to their flock the patriotic letter of Cardinal Mercier,
published on Christmas Day, 1914, he found himself opposed not only by a
far cleverer man than himself, but by all the spiritual influence of one
of the greatest priests in Europe. The letter was read, the Cardinal did
not leave for Germany but for Rome, whence he came back to Malines, and,
if anything, adopted a still firmer tone in his subsequent letters and
speeches. Von Bissing was beaten--and the world knew it.
These are only a few striking examples among many. Since August, 1914,
hundreds and hundreds of civilians have been imprisoned or deported;
workmen, because they refused to work for the enemy; lawyers, because
they refused to accept his law; bankers, because they would not let
their money cross the frontier; professors, because they did not consent
to propagate Kultur; journalists, because they objected to print Wolff's
news; tradespeople, because they put their patriotism above their
private interests; priests, because they did not worship the German god;
women, because they did not admire German officers; children, because
they did not play the German games. Meanwhile the firing parties did not
remain idle. The world has heard with horror of the death of Miss
Cavell; it has been shocked by the disproportion between her "crime" and
her punishment, and by the hypocrisy displayed by the German
administration during her trial. But, if England has lost one great
martyr, Belgium has lost hundreds, who perished in the same way,
sometimes for smaller offences, often for no offence at all. For the
German judges are in a hurry, and they have no time to enquire too
closely in such matters. The vengeance of a spy, the slightest suspicion
of a policeman, sometimes even an anonymous letter, are enough to
convince them of the guilt of the accused person. The healthy effect
produced on the population by Dinant and Louvain must not be allowed to
spend itself. Frightfulness must be kept up at any price. The reign of
terror is the condition of the German regime.
* * * * *
To-day, in this most tragic hour of Belgian history, when so many
leaders, so many patriots, have been imprisoned, deported or shot, after
twenty-nine months of constant threats and persecutions, we might ask
ourselves: Is Belgium at last cowed into submission?
Listen, then, to Belgium's voice, not to the voice of the refugees, not
even to the voice of the King and his Government, but to the voice of
these miserable "slaves" whom Germany is trying to starve into
submission. Letters have been dropped from these cattle trucks rolling
towards Germany or towards the French front. They all tell us of the
unshakeable resolution of the men never to sign an agreement to go to
Germany, and never to work for the enemy: "We will never work for the
Germans and never put our name on paper" (_onze naam on papier
zetten_)--"We will not work for them. Do the same when you are taken."
(_Faites de même quand tu dois aller_.) Two young men imprisoned in
Ghent write to their father: "They will have to make us fast a long time
before we consent to work for the King of Prussia." Another man who was
stopped when attempting to escape writes: "They tell us here that the
Germans will make us work even if we do not sign an engagement. It would
be abominable. _Take heart, the hour of deliverance will strike one day,
after all_." Another workman sends the following message to his
employer: "We are here two thousand and three hundred men. They cannot
annihilate us. _It is not right that our fate should be better than that
of our brothers who suffer and fight at the front_. We cannot make a
step without being threatened by the gun or the bayonet of our jailors.
_I am hungry ... but I will not work for them_."