THE AGONY OF ANTWERP
In this drama of a gallant nation’s sorrows, a spectacle which, the
world over, must endear the name of freedom afresh to every heroic
heart, no act has appealed more strongly than the gallant defence of
Antwerp and its lurid close.
Once the commercial capital of the world, adorned, to quote the words
of Motley, “with some of the most splendid edifices in Christendom,”
Antwerp has the honour which no vicissitudes can dim of being one of
the earliest seats in Europe of public spirit and liberty. Nor is it
easy to accept the belief that such a city is destined to become merely
the gateway of an ignoble Prussia.
As affairs stood at the beginning of October, the Germans were anxious
to gain some decisive success. So far, the war had failed to yield any.
They had met with heavy reverses. They were feeling sharply already the
economic effects of the virtual closing of the Rhine. In the belief
that, Belgium subjugated, no combination of Powers would be able to
tear it from their grasp, and urgent to complete that subjugation while
time yet offered, they pushed the siege with all the energy they could
command.
This hurry, as at Liége, proved prodigal. An attempt to storm fort
Waelhem alone cost nearly 8,000 men killed and wounded. As the
reduction of the outer fortifications threatened to be slow, the 11-
and 12-inch mortars at first employed were reinforced by the new
16-inch mortars throwing shells more than 800 lbs. in weight. These
ponderous engines, transported with immense labour into France, were,
with equal labour, hauled back across Belgium, and on the foundations
of demolished buildings, placed into position against the forts
situated to the south of the Nethe. At the same time, in order to
explode magazines and to fire buildings, shells were used filled with
naphtha, designed to scatter a rain of blazing oil. The besiegers’
loss of life in the attempt to storm Waelhem was avenged by destroying
the city waterworks, situated close to that fort. This reduced the
population of Antwerp to the supply afforded by such wells as were
within the city limits and made it impossible to put out fires should
they occur.
By October 5, forts Waelhem, Wavre, Ste. Catherine, and Konighoyck had
been overpowered, and the fort of Lierre silenced. All these forts lie
south of the Nethe. The villages adjacent were burned to the ground.
At Lierre, a mile to the rear of fort Lierre, a German shell crashed
through the roof of the Belgian military hospital. Some of the wounded
men lost their lives. On October 7, after a furious concentrated
bombardment, fort Broechem was a heap of ruins.
The way was thus open for a final attempt, under the weight of the
German guns, to win the passage of the Nethe. Against great odds the
Belgians offered a stubborn resistance. The action was one of the
most bloody in the Belgian campaign. In it King Albert was wounded,
though happily not seriously. This was the second injury he had met
with. All through the war he had taken an active part with his troops,
encouraging them in the trenches, braving every risk.
At the instance of the Belgian Government, the British sent to Antwerp
on October 3, under the command of General Paris, of the Royal Marine
Artillery, two naval brigades and one brigade of marines, a total
of 8,000 men, with heavy naval guns and quick-firing naval ordnance
mounted on armoured trains.
The Belgian command devolved upon General de Guise, military governor
of Antwerp, one of the youngest, but also one of the ablest of the
generals of the Belgian army. On both sides, the passage of the Nethe
was disputed with desperate determination. The German attack at this
time was directed, not only against the Belgian position north of the
Nethe, through Linth and Waerloos, but with particular energy against
forts Lierre, Kessel, and Broechen. These forts still held out. They
covered the left flank of the defence. The right flank, protected by
the flooded area along the Rupel, was unassailable.
Regardless of losses, the Germans worked day and night to float into
position and complete the parts of seven pontoon bridges they had put
together on the reaches of the river beyond the range of the forts. It
was evident that if they could turn the left of the Belgian defence by
destroying fort Broechen, and so breaching the outer defences at that
point, just to the north of the Nethe, they could, having crossed in
force farther up the stream, launch a formidable flank attack, which
must compel the whole Belgian and British force to withdraw.
It was on the Belgian left, however, that the British naval brigades
and marines had been posted. With the support of the naval guns, forts
Lierre, Kessel, and Broechen defied all the efforts to reduce them.
Very soon the fact became evident that this plan of turning the defence
was impracticable. Hidden in bomb-proof entrenchments, the British
suffered comparatively few losses, despite what seemed an appalling
rain of shells. On the other hand, the naval guns, commanding the
course of the river over a reach of ten miles, speedily made havoc of
every attempt to cross.
In these circumstances, the Germans changed their tactics. They
resolved upon a frontal attack through Duffel. Against the Belgian
lines, a furious bombardment was concentrated. Under cover of this, and
notwithstanding that, for a mile beyond the banks of the river, the
country had been flooded, they advanced in masses to rush the passage.
Simultaneously, and to prevent this attack being enfiladed by the naval
guns, they made a feint of attempting to force their way over at Lierre.
Their losses were immense. Repeatedly their shattered columns were
thrown back. For two days, at appalling sacrifice, they fought for the
passage. On the British position the attack made no impression. But at
daybreak on October 6, following an assault delivered in overwhelming
force, the enemy succeeded at length in gaining a foothold on the north
bank near Duffel, and in holding it despite all the efforts of the
Belgians to dislodge them.
The Belgian army was obliged to fall back, and with them the British
contingent, but it is evidence enough of the character and vigour
of the resistance that, heavily outnumbered though they were, the
Belgians, in retiring upon the inner defences of the fortress, left the
Germans unable immediately to follow up their advantage. The British
force withdrew without the loss of any of its guns. Indeed, the naval
guns and the armoured trains covered the retirement so effectually that
it was impossible for the Germans, until they had transferred their
heavy artillery to the north of the Nethe, to press the retreating
forces.
Beyond the boom of the hostile guns away to the south, and the nearer
crash of the fortress artillery in reply, those within the city had,
during these days of stress, little idea of how affairs were really
going. A picture of the scene on the night of Tuesday, October 6, is
given by the special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_:--
The night was so impelling in its exquisite beauty that I
found it impossible to sleep, or even to stay indoors.
On the other side of the river the trees were silhouetted in
the water, the slight haze giving a delicious mezzotint effect
to a scene worthy of Venice. As I walked along the stone-paved
landing piers the contrast between the beauty of the picture
and the grim prospect of what the death-dealing machinery all
along my path might make it at any moment was appealingly vivid.
Within a few hours, however, the scene changed with what to most in
the city seemed almost startling suddenness. Following a proclamation
by the authorities warning all who could to leave Antwerp as soon as
possible, began an exodus the like of which has not been witnessed
since the days of “the Spanish Fury.” The same eye-witness proceeds:--
All day the streets have been clogged and jammed with panicky
fugitives fleeing from a city which, in their terrified
imagination, is foredoomed. Every avenue of approach to the
pontoon bridge across the Scheldt leading to St. Nicolaes has
been rendered impassable by a heterogeneous mass of vehicles
of every size and kind, from the millionaire’s motor-car to
ramshackle gigs loaded up with the Lares and Penates of the
unfortunate fugitives.
Half a mile or so further on moored alongside each other were
two of the Great Eastern Railway steamboats, which ply between
Antwerp and Harwich, or, as at present, Tilbury. In view of the
very great pressure of passengers, both were to be despatched.
I walked through them. Each was filled to its utmost capacity
with refugees who might have been sardines, so closely were
they packed. In every chair round the saloon tables was a man
or a woman asleep. Others were lying on the floors, on the
deck, in chairs, or as they best could to seek a respite from
their fatigues, a few, realising that theirs would be but a
very short night--the boats were to sail at dawn so as to have
as much daylight as possible with which to navigate safely the
dangers of the mine-fields--preferred to walk about on the
jetty discussing the while their hard fate.
The St. Antoine, the leading hotel of Antwerp, has for some
weeks past been the temporary home of the various Foreign
Ministers, but with their departure to-day has closed its
doors. Last night it was the scene of an affecting leave-taking
by the Queen of the _personnel_ of the British and Russian
Legations, her Majesty being visibly moved. I am informed that
the King sent to the German commander yesterday by the hands
of a neutral _attaché_ a plan of Antwerp with the sites of the
Cathedral and other ancient monuments marked upon it, which he
begged might be spared destruction.
In the meantime, the besiegers had made an attempt to carry the inner
defences by storm. It was disastrous. Describing it, Mr. Granville
Fortescue says:--
In their advance to the inner line of forts the Germans
literally filled the dykes with their own dead. Coming on in
close formation, they were cut down by the machine guns as
wheat before the scythe.
Realising that it was, to all intents, impossible to carry the inner
defences by storm, and that the garrison must be forced to surrender
by the destruction of the place, the Germans, who had by this brought
their great guns within range of the city, opened from their new
positions along the north side of the Nethe a bombardment which, for
sustained fury, has rarely been equalled.
The bombardment began at midnight on October 7. From that time shells
rained upon the place. The havoc, heightened by bombs thrown down
from Zeppelins, speedily, and especially in the southern quarter,
caused destructive fires. Viewed from afar--the fire was seen from
the frontier of Holland--this great and beautiful seat of commerce,
industry, and art, one of the glories of Europe, looked during those
terrible hours like the crater of a volcano in eruption, with a
shower of shooting stars falling into it. Silhouetted against the
glare, its towers stood luminous amid the fiery light. Highest of all
the incomparable spire of its cathedral pointed, as though a warning
finger, into the dark sky.
[Illustration]
For some time before midnight, the roar of the cannonade had ceased.
The enemy’s guns had for a spell become silent. To the deep bay of the
cannon on the defences there came no answering defiance. At last even
the guns on the defences had suspended speech. Mr. B. J. Hudson, of the
_Central News_, one of the last English correspondents to leave, says:--
There was, uncannily enough, a grim calm before the midnight
hour and the darkened city was like a town of the dead. The
footsteps of a belated wayfarer echoed loudly.
Then suddenly came the first shell, which brought numbers of
women into the streets, their anxious object being to discover
whether the bombardment had really begun. Very closely did
the roar of the guns and the explosion and crash of the
striking shells follow each other. All over the southern
section of the city shells struck mansion, villa, and cottage
indiscriminately. Then the fortress guns, the field batteries,
and the armoured trains opened out in one loud chorus, and the
din became terrific, while the reflection in the heavens was
seemingly one huge, tossing flame.
From the roof of my hotel the spectacle was an amazing one.
The nerve-racking screech of the shells--the roof-tops of the
city alternately dimmed, then illuminated by some sudden red
light which left the darkness blacker than before--and then the
tearing out of roof or wall by the explosion, made a picture
which fell in no way short of Inferno. The assurance thus
given to the population that the Germans were fulfilling their
threat to bombard a helpless people, sent the citizens to their
cellars, as they had been advised to go by the local papers of
the day before.
About nine o’clock in the morning the German fire once more
became heavier, but the screaming of the projectiles and the
thunder of falling masonry left the fugitive population quite
unmoved.
I noticed in one case a family of father, mother, and three
small children who absolutely ignored the explosion of a shell
some sixty yards in their rear, moving stolidly on.
About ten o’clock one of the petrol storage tanks in the city
was hit and fired, and one by one the others shared its fate.
All along the River Scheldt quay barges and small steamers were
taking on human freight as rapidly as they could, charging the
wretched people 20 francs a head for the brief trip into Dutch
territory.
As soon as the flowing spirit from the petrol tanks began to
come down the stream something like a panic at last broke out.
Those on board the steamers yelled to the officers, pointing
to the danger and crying, “Enough! Enough!” Those on the quay,
unwilling to be left behind, made wild rushes to obtain a place
on the boats.
I saw one woman drowned in one of these rushes, while her
husband--rather more lucky--fell on the deck of a boat and
escaped with an injured skull. Women handed down babies, young
children, perambulators, and all manner of packages, and then
themselves scrambled on to the decks, using any precarious
foothold available. It was a wonder that many were not drowned
or otherwise killed.
Eventually the captains of the river craft, having gained as
many fares as could safely be taken, sheered off, leaving many
thousands still on the quay-side.
Still the shells were falling all over the town. The smoke from
the blazing petroleum and the burning houses rose in great
columns and must have formed an appalling sight for the people
as far north as the Dutch town of Roosendaal.
What the position is outside the city walls we do not know.
We hear our guns crashing out loud defiance to the enemy
in a persistent roar; we hear the enemy’s reply almost as
distinctly....
All that night and next day the stream of fugitives poured
out--westward towards Ostend, northward towards Holland. Of the scene
at Flushing, Mr. Fortescue wrote:--
Hordes of refugees fill this town. Some come by train from
Roosendaal, others have escaped from the city by boat. All
sorts of river craft come ploughing through the muddy waters of
the Scheldt, crowded to the gunwales with their human freight.
Tugs tow long lines of grain-lighters filled with women,
children, and old men.
Their panic is pitiful. Since the first shell shrieked over
the city a frightened, struggling mob has been pressing onward
to escape the hail of fire and iron. Imagine the queue that
shuffles forward at a championship football game increased a
hundred-fold in length and breadth, and you will see the crowd
moving to the railway station. Another throng fought their
way to the quays. All the time German shells sang dismally
overhead; for the most part they fell into the southern section
of the city.
From the refugees I hear the same pitiful tales I have heard so
often. A mother with two girls, one four and the other three,
was torn from the arm of her husband and pushed on a departing
boat. All through the panic of flight it has been “women and
children first.” Those who are here bear witness to the bravery
of those who defend the city.
But if the besiegers had imagined that they were about to reap any
solid military advantage, a disappointment was being prepared for them.
For six days they had striven to cross the Scheldt at Termonde, and
striven without success. The objective was to invest Antwerp from both
sides of the Scheldt, and thus either for the remainder of the campaign
to imprison the Belgian army, or to destroy it, amid the ruins of
Antwerp, by their shell fire. That would have been a military success
of an important character. Not only would it have left Belgium for the
time being at their mercy, but it must undoubtedly have a moral effect
not to be ignored.
On October 8, however, the invaders had gained a passage over the
Scheldt at Termonde, and had compelled the Belgian force opposing them,
much inferior in point of numbers, to fall back upon Lokeren. That
place is on the line of communication between Antwerp and Ostend. In
view of this danger, the evacuation of Antwerp became a necessity. The
danger had been foreseen. The Belgian authorities indeed had already
arrived at their decision. It is now known that this had been reached
on October 3, and that the object of the small British reinforcement
was to enable the evacuation to be accomplished. That object they
fulfilled. By the timely warning given to the population, nearly
150,000 had already been enabled to escape. All the available shipping
in the port was used for transport purposes. The rest, including some
36 captured German merchant steamers, which could not be removed owing
to the neutrality of Holland, was blown up and sunk in the docks.
Objects of value were removed, and such stores as could not, and
were likely to be of value to the enemy, were destroyed. The Belgian
Government, on October 7, transferred itself to Ostend.
The Belgian army followed. By the morning of Friday, October 9, the
evacuation had been completed. All the guns on the abandoned defences
were spiked. Under the command of General de Guise, however, the forts
controlling the approaches on the Scheldt continued to hold out.
In the meantime, the Germans had been pressing their attack upon
Lokeren. The main portion of the Belgian army and 2nd British Naval
Brigade, as well as the Marines, retired upon Ostend while the
communications remained open. The first division of the Belgian army,
which had been the last to leave Antwerp, and had been engaged in
rendering the place useless to the besiegers, retreated fighting with
the Germans north of the Scheldt a succession of rearguard actions.
In the face of impossible odds, the 1st British Naval Brigade, now
without the support of their heavy guns, were forced, fighting
tenaciously, across the Dutch frontier at Huist. A division of the
Belgian army were also compelled to cross the boundary into Holland.
Just after noon on October 9, the besiegers entered Antwerp by a breach
they had made near fort No. 3 on the south-east side of the inner line
of works. By then, the burning and ruined city presented the appearance
of a tomb. What remnant of the population remained were in hiding in
their cellars. Every person of authority had fled. Amid this scene
of wreck and desolation, the Germans made their entry and installed
their “government.” But the Belgian army had once more eluded their
grasp, and with the navigation of the Scheldt closed, the possession
of Antwerp, gained at the sacrifice of so much blood had become a
possession presenting no compensating military advantages.
At the time these lines were written, the record, as already said,
remains incomplete. Enough, however, has been outlined in this brief
sketch to prove that the struggle and the sufferings of Belgium form
one of the bravest efforts ever made for a people’s freedom, and a
protest against the policy of rapine that can never fade from the
memory of civilised nations, nor fail to command their admiration and
their respect.
CHRONOLOGY OF CHIEF EVENTS
_July 31._--Germany declares war against Russia and sends 12
hours’ ultimatum to France. Belgian Government orders partial
mobilisation.
_August 1._--Germany formally announces mobilisation. France orders
mobilisation.
_August 2._--German troops invade Luxemburg. German ultimatum
presented at Brussels, giving 12 hours for reply.
_August 3._--Belgian Government refuse demand for German occupation
of Belgium and “assisted passage” to German troops. German armies
cross Belgian frontier.
_August 4._--Combat opens at Visé and Argenteau for the passage of
the Meuse. Bombardment of Liége begun.
_August 5._--Special meeting of Belgian Parliament. Ministry of all
parties formed. Emergency measures voted.
First attempt of Germans to storm Liége defeated.
_August 6._--Germans win passage of the Meuse. Second attempt to
storm Liége. King of the Belgians leaves Brussels for the front.
_August 7._--Third attempt to storm Liége. General von Emmich asks
for 24 hours’ armistice. It is refused.
_August 8._--Belgian troops evacuate trenches at Liége; 16,000
identification tallies collected from German dead.
_August 9._--Germany offers accommodation with Belgium. Offer
rejected. Railways and roads cut.
_August 10._--German troops enter Liége. Forts still hold out.
Leading citizens of Liége seized as hostages. “Fine” of
£2,000,000 imposed on city and province of Liége.
German cavalry advance to Tongres and Ramillies. Attack upon Huy.
French troops arrive in Belgium.
_August 11._--German flying columns advance upon Diest and Eghezée.
Country laid waste.
_August 12._--Battle at Diest and Haelen. Combat of Eghezée.
Germans repulsed, but capture Huy.
_August 13._--Retreat of Germans from Diest. Pursuit by Belgians
and French through St. Trond to Warenne.
_August 14._--German expedition against Tirlemont defeated. French
occupy Dinant.
_August 15._--First attack upon Dinant.
_August 16._--Second attack and battle of Dinant.
_August 17._--Belgian Government removes from Brussels to Antwerp.
British Expeditionary Force lands at Boulogne.
_August 18._--General German advance across Belgium begins. Outpost
fighting round Tirlemont and Gembloux.
_August 19._--First day of battle of Louvain. Last of Liége forts
destroyed.
_August 20._--Second day of battle of Louvain. Germans occupy
Malines.
_August 21._--German entry into Brussels. “Fine” of £8,000,000
demanded.
_August 22._--Germans advance upon Charleroi. Attack upon the
passages of the Sambre.
_August 23._--Battle of Mons and Charleroi. Fall of Namur. Belgians
recapture Malines. Germans set up a new civil and military
government for Belgium.
_August 24._--Battle of Mons and Charleroi continued. Retirement of
British and French forces. Germans occupy Ghent.
_August 25._--Sack and destruction of Louvain.
_August 26._--Destruction of Termonde and Dinant.
_August 27._--British occupy Ostend. Germans driven out of Ghent.
Bombardment of Malines.
_August 28._--Sack and destruction of Aerschot. Belgian Government
appoints Commission to inquire into atrocities.
_August 29._--Efforts of German civil and military authorities at
Brussels to collect the “fine.” Resistance of Burgomaster and
City Council.
_August 30–September 6._--Belgian operations against German lines.
_September 9._--Germany’s second offer of an accommodation
rejected. Belgian sortie in force from Antwerp.
_September 10–11._--Heavy fighting. Belgians again recapture
Malines and Termonde, and occupy Alost.
_September 12._--German reinforcements recalled from French
frontier.
_September 13._--Belgians retire upon Antwerp.
_September 15._--First German attack upon Antwerp. Belgians cut the
dykes. Heavy loss of German guns. Invaders defeated in successful
sortie.
_September 25._--Opening of second attack upon Antwerp.
_October 1–4._--Five days’ battle along the Dyle.
_October 3._--Antwerp garrison reinforced by British Naval Brigade
and Marines.
_October 4–6._--Battle on the Nethe. Germans cross the river.
_October 7._--Belgian Government transferred to Ostend. Bombardment
of city of Antwerp begun.
_October 9._--Belgian army evacuates Antwerp. Germans enter the
city.
R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR The Daily Telegraph BY
GEOGRAPHIA LTD 55 FLEET STREET LONDON E. C.]
FOOTNOTES
[A] The text of the Belgian Government’s reply was as follows:--
By its Note of August 2, 1914, the German Government makes it known
that according to its certain information the French forces have had
the intention of marching upon the Meuse by way of Givet and Dinant,
and that Belgium, notwithstanding her good intention, would not be in
a condition to repel without assistance an advance march of the French
troops.
The German Government feels itself under the obligation to prevent that
attack and to violate Belgian territory. Under these circumstances
Germany proposes to the King’s Government to adopt in reference to her
a friendly attitude, and engages at the moment of peace to guarantee
the integrity of the kingdom and its possessions in all their extent.
The Note adds that if Belgium puts difficulties in the way of the
forward movement of the German troops, Germany will be obliged to
consider her as an enemy, and leave the final settlement between the
two States, one with the other, to the decision of arms.
This Note has provoked in the King’s Government a profound and grievous
astonishment.
The intentions it attributes to France are in contradiction with the
formal declarations which have been made to us on August I in the name
of the Government of the Republic.
Moreover, if, contrary to our expectation, a violation of Belgian
neutrality should come to be made by France, Belgium would fulfil all
her international duties and her army would oppose to the invader the
most vigorous resistance.
The Treaties of 1839, confirmed by the Treaties of 1870, consecrate
the independence and neutrality of Belgium under the guarantee of the
Powers, and notably under that of his Majesty the King of Prussia.
Belgium has ever been faithful to her international obligations; she
has accomplished her duties in a spirit of loyal impartiality; she has
neglected no effort to maintain her neutrality and to have it respected.
The attempt upon her independence which the German Government threatens
would constitute a flagrant violation f the rights of nations. No
strategic consideration justifies violation of right.
Were it to accept the propositions that have been put to it, the
Belgian Government would sacrifice the honour of the nations and at the
same time go back on its duties towards Europe.
Conscious of the part that Belgium has played for more than eighty
years in the world’s civilisation, it refuses to believe that the
independence of Belgium can be preserved only at the price of violation
of her neutrality.
If that hope is ill-founded, the Belgian Government is firmly resolved
to repel by every means in its power any attempt upon its right.
England agrees to co-operate as guarantor in the defence of our
territory. The English Fleet will assure the free passage of the
Scheldt for the revictualling of Antwerp.
[B] This has been officially denied from Berlin; but the Belgians
declare that priests seemed specially to be marked out for attack. It
is certain that a number lost their lives.
[C] A story published at Berlin gives the account sent in a letter
from Lieut. von der Linde, of the Potsdam Guards, of how he carried
out the capture of Fort Malonne at Namur. The lieutenant states that
he was ordered to advance on the fort with 500 men by a route where
mines were suspected. He advanced with four men on the bridge across
the moat of the fort, and called upon the commander to surrender
immediately, threatening him that otherwise the artillery would at
once begin to bombard the fort. The commander, taken by surprise,
allowed the lieutenant and his four men to enter and surrendered his
sword. Besides the commander, five officers and twenty men were taken
prisoners. The remainder of the garrison, consisting of 400 men, had
escaped. Four heavy guns and considerable war material were captured.
For this exploit Lieut. von der Linde received from the Kaiser the
Order of Merit, and it is recorded that he was the youngest officer in
the German service to receive that distinction. He was only twenty-two.
No reference is made in this account to the mist and rain which alone
could have made such an adventure possible, much less successful. The
story illustrates the difficulty of defending, under the conditions
described, a fortress situated among hills, and also the facilities
offered for escape.
[D] See, among other evidence, the details collected by and given in
the Fifth Report of the Belgian Official Commission of Inquiry.
[E] Alleged to be a Major von Manteuffel. In a German Official Inquiry
afterwards held at Brussels an officer of that name was reported to
have been cashiered for this affair; but it is doubtful if he was more
than an official scapegoat.
[F] The narrative was given to Reuter’s special correspondent at
Rotterdam.
[G] Writing in the _Daily Telegraph_ of the destroyed art treasures of
Louvain, Sir Claude Phillips says: “The chief treasures of the church
of Saint-Pierre de Louvain were two famous paintings by Dierick (or
Thierry) Bouts, who is as closely identified with the now destroyed
university city of Belgium as are the Van Eycks with Ghent and Bruges,
and Roger van der Weyden with Tournay and Brussels. The earlier of
these paintings is (or rather was) the remarkable triptych with the
Martyrdom of St. Erasmus in the central panel, and the figures of
St. Jerome and St. Bernard in the wings. This was seen at the Bruges
retrospective exhibition of 1904. But perhaps the masterpiece of
Dierick Bouts, and certainly one of the finest examples of Flemish
fifteenth-century art, was the polyptych painted by him for the altar
of the Holy Sacrament in the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre.
“The central panel of this work, whereupon was represented the Last
Supper, was, until a few days ago, the chief adornment of that church
and of the ancient city. One of the most accomplished writers on
modern Netherlandish art, M. Fiérens-Gevaert, has written thus of
this ‘Last Supper,’ by Bouts: ‘_La Cène est une des œuvres les plus
profondes, les mieux peintes du XV^{me} siècle, et si l’on dressait une
liste des cinq ou six chefs-d’œuvre de nos primitifs, il faudrait l’y
comprendre._’ And in committing this act of hideous, wanton violence,
this crime for which posterity will refuse to find words of pardon
or excuse, the Prussian commander has also been guilty of an act of
incredible ignorance, of boundless stupidity. For, strange to say, the
splendid wings which once completed this famous altarpiece, and would,
if a reconstruction could have been effected, have caused Bouts’s
polyptych to stand forth one of the most important works of Flemish
fifteenth-century art in existence--these wings are in Germany. In the
_Alte Pinakothek_ of Munich are preserved the ‘Gathering of the Manna’
and the ‘Meeting of Abraham and Melchisedech.’
“In the _Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum_ of Berlin are to be found ‘The
Prophet Elijah in the Desert’ and the ‘Feast of Passover.’ It would
obviously have been far better to steal this ‘Last Supper,’ this
central jewel of the doomed city’s pictorial adornment, to confide
it either to Munich or to Berlin, than thus to blot it out for ever.
It would have been cruel, iniquitous, to despoil heroic Belgium;
it is infamous, and, above all, it is stupid to tear out the heart
of a masterpiece, to rob the world, and in punishing Belgium to
punish Germany, to punish Europe. Napoleon, the ruthless plunderer
of museums and churches, was mild and humane in comparison. If he
stole, whether under forcibly imposed treaty or by sheer brute force,
the accepted masterpieces of painting and sculptur belonging to the
States which he overcame, he stole, with a certain reverence; much as
the believer steals the most sacred treasures from the temple, or the
most precious relics of the Passion and the saints from the church or
the tomb. Robber though he was, he worshipped in awe-struck delight
the masterpieces which he tore from the nations; and his triumphant
fellow-countrymen, during the brief period of his supremacy, worshipped
with him.
“Not less than ourselves must the students, the gallery directors,
the art historians of Germany suffer, compelled as they are to look
on helpless at this incredible act of sacrilege. It is they, indeed,
who have most contributed to place before the world in their right
perspective, to estimate at their true value the greatest examples
of Netherlandish art in its early prime. It is their galleries which
contain the most complete collections of these early Netherlandish
masters. We challenge them to defy in this, if in this only, the
‘mailed fist’--to come forward and register their solemn protest
against the greatest outrage upon civilisation, upon humanity, that the
modern world has been called upon to witness.”
[H] Several German medical men of eminence, among them Dr. Moll,
were alleged to have offered this suggestion. On the other hand,
Dr. Kaufman, of Aix-la-Chapelle, in a letter to the _Kölnische
Volkszeitung_, says that tales of German soldiers mutilated
by Belgians--tales the circulation of which was officially
countenanced--spread like wildfire among the soldiers, and a single
case of a man being mutilated by a shell was magnified into an outrage,
and this was only one of a hundred similar instances. The soldiers,
by auto-suggestion, got to believe their own wild fancies, and by
propagating their stories caused a most dangerous state of anger and
exasperation in the German Army. At Huy, a German non-commissioned
officer and a private had been wounded by shots. On the assertion that
the shots had been fired by inhabitants the German commander, Major von
Baschuitch, ordered a number of houses to be burned. The burgomaster,
however, persuaded him to hold an inquiry. This proved that the shots
had been fired by German soldiers in a drunken panic.
[I] Shortly before this atrocity, a proclamation had been issued at
Liége ordering the citizens to raise their hats to German officers in
the street, and to salute men of the rank and file. It was notified
that if this command was not obeyed, the German soldiery were
authorised to enforce “due respect.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
The illustrations are maps.