Brussels appeared, at first sight, little affected by the tragedy
already in action at her outer gates. Banks were doing business as
usual; the streets calm; the shops and cafés crowded with apparently
indifferent throngs, enjoying life with as much appearance of
security as a year earlier. Although it was the dead season, some
smart equipages were to be seen—a pleasant sight after the dearth of
horses and vehicles in Paris! Taxi-cabs were still to be had, and only
the fact that we were stopped four times by Belgian gendarmes—while
driving to the hotel where, owing to lack of servants, we were obliged
to remain a few days—suggested the city’s knowledge that war was
raging without.
But during that short drive other signs of change became visible.
Innumerable red crosses blazed from the whitened windows of all
public buildings and on the house-roofs; while, here and there,
a demolished shop bearing a German name gave evidence of former
excitement now stilled by a spirit of fearless confidence. Sometimes,
also, a troubled face in the crowds told of thoughts centred on
some brave hero at Liège; or a motor-car, going at reckless speed,
suggested that the more responsible were actively engaged preparing to
meet an overwhelming avalanche, of whose magnitude no one in Belgium
then had any adequate conception. However, there was, on the whole,
so little evidence of change in the city that it was difficult to
believe a hurriedly mustered army was even then straining in deadly
conflict almost within cannon-hearing of those bright streets. Several
of the larger business houses, however, were closed, or converted
into hospitals for the wounded. Such was the “Financière” building,
which had been beautifully fitted up with every modern convenience,
and provided with good surgeons, nurses, and everything necessary for
competent and comfortable treatment.
We all immediately took part in these preparations, each one eager
to do his share, however little, in readiness for the first sad
harvest of battle. No one then realized how few of Belgium’s brave
sons would reap the benefit of these fond efforts; but it was not
long ere appalling circumstances made this clear to the disappointed
inhabitants.
Hour by hour shocking news reached us from the scene of struggle,
such as the fall of one fort after another at Liège, followed by the
enemies’ onward rush; while tales of their pitiless cruelty caused
brief waves of apprehension to pass over the city—waves quickly
calmed, however, by indomitable and astounding faith.
That the French and British would come in time was the prevailing
argument; there was no danger nor cause for discouragement. Even
though the forts had fallen, Belgium could hold the invaders in check
until adequate assistance arrived; her forces might be driven back,
step by step, for a short distance, but soon would have the upper
hand and drive the foe back into Germany! Such was the reasoning of a
public blinded by their heroic impulse to the situation’s real peril.
No sign of discouragement could be detected even when the remorseless
grey tide was sweeping through ruined and blood-soaked districts
toward the heart of their land.
And it was not merely the uneducated who received the ill-tidings
with this amazing confidence, but men of high standing and competent
judgment. Never, at that time, did I hear a word indicative of fear;
the enthusiastic faith of the first days still remained unshaken.
Although the Government had already withdrawn from Brussels, no one
believed that the capital was in danger; at any rate, no word was
uttered in my hearing that betrayed the least anxiety on that score.
“Have no fear,” the hotel proprietor remarked, as I passed through the
lobby after breakfast on that fateful 20th of August 1914; “there is
no danger of _les Boches_ getting to Brussels. Our men are falling
back only to gather force and attain better positions. Besides, the
French and British are now at hand; we need only hold out a day or two
longer, and then—_nous verrons_!” On every side the same confidence
greeted me: “_Les Boches_ are checked!... _Ils sont fichus!_... The
British are in Antwerp!... In two weeks we shall be in Berlin!” and so
forth; all spoken with a sort of delirious recklessness, suggesting
determination not to recognize disquieting facts.
An hour or so after I left the hotel that morning, my way was blocked
by a silent wall of people, lined on either side of the Boulevard
d’Anvers, watching, in stupefied wonder, a seemingly interminable tide
of grey-clad warriors—the Prussian Fourth Corps, under command of
General von Armin—proudly taking possession of their fair city!
If that haughty and arrogant horde had dropped into our midst from
a cloudless sky, I hardly think it could have caused more awed
astonishment to the general public. So fantastically harrowing had
been the tales of their uncivilized deeds in other quarters of
Belgium, that the half-stunned people had come to think of the German
army as something fabulous, something they were not likely ever to
behold as a material reality. Stories of outrages, inconceivable in
the present age, had been so mingled with encouraging reports of the
monster’s repulse, that popular opinion was unable to decide what was
true and what was not—was unable to picture the awful menace rushing
upon them as other than a moral nightmare, which, they imagined, would
disappear as abruptly and abnormally as it had come.
The dazed amazement in the faces of that watching throng might have
moved a devil to tears, or awakened rage in the heart of an angel—so
silent and helpless they appeared before the mighty and pitiless
force advancing through the stunned city—so callously indifferent was
that force to the shame of their deed! It was like seeing a child
confounded by the blow of a strong man who strode by, smiling with
triumph at sight of its helpless pain. It made one ashamed to be akin
in species to a race capable of committing, and so arrogantly, a wrong
never to be effaced from their history.
Unknown to us at the time, Monsieur Adolphe Max, the
ever-to-be-honoured Bourgmestre of Brussels, had gone early that
morning under a white flag to implore the officer in command for
permission to telegraph a plea to the German Emperor that his army be
forbidden to enter Brussels—the city where he, the Kaiser, had been
welcomed and entertained, only a week or so earlier, by the Belgian
King and people. The officer promised to communicate his request
to the general-in-chief. But the only reply Monsieur Max received
was, not only the entrance of the troops, but a demand for enormous
quantities of food and a _contribution de guerre_ from the city of
Brussels of fifty million francs, to be paid in three days; and from
the province of Brabant four hundred and fifty millions, to be paid
before the 1st of September! This was William the Second’s response to
a people whose faith he had betrayed, who had done him no other ill
than refusing to aid his frantic impatience to overwhelm and crush a
neighbour and friendly state.
The following quantities of food-stuffs were at once demanded from
Brussels by the German army and delivered:
On 21st August, 30,000 kilos of bread, 5000 kilos of smoked meat,
17,000 kilos live-stock, 10,000 kilos of rice, 1400 kilos of coffee,
1700 kilos of sugar, 700 kilos of cacao, 1700 kilos of salt, 120,000
kilos of oats, 170 kilos of tea, 10,000 litres of wine.
On 22nd August, the same amount, save that the bread was reduced to
20,000 kilos, with an addition of 20,000 kilos of flour.
On 23rd August, everything in like quantities was again yielded at the
army’s command, with the exception of bread, which 30,000 kilos of
flour replaced.
As this severe drainage threatened to reduce to famine the 800,000
inhabitants of Brussels, Monsieur Max informed the German authorities
he could not vouch for the people’s submission if such exactions
continued. The occupying Government thereupon agreed, over the
Governor’s signature, to make no more requisitions during a period of
eight days. But the following day new demands were presented, and an
attempt, resisted by Monsieur Max, was made to set aside a contract
which the army chiefs declined to recognize as controlling their
actions.
In regard to the war indemnity, Monsieur Max arranged with the
Government to pay it off by instalments by the 30th of September.
Payments were made regularly, and of the 50,000,000 there remained due
but 4,400,000 to be paid when, on the 24th of September, von Luettwitz
announced that no further reimbursement would be made by the army for
food-stuffs requisitioned, as the war indemnity had not been paid
within the time originally specified!
But my object is not to go into these details, or to depict, more than
is necessary, the darker side of Belgium’s martyrdom under German
dominion. The world knows enough of such matters and will probably
know more before these recollections appear. Tragedy and sorrow,
moreover, have been heard, seen, felt _ad nauseam_ by every dweller
in the occupied country. No account of those years can escape their
dominating note of tragedy, but all such events herein given are
limited to those not generally known, whose truth has been personally
ascertained.
The invasion of a capital by enemy troops had always seemed to me the
culminating tragedy of war, and one likely to be rife with stirring
incidents. How little like my preconceived idea was this silent and
awesome mastery—this slowly-moving stream of concentrated force,
passing between those walls of ashen-white faces, whence thousands
of wide eyes spoke the voiceless misery and amazement of a people
betrayed! The warrior’s pride was not lacking, but a pride less
admirable even than that of the criminal forces led by Napoleon into
capitals which he had overwhelmed.
But why connect with this ignoble victory the supremely evil
Corsican’s name? Napoleon, like Alexander and Hannibal, was superb
almost to the end. But William II., devoid of magnetism, devoid of the
human understanding and tact so essential to a great leader, sought to
follow in his steps with no finer attribute than long-nourished brute
force and meanly-developed craftiness. He utterly failed to recognize
that no number of cannon, no number, however stupendous, of enslaved
legions, could replace Napoleon’s understanding.
From Germany’s regiments of triumphant treachery, advancing through
Brussels, no glance of comprehension or compassion met the people’s
wide-eyed gaze. Only one sentiment could be read in the eyes looking
sternly upon them from under shining Prussian helmets—a vainglorious
contempt for the race that had so sublimely resisted their unjust and
inexorable demands.
The scene, viewed from the standpoint of one bred in a country
long since rid of barbarism, appeared strangely anachronistic and
theatrical—like the blazing pageantry of a stage, briefly holding
the attention of an enlightened community which would presently ring
down the curtain and return to real and serious occupations. The
leaders—young men, for the most part, of noble families; men whose
brain and morals had been cramped, since infancy, into the narrow
circumference of their eagle-topped helmets—sat their horses in the
heroic pose of a stage Siegfried. Their polished armour and ornaments
reflected heaven’s sun as meretriciously as do those of Wagner’s
characters the glare of the footlights. Each one appeared inwardly
inflated by a sense of individual world-power, by an intoxicating
impression that in him was revived the spirit of conquering Rome—and,
with it, the right to tread under his spurred foot the wan faces his
absurdly proud glance surveyed. Then came the worn troops following
on foot—they who had borne the brunt of conflict—devoid of ornament,
trudging along at the horses’ heels, obedient offenders of the people
who despised them; hoodwinked slaves, persuaded they were serving
their country, while inflicting and enduring the tortures of hell
merely to enhance imperial pride and save the despotic throne so long
founded upon their blind submission.