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Transcriber’s Notes
Table of Contents added by Transcriber. The text of the original book
begins after the Contents.
Boldface is indicated with =equals signs=, italics with _underscores_,
superscripts with carets and braces ^{me}.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The “Scrap of Paper” 7
CHAPTER II
Liége 23
CHAPTER III
The Moral and Military Effect 38
CHAPTER IV
The Belgian Army and Its Work 51
CHAPTER V
The German Tidal Wave 69
CHAPTER VI
The Germans in Brussels 87
CHAPTER VII
The Final Hack 105
CHAPTER VIII
The Crime of Louvain 120
CHAPTER IX
The Politics of Rapine 142
CHAPTER X
The Agony of Antwerp 154
Chronology of Chief Events 172
The Daily Telegraph
WAR BOOKS
HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM
The Daily Telegraph
WAR BOOKS
=HOW THE WAR BEGAN=
By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M. KENNEDY.
=THE FLEETS AT WAR=
By ARCHIBALD HURD.
=THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN=
By GEORGE HOOPER.
=THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE=
By J. M. KENNEDY.
=IN THE FIRING LINE=: Stories of Actual Fighting by the Men
who Fought. By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
=GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD=
By STEPHEN CRANE, Author of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
=THE RED CROSS IN WAR=
By Miss M. F. BILLINGTON.
=FORTY YEARS AFTER=: The Story of the Franco-German War.
By H. C. BAILEY, with Introduction by W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
=A SCRAP OF PAPER=: The Inner History of German Diplomacy.
By Dr. E. J. DILLON.
=HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR=
By J. M. KENNEDY.
=BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT=
The Glorious Story of their Battle Honours.
=HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM=
By EDMUND DANE.
=AIRCRAFT IN WAR=
By ERIC S. BRUCE.
=FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS=
By REGINALD HODDER.
=THE RETREAT TO PARIS=
By ROGER INGPEN.
=MOTOR TRANSPORT IN WAR=
By HORACE WYATT.
=THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE=
By MARR MURRAY.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
HACKING THROUGH
BELGIUM
BY
EDMUND DANE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIV
PREFATORY NOTE
It is the purpose of this book to show the great part played at a
crisis in European history by a little People; the signal bravery of
their decision; the vital importance, from a military standpoint, of
their valiant defence of their Fatherland; and the moral effect in the
struggle of that love of liberty which in the face of a devastation
unparalleled in western Europe since the seventeenth century, has
left their spirit unsubdued. Incomplete though at this juncture the
record must be, the British people may be helped by it the more fully
to appreciate the sacrifices made by the Belgians for those ideals of
ordered independence and freedom on which the greatness of our own
Empire has been reared; ideals whose reality has been tested and not
found wanting in the fiery trial of war.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR The Daily Telegraph BY
GEOGRAPHIA, LTD.]
Hacking Through Belgium
CHAPTER I
THE “SCRAP OF PAPER”
At seven o’clock on the evening of Sunday, August 2, the German
Minister at Brussels presented to the Belgian Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs the Note from his Government demanding as an Act of
“friendly neutrality” a free passage through Belgium for the German
armies forming the main part of the expeditionary forces against France.
The Note promised to respect the independence and integrity of Belgium
at the conclusion of peace. It asked for the temporary surrender, on
military grounds, of the fortress of Namur. In the event of refusal,
the Note added, Germany would be compelled to treat Belgium as an
enemy. Twelve hours were given to the Belgian Government to reply.
The Belgian Cabinet were called together. During those fateful hours
the whole future of their country hung in the balance. Compliance with
the demand meant that Belgium must sink to a dependency of the German
Empire. If in the great War, already opened by Germany’s declaration
on July 31 of hostilities against Russia, Germany prevailed, as the
passive help of Belgium would assist her most materially to prevail,
Belgium, in effect an ally of Germany, would be forced to look to
Germany for protection, and to accept the conditions, whatever they
might be, on which that protection would be given. In any event, that
protection would afford an excuse for a continued, perhaps indefinite,
occupation by German troops. That implied, forms apart, the annexation
of Belgium. Forms apart, it implied the introduction of Prussian
methods and Prussian rule. The native genius of Belgium read, in the
brief and peremptory demand from Berlin, a destiny which would reduce
600 years’ struggle for freedom to naught.
Not easy is it to measure the anxiety of that Sunday night during which
King Albert and his Ministers weighed their decision. Few meetings
of statesmen have been more memorable or more momentous. Of the aims
of Germany there could be no doubt. On April 18, 1832, Prussia with
Austria had attached her signature to that Guarantee of the neutrality
and independence of Belgium which France and Great Britain had already
signed, and which Russia signed sixteen days after the acquiescence
of the Germanic Powers. By the Treaty of London in 1839, after the
settlement of the Luxemburg question between Belgium and Holland the
Guarantee was solemnly ratified. In the meantime Germany had come to
believe in what Count von Moltke the elder called “the oldest of all
rights, the right of the strongest.” Almost coincidently with the
presentation of the Note at Brussels the German Chancellor at Berlin
was, in conversation with the British Ambassador, describing the
Guarantee as “a scrap of paper.” Treaties and engagements are certainly
scraps of paper, just as promises are no more than breaths. But upon
such scraps of paper and breaths the fabric of civilisation has been
built, and without them its everyday activity would come to an end.
Of what value then was the promise embodied in the Ultimatum?
The promise had no value. Glance at the map of Belgium. It will be seen
that the fortress of Namur is as nearly as possible the geographical
centre of the country. What would be the substance of Belgian
independence if, by “the oldest of all rights,” that strong place was
kept by Germany presumably as a barrier against France; actually as the
central base of an occupation? Belgian independence would be a shadow.
In their extremity King Albert and his Ministers turned to Great
Britain. They had good reason. The independence of modern Belgium
is the work of British statesmanship. Great Britain had, in 1831,
initiated the Guarantee although France was the first Power to sign
it, and Great Britain had always looked upon the Guarantee as a solemn
obligation. “We are bound to defend Belgium,” Lord John (then Earl)
Russell said in the House of Lords in explaining the policy of the
Government in 1870. “I am told that may lead us into danger. I deny
that any great danger would exist if the country manfully declared
her intention to stand by her treaties, and not to shrink from the
performance of her engagements. When the choice is between infamy and
honour, I cannot doubt that her Majesty’s Government will pursue the
course of honour; the only one worthy of the British people. The main
thing is how we can assure Belgium, assure Europe, and assure the world
that the great name we have acquired by the constant observation of
truth and justice shall not be departed from, and that we shall be in
the future what we have been in the past.”
Without distinction of party that embodies the consistent attitude
British Ministers have taken up since the Guarantee was signed. It
proved, without distinction of party, to be the resolve of British
statesmen and the British people still. In the exchange of despatches
which took place between Brussels and London during this critical
sitting of the Belgian Cabinet, one thing at any rate was clear. The
undivided might and authority of Great Britain and her Empire was, come
what may, to be cast on the side of international right and on the side
of freedom. When the early light of that summer morning broke upon
their deliberations the Belgian Ministry had made up their mind. The
dawn after such a night symbolised the colours of their flag--through
darkness and trial to liberty. They would face the worst. At 4 a.m.
their answer was in the hands of the German Minister waiting to receive
it. It was: “No.”
The attack on the neutrality of Belgium, the reply declared, would be a
flagrant violation of the rights of nations. To agree to the proposal
of Germany meant a sacrifice of national honour. By every possible
means Belgium was resolved to resist aggression.[A]
Any other answer was impossible. That fact, however, does not detract
from the splendid bravery of the refusal. The Belgians have paid a high
price for freedom. Ever since commerce and the arts found there their
first foothold in Northern Europe, the flourishing cities and fertile
fields of Belgium have been the lodestar of political adventurers and
needy despoilers. They have been the sport of intrigues and royal
marriages. They have been fought for by Burgundian, Spaniard, Austrian,
Frenchman, Dutchman, and German. But throughout their chequered history
the spirit of freedom, and the hope of shaping their own destinies was
never crushed out.
In 1832 a new era began. This land, a marvel of human industry, where
beautiful cities rich in monuments of art and devotion had sprung up
amid ancient swamps; a land turned by patient labour from a desolation
into a garden, was at length assured of peace. It was happy in the
choice of public-spirited rulers. With unsparing energy and devotion
to the common good, Leopold the First threw himself into the work of
repairing the heavy ravages of war. He promoted the first railway on
the Continent of Europe. He encouraged industry and education. He
fostered commerce. Under his wise government the roads of Belgium
became the best in Europe. The navigable waterways and canals were
improved until they reached a total of over 1,000 miles. The rich
mineral resources of the country were opened up. The work thus begun by
the first King of the Belgians has been continued by his successors.
No record of public spirit and public service has added greater lustre
to a Royal House. “The people of Belgium,” said an English statesman,
“have been governed with wisdom, with fairness, and with due regard to
their national character, and they reward such treatment by devoted
loyalty to their king and firm attachment to their constitution.”
The decision now taken still to put freedom first meant undoing
all the results laboriously won during nearly eighty years of
tranquillity. Yet neither King Albert nor his Ministers wavered. And
the Belgian people were as firm as they. With Englishmen the love of
liberty is commonly passive. They feel their freedom to be secure.
Only when challenged does their love of freedom flame into passion.
But the Belgians know that their freedom lives under challenge. The
shadow of Prussian conscription lay athwart their door. That iron
and materialistic system which takes its steady toll of a country’s
manhood, and crushes national spirit like a Chinese boot, has been the
dread of Belgium, as it has been the dread of Holland for a generation.
It was not forgotten that the designs of Prussia upon Belgium were no
idea of yesterday. More than five months elapsed before diplomatic
pressure brought Prussia in 1832 to put her name to the “scrap of
paper” she has now repudiated. Count von Moltke made a special study
of Belgium and Holland as of Poland. The inference is obvious. Had it
not been for the firm front shown by Great Britain in 1870, the German
occupation of Belgium would long ago have been an accomplished fact.
In 1870 Prussia did not feel herself strong enough to face France
and Great Britain alone. Elated by the unexpected results of the war
of 1870, and attributing them wholly to her own prowess instead of
largely to the unpreparedness of France, her designs against the
Netherlands were revived. Not France was the obstacle feared, but Great
Britain. If we are to seek for the true reason of the anti-British
spirit fostered in Germany, and certainly not discountenanced by
official influence, it will be found in Great Britain standing in the
way of this design. Colonies and _welt-politik_ were the open talk of
Pan-Germanism, but expansion east and west on the Continent of Europe
was the definite objective of the plans so minutely prepared at Berlin;
and of the costly and extensive apparatus of espionage spread like
a network over Europe. This was the dream of riches before the eyes
of the German subaltern as he ate the meal of a few pence which his
“Spartan poverty” compelled him to take in a cheap café, and puzzled
how to live without falling into debt.
We need not search far for evidence. If the reader looks at the map
of western Germany he will see that a bunch of railway-lines stretch
to half a dozen points of the compass east of Aix-la-Chapelle like
the extended fingers of a hand. They link Aix with eastern, northern,
and southern Germany. Now Aix is not a great commercial centre. It
is merely a watering-place. There is no more reason why Aix should
be a huge railway-centre with vast sidings, and miles of platforms
than, say, Wiesbaden. But these are not commercial railways. So far as
ordinary traffic goes their construction represents almost a dead loss.
The railways are military and strategical. Regarding their construction
one or two interesting facts have to be noted. The first is that their
construction began just after the Boer War broke out; was almost
coincident indeed with the famous telegram of the Kaiser on British
reverses. The second fact is that the surveys, plans, and estimates for
these railways must have been made long before, and been waiting in a
pigeon-hole for a convenient opportunity.
Now ever since the days of the Great Elector Frederick William the
affairs of Prussia have been administered with an economy which might
almost be called parsimony. It is utterly foreign to Prussian spirit
and tradition to spend millions of money without very good reason for
it. Remarkably enough, another bunch of these railways, equally without
ordinary traffic, converge upon the frontier of Holland.
Just, as Scharnhorst was the inventor of the German universal service
system, and von Hindersin the organiser of their artillery, so von
Moltke was perhaps the first military man who appreciated thoroughly
the importance of railways in war, and their value in that rapid
hurling of masses of troops into a hostile country before its defence
can be put upon a war-footing, which is the corner-stone of German
strategy.
No doubt, then, can be entertained as to the true object of these
railway enterprises. That they were not undertaken until it was
believed Great Britain had ceased to be a serious obstacle, at all
events in a land campaign, is confirmed by the nearly coincident change
in naval policy which led Germany into heavy ship-building programmes.
Great Britain was still a serious obstacle at sea. Therefore a navy
had to be built big enough to render her acquiescent. Great Britain
acquiescent, and Austria compliant, France and Russia, the remaining
signatories to the Guarantee, might be dealt with, it was thought,
without fear of the result.
The outlay was heavy, but the hoped-for return was great. The
Netherlands are a rich prize. Not merely their industrious and
ingenious population, but their taxable capacity would make the German
Empire easily the head State of Europe. If Holland has not the valuable
coal and iron mines of Belgium, she has an important mercantile
marine, and most valuable colonies, including a possession in India.
The economic importance of the Netherlands to Germany, and possession
of the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, is manifest. A vast
expansion of over-sea trade; a host of new and lucrative employments
for German bureaucrats, made this sacrifice by a parsimonious people
seem well worth while.
But there are other considerations. Belgium has been the cockpit of
Europe, because Belgium, as a military base, has almost unrivalled
advantages. Possession or occupation of Belgium--they are much the same
thing--means command of its wealth of resources, and of its 3,400 or
more miles of excellent main roads. Seizure of these is a great weight
in the scale. A powerful army based on Belgium dominates France and
more especially Paris. France could be reduced by it to a state of
tutelage. Conversely, of course, a great French army based on Belgium
would have the Lower Rhine at its mercy, and could “bottle up” Germany
more effectively even than a blockade of her coast. That was, in part,
how Napoleon held down Prussia. Plainly the neutrality and independence
of Belgium is the one common-sense solution; and not less plainly the
interests of Great Britain are vitally involved.
Doubt as to the aims of Germany had long before been cleared up in
responsible quarters informed of the facts. “The cynical violation
of the neutrality of Belgium,” Mr. Asquith said in his speech at
the Guildhall, “was after all but a step--the first step--in a
deliberate policy of what, if not the _immediate_, the ultimate,
and the not far distant aim was to crush the independence and the
autonomy of the Free States of Europe. First Belgium, then Holland and
Switzerland--countries, like our own, imbued with and sustained by the
spirit of liberty--were one after another to be bent to the yoke.”
It was hardly necessary for General von Bernhardi, in his book “The
Next War,” to declare that the plan of the German General Staff was
to march upon France through Belgium. In truth, he disclosed a secret
that was as open as anything could be. The fortification by France of
her eastern frontier, threatening to convert a campaign against France
into a war of obstacles, at all events at the outset, defeated what has
already been alluded to as the corner-stone of German strategy. A war
of obstacles would not only allow France to gather her strength and to
dispose of it where it would be most effective, but it would enable her
to meet in the field a foe already shaken by the effort, and by the
inevitably heavy losses incurred in breaking the barrier. In a word,
the odds in such a campaign would be so much against the invader that
for Germany an attack made upon those lines was as good as hopeless.
That, of course, was as well-known in Paris as in Berlin. It was no
surprise, therefore, when von Bernhardi published his “disclosure.” The
real object of the disclosure was to prevent the statesmen concerned
from taking it seriously. So long as such a plan was with good reason
suspected of being entertained secretly at Berlin, it was to be
reckoned with. When it was given to the world in a frothy and bombastic
book, it would probably be felt to have lost its weight. The device
apparently succeeded. France, relying upon the neutrality of Belgium,
left her north-eastern frontier practically open. Of the barrier
fortresses, Maubeuge alone was adapted to resist a siege with modern
artillery. As a fact, we know now that the device of giving away the
secret did not succeed. On the contrary, it inspired the counter-plan
which led the German armies to disaster.
Nevertheless, until the ultimatum was presented to the Government of
Belgium few responsible men believed that Germany would go to the
length of tearing up her own pledge.
In the face of that ultimatum, a country not more than one-eighth the
area of Great Britain, and with a population less than that of Greater
London, had to face a mighty military Empire which had sedulously
spread the tradition that its armies were invincible. No wonder Germany
reckoned on compliance, and all that compliance implied. It was much
as if we ourselves had been suddenly challenged for national life and
liberty by the world at large, with the certainty added of an immediate
invasion. All the same, the Belgians did not flinch. They proved
themselves worthy of the spirit of their fathers.
All this was involved in that “Scrap of Paper.”