THE CRIME OF LOUVAIN
On August 20, the day before the formal entry of the German forces into
Brussels, the Belgians had evacuated Malines. It was deemed prudent, as
in fact it was, to withdraw the forces to the line of the outer forts
of Antwerp. Some of the most violent fighting on August 19 and 20 had
taken place 16 miles to the south-east of Antwerp at Aerschot. There
the Germans had made their determined, but unsuccessful, effort to
cross the Dyle.
Once in occupation of Brussels, they turned Malines into the
headquarters of the troops, an army corps some 60,000 strong, told off
to “mask” Antwerp by keeping the Belgian army if possible cooped up
within the fortress. Malines lies exactly halfway between Antwerp and
Brussels, about 12 miles from either city. It is, however, not more
than half a mile from the outer ring of the Antwerp fortifications.
The value of such a watch-tower to the Germans is manifest. No movement
could possibly be made by the Belgians from Antwerp without the
invaders knowing of it.
No sooner, however, had the march of the German main forces southward
from Brussels begun, than the Belgians sallied forth. They were
well-informed of the enemy’s movements, and were fully aware that,
acting in conjunction with the contingent moving from Liége direct to
the Sambre, that moving by way of Brussels could not in any event turn
back.
This sortie, made so soon--it took place on August 23--took the German
troops in Malines by surprise. They were just beginning to make
themselves comfortable after their fatigues, when the Belgian army
burst in upon them. No effectual resistance was possible. The invaders
were driven, a battered rout, as far as Vilvorde, a northern suburb of
Brussels. There most of the 10,000 German troops forming the garrison
of Brussels were drawn up to cover the retreat. Malines remained in the
hands of the Belgians.
Realising from this defeat that they had a tough proposition in front
of them, the Germans hurried additional troops into the country.
Meanwhile the Belgians had again seized Aerschot, Termonde and Alost.
The German force threatening Ghent had to be withdrawn, and the
invaders found themselves in danger of being cooped up in the capital.
This situation throws light on the atrocities which almost immediately
followed, and on the question of whether these atrocities were
accidents of hasty indiscipline or were, in fact, military measures
carried out according to a settled plan.
A glance at the map of Belgium will show that the towns of Jodoigne,
Louvain, Malines, Termonde, and Alost form round Brussels an arc,
rather more than a semi-circle. The middle point of that arc is the
point nearest to Antwerp, that is to say, Malines.
Now these towns as well as Aerschot were destroyed with the exceptions
of Malines and Alost. Though Malines was three times severely bombarded
by the Germans, and in the succeeding struggles changed hands as many
times over, it was, while deplorably damaged, not destroyed. Neither
was Alost. Why? Because Malines was needed as a _point d’appui_ against
Antwerp, and Alost as a half-way position on the road to Ghent. Alost
was also the scene of repeated struggles. It is beyond argument to
suggest that this destruction of some places and not of others can
have been haphazard.
When we look further into the military situation the question passes
beyond all doubt. Entrenched at Antwerp the as yet undefeated Belgian
main army remained a serious menace. In fact, the Germans both at
Berlin and at Brussels were well aware that, so long as that state of
things continued, their hold upon the country was, not only precarious,
but, in the event of a reverse in France, to the last degree dangerous.
For, in possession of Antwerp and the seaboard provinces, the Belgians
might, in conjunction with the Allies, at once close the only door of
escape, and force at Aix-la-Chapelle what is, in effect, the main door
to Germany.
From the invaders’ point of view, therefore, it was essential both to
restrict the operations of the Belgian forces and to affirm their own
grip on Brussels. And this explains why the threats indulged in to
bombard and burn Brussels were merely threats. In a city of 800,000
people, numbers of whom, doubtless, secretly possessed arms, a rising
on the part of the population, with a native army of nearly 100,000 men
only a few miles away, meant a risk of the garrison of Brussels and
even of the occupying troops altogether having to defend themselves
against extermination, for the hatred they had inspired was unspeakable.
The plan resolved upon, it was carried out without mercy. Owing to
its ancient renown, and the world-wide interest of its buildings and
monuments, the destruction of Louvain has most shocked civilised
peoples. The loss is a loss to the world, but as regards its utter
inhumanity, the razing of the other towns, not to speak of the villages
surrounding them, was equally pitiless and savage. In these murders the
German soldiery spared neither age nor sex, and wreaked upon the most
helpless their most indescribable and debased barbarities. It has been
said that for every Belgian soldier killed in action, they slew three
unarmed men, women, or children.
In the devastated districts the bodies of murdered peasants lay
unburied in ditches by the roadside. The corpses of children, stiff in
death, clung in their last attitude of terror to the corpses of their
mutilated mothers. Others lay amid the roofless ruins of their homes.
There were instances in which women were stripped, outraged by brutal
soldiery, hanged from the branches of trees, and disembowelled in
mockery of their final agony. Those who could escaped into the woods,
where they hid without food or shelter. Numbers died of starvation and
exposure. To destroy the last chance of life for these fugitives, and
to avoid the trouble of hunting them out, corpses of murdered people
were thrown into wells in order to poison the water.[D]
As might be expected, troops capable of such enormities were, as
combatants, of little value. Well disciplined soldiers could not be
driven to such excesses. Though their greater numbers, when reinforced,
enabled the invaders to make headway against the native troops, yet in
every encounter between anything like equal forces they were always
decisively defeated, and without exception suffered losses out of all
proportion to those they were able to inflict.
It was after an encounter having these results that, on August 25, a
body of these demoralised ruffians burned Louvain. They sallied out
of that place with the object of driving the Belgians from Aerschot
and beyond the Dyle. They were repulsed, and chased back almost to the
outskirts of Louvain, sustaining on the way, as usual, a galling fire
on both flanks. It has been suggested that the officer in command,[E]
whose competence is sufficiently measured by the adventure, gave
the order to sack and destroy the town in order to disguise the
indiscipline of his troops. The motive assigned is not easy to accept.
According to the statement for which the Belgian Government made itself
responsible--a statement based on evidence which inquiry has not left
open to doubt:--
The German armed guard at the entrance to the town mistook
the nature of this incursion, and fired on their routed
fellow-countrymen, taking them for Belgians. In spite of all
denials from the authorities, the Germans, in order to cover
their mistake, pretended that it was the inhabitants who had
fired on them, whereas the inhabitants, including the police,
had all been disarmed more than a week before.
Without inquiry and without listening to any protest, the
German commander announced that the town would immediately
be destroyed. The inhabitants were ordered to leave their
dwellings; part of the men were made prisoners; the women and
children put into trains of which the destination is unknown.
Soldiers, furnished with bombs, set fire to all parts of
the town. The splendid church of St. Pierre, the University
buildings, the Library, and the scientific establishments were
delivered to the flames. Several notable citizens were shot.
The town of 45,000 inhabitants, the intellectual metropolis of
the Low Countries since the fifteenth century, is now no more
than a heap of ashes.
Such is the brief official statement. It was, however, but the palest
reflection of the facts. How scrupulously restrained the Belgian
Government were in framing it, is shown from the accounts given by
eye-witnesses of the tragedy.
One of these, a Dutchman who owed his escape to the possession of
papers proving his nationality, and afterwards reached Breda, told his
experiences:--
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 house 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 Theresa-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 Litshstreet, 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.
At seven o’clock we arrived at Camperhout, _en route_ for
Malines. We saw many half-burnt bodies--men, women, and
children. Frightened to death and half-starved, we were locked
up in the church, and there later joined by another troop of
prisoners from the surrounding villages.
At ten o’clock the church was lighted up by burning houses.
Again shots whistled through the air, followed by cries and
groans.
At five o’clock next morning, all the priests were taken
out by the soldiers and shot, together with eight Belgian
soldiers, six cyclists, and two gamekeepers. Then the officer
told us that we could go back to Louvain. This we did, but
only to be recaptured by other soldiers, who brought us back
to Camperhout. From there we marched to Malines, not by the
high road, but along the river. Some of the party fell into
the water, but all were rescued. After thirty-six hours of
ceaseless excitement and danger we arrived at Malines, where
we were able to buy some food, and from there I escaped to
Holland. I still do not know where my wife and children are.[F]
Another witness was Mr. Gerald Morgan, an American resident at
Brussels. His narrative, given after his eventual arrival in England
by way of Louvain, was published in the _Daily Telegraph_ on September
3. He made a tour over the German line of march, and found their
wounded scattered through every town and village not yet destroyed. In
the absence of any German field hospitals, these men were left in any
buildings available to be removed as far as possible back to Germany
in returning supply wagons, ’buses or motor-cars. To calculate their
number was very difficult. Mr. Morgan goes on to say:--
After this I returned to Brussels, and we Americans in Brussels
then decided that it was time we shook the soil of the country
from our feet. We found that we could return to England on
a troop-train, viâ Louvain, Liége, and Aix-la-Chapelle, and
thence over the Dutch border. A question arose as to how long
the train would stop at Louvain, but on the following morning
the German staff office at the railway station said, “You won’t
stop at Louvain, as Louvain was being destroyed.” We left at
three o’clock, the train stopping with abominable jerks every
few minutes, like a German soldier saluting. We began to see
signs of destruction in the outlying villages shortly before we
reached Louvain. Houses in the villages were in flames.
An hour before sunset we entered Louvain, and found the city
a smoking furnace. The railway station was crowded with
troops, drunk with loot and liquor, and rapine as well. From
house to house, acting under orders, groups of soldiers were
carrying lighted straw, placing it in the basement, and then
passing it on to the next. It was not one’s idea of a general
conflagration, for each house burnt separately--hundreds of
individual bonfires--while the sparks shot up like thousands of
shooting stars into the still night air. It was exactly like
a display of fireworks or Bengal lights, and set pieces, at a
grand display in Coney Island.
Meanwhile, through the station arch we saw German justice being
administered. In a square outside, where the cabs stand, an
officer stood, and the soldiers drove the citizens of Louvain
into his presence, like so many unwilling cattle on a market
day. Some of the men, after a few words between the officer
and the escorts, were marched off under fixed bayonets behind
the railway station. Then we heard volleys, and the soldiers
returned. Then the train moved out, and the last we saw of the
doomed city was an immense red glare in the gathering darkness.
My impressions after Louvain were just as if I had read and
dreamt of one of Zola’s novels.
Weighing this evidence, it is not possible to resist the conclusion
that the atrocity of Louvain was planned and carried out deliberately
and in cold blood, and it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the
trivial conflict between the German armed guard and their retreating
troops, a conflict which apparently hurt nobody on either side, was
prearranged in order to afford a colourable excuse. It has been alleged
that the troops forming the guard were drunk, and that they had just
turned out on the alarm being sounded, after a debauch following the
sack of a brewery. There is no present proof that the sack of the
brewery had anything to do with the affair, or that the connection was
anything more than an afterthought.
The inference of a plan is strengthened, not only by the method with
which, as Mr. Morgan shows, the destruction and its accompanying
“military executions” were completed, but by the provocation which had
previously been offered to the inhabitants, but offered, as it proved,
without the evidently expected effect.
On the latter point the statement of the escaped Dutch resident already
quoted is circumstantial, and since this is not a Belgian witness, his
relation may be accepted as unbiassed. He says:--
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
authority 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.
All the houses abandoned by their owners were ransacked,
notwithstanding the warnings from the military authorities
forbidding the troops to pillage. The Germans imprisoned as
hostages of war the Burgomaster, two magistrates, and a number
of influential citizens.
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 lb. 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 this, it is clear that the townspeople did everything possible to
avoid giving offence to these brutal enemies. On the other hand, it
is equally clear that the German military “authorities” issued orders
against pillage by the troops, which were taken by the latter, and must
have been well known to be, hypocritical.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR The Daily Telegraph BY
GEOGRAPHIA, LTD.]
The proofs as to the real responsibility for this foul deed are
irresistible. The soldiers of Alva at their worst never perpetrated any
horror so utterly cowardly. They were fired by the fury of religious
zeal. Blindly mistaken and politically disastrous as it proved to be,
it was a motive worthy of respect by the side of the stupid hate and
the mean fear born of the grovelling and greedy materialism of these
“conquerors.”
The destroyers saved the incomparable town hall, because they destined
it to be an ornament of a Germanised Belgium. The rest of the town,
however, and more particularly the older part of it, was reduced to
a blackened ruin, from which, as from other burning towns, arose a
mighty cloud of smoke. Doubtless it was hoped that this spectacle,
visible from Antwerp, as well as from Brussels, would strike terror
into the people. What they could not gain by arms the Germans sought to
gain by the devices of barbarity. But a Nemesis waits on this mode of
“warfare.” It is related by Lamartine that after their subjugation of
Servia the Turks collected into a pyramid the skulls of the slain. This
ghastly monument, situated in a desolate valley, the scene of a great
battle, was intended as an everlasting warning. To the Serbs it became
a remembrance of the price their fathers had been willing to pay for
liberty: a revered national memorial which kept alive the spirit which
at last crushed their oppressors.
In the same way, the oppressors of Belgium fanned the fires of
resistance. In the library of the University of Louvain they had
destroyed ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Oriental texts and manuscripts
of priceless value; they had not destroyed the valour of one Belgian
heart. They had laid in ashes a place which had rightly been called by
Lipsius the Belgian Athens, and had earned the praise and admiration
of philosophers from Erasmus to Sir William Hamilton; they had but
enhanced the glory of the town where, while Northern Europe was
still covered by intellectual night, and “kultur” had not yet shed
its radiance on Germany, nor contributed to produce a Prussian army,
a community of mere weavers had, first among the municipalities of
Europe, founded out of their hard earnings, a seat of philosophy,
science, and the arts, and in its twenty-eight colleges, the nurseries
of many famous men, for centuries led the way in their cultivation. Its
university buildings and its library; its art treasures[G]; its Academy
of Painting; its School of Music; its Museum of National History had
been committed to the flames at the hands of rabble soldiery, urged on
by still more degraded officers, but the brand applied was applied to
their own country, whose good name they had burned from among nations.