The Belgian race, in general, is possessed of a certain philosophic
patience under calamity, engendered, no doubt, by the fact that their
country has so often served as the battlefield of other nations.
Though hating their oppressors, they seldom, even in private, uttered
any emphatic expression of hatred; and such criticism as was spoken
was characterized by admirable, sometimes amazing fairness.
Even at the darkest times I have often heard persons of all classes
express generous acknowledgment of the slightest evidence of justice
on the part of the Government, and have been impressed, when wrongful
acts were related, by their failing to omit the least redeeming detail
they considered essential to truth.
By the time the second demand for copper was made, the people were
too hopelessly miserable to express resentment even in private. Words
had proven too futile, and active revolt would have been folly. But,
unreviling as they were, and morally stunned by knowledge of their
helplessness, they stored up their wrongs in their memories and aching
hearts. At this period, too, the subtle German scheme for exciting
the Flemish population against the Walloons, thus causing internal
discord, had reached a critical point. The few Flemings who ignorantly
allowed themselves to be bought or persuaded to help this plot, and so
secure a commercial market in Belgium after the war, occasionally, at
the enemy’s dictation, made demonstrations usually ending in riots.
Thus among the people an enmity was stirred up, likely to prove more
serious after the war.
When, after the second glorious check before Paris, the German forces
were being driven back for the last time, the official attitude
in Brussels became considerably milder. The miserable news-sheets
allowed us wailed sycophantic appeals to the world’s “humanity” to
stem the “deluge of blood” flowing from the flood-gates opened by
Germany herself. And yet, at the same time, the controlling Powers
left no means untried to excite civil war in Belgium. Side by side
with these touching and flowery appeals to an outraged world, were
long columns pointing out how the Flemish population had been wronged
for generations; calling them to stand up for their rights; subtly
suggesting how, with Germany at their back, they could be masters of
the country! The brother of my dentist, a Fleming, was approached, and
asked to head a certain association aiming at Flemish dominance. He
was promised not only all the coal, potatoes, and other necessities he
needed, but also that a hundred thousand francs would be deposited to
his credit in a Dutch bank. To his honour, it may be added, he refused
the offer with scorn, as did all those of intelligence whom the enemy
tried to seduce.
With such shameful wrongs eating into their souls, these people were
expected again to dismantle their homes, and help Germany to hold
territory won by craft, while seeking an advantageous peace. No step
back would the invaders take to spare millions of poor citizens driven
daily from hearth and home. On the contrary, they hunted them forth
like cattle, at the evacuation of each town, in order to loot their
houses and shops. The sister of our cook and her husband were driven
from Menin without being allowed time to safeguard their possessions.
Scarcely had they issued from their abode, where, after years of
effort, they had established a small business in clocks and jewellery,
when a German van appeared at their door, and, in their very sight,
carried away over five thousand francs-worth of hard-earned stock.
The couple, with hundreds of others, were herded into a cattle-car so
closely that they were obliged to stand, pressed one against another.
They were carried on to a town near Ghent, and thence made to walk
for four hours, in the night, and without food; crowded into another
cattle-car, and distributed, destitute, over the country to subsist,
as best they could, on the charity of others.
One Belgian told me the following story without a quiver of voice
or other show of feeling, save that the pain of it drove the colour
from his face. He possessed a château at Aerschot and, having married
during the war, was allowed to return to it with his bride during
the second summer. He found the place greatly altered, for it had
been occupied by German troops, and much damage had been done,
especially in the park, where trees planted by his grandfathers had
been ruthlessly felled. But sadder than all, he said, was the fact
that many familiar faces had disappeared from the adjacent village.
On making inquiries, he learned that all those missing had been shot
as innocent examples in order to impress others with terror of German
“frightfulness.” Though told this by the remaining villagers he could
hardly believe it; for among the absent were old men, a priest, and
one young boy whose mother had since died of a broken heart.
But during the heat of summer he had a ghastly proof that the accounts
were true. At a certain point near his park he noticed an appalling
odour. After tracing it to a low mound, he had the place opened, and
there discovered sixty of the absent villagers, shot, and buried in a
heap, scarcely more than a foot under ground.
Another man told me as calmly of an incident that occurred near his
country-seat, at the home of a farmer he knew. The farmer had a number
of Prussian officers and soldiers billeted upon him in 1914 and, being
both good-natured and prudent, he treated them well. When the day came
for them to depart, the chief officers, three in number, bade him
harness the one horse he still possessed, and drive them to Brussels.
There they were to remain a day before rejoining their troops, which
were to depart on foot that afternoon. The farmer’s wife and daughter,
after serving the officers with breakfast, took leave of them amiably
enough, and received their thanks for courteous treatment.
But on returning alone, at twilight of the same day, the farmer was
surprised to see no smoke coming from his chimney, and still more
astonished to find the doors wide open and bits of broken crockery
strewn about the courtyard. Before taking his horse to the stable,
he cried loudly for his wife, and receiving no answer, ran into the
house, which he found deserted. Neither wife nor daughter were there
to welcome him, and the kitchen presented a scene of strange disorder,
as though wild beasts had been in battle there. Broken dishes lay on
the floor, empty wine bottles and tumblers stood on the table, and
one lay under it in the midst of a dark, dry stain of wine. To make a
long story short, the farmer rushed in terror to the village and there
found his assistant surrounded by a group of terrified townsfolk,
discussing the tragedy.
No sooner had the farmer departed, than soldiers entered his house,
raided the wine-cellar and, after drinking themselves into beasts,
assaulted his wife and daughter. The assistant had attempted to
defend them, but being unequal to the task against so many, ran to the
village for help. When he returned with others it was too late; they
found the farm vacated; wife, daughter, and soldiers gone!
The farmer, half-maddened with fear on hearing this, set out with a
number of others to search for his dear ones; but only after nightfall
they found a trace of them, in a wood some distance from the farm.
While following with lanterns the foot-marks of soldiers which led
them to this spot, the farmer suddenly espied a bit of the gown his
daughter had worn, protruding from the ground. The place was opened,
and there, just beneath the sod, lay the body of his daughter in the
ghastly pose of hurried burial.
Later his wife was discovered, quite demented, roaming far off in the
country.
This story is not given as one of the most atrocious of those we heard
almost daily; for it is far from that. In this case the criminals
were drunken soldiers, not cold-blooded, sober officers, such as the
authors of the Aerschot tragedy, those committed at Tamines, and all
along the route from Liège to Brussels!
Many of the stories were so unspeakably horrible I should not care to
perpetuate them in print. I have, moreover, limited myself to such
events as came to me first-hand, and also to avoid those already
known. These two are recounted merely to demonstrate the lack of human
understanding evinced by the German authorities, who expected a people
so treated submissively to yield up their possessions, even their very
beds and mattresses, to an enemy that had scorned all principles of
right and shown them no slightest hint of mercy.
It was little to be wondered at that they hid or destroyed their
goods rather than yield them, even though obliged to endure severe
punishment when discovered. And no less comprehensible was their
contempt for the peace-whines,—the subtle endeavours of a defeated
bully to avert the punishment every heart in Belgium was eager should
overtake them.
The stupidity of Prussian rule in Belgium was only equalled by this
childish effort to escape the consequences of their stupendous
crime!—an effort scorned, not only by the Belgians, but by every
neutral who had seen with what appalling contempt for all laws of
humanity, justice, and civilization they had misused their power, when
victory had seemed likely to be theirs.
Long before the too-patient United States raised an avenging hand,
several of her children were arrested in Brussels for bitter
utterances they could not control. I remember how a young fellow who,
having diplomatic connections, had long suppressed his ire, let out
one day when he and some friends were lunching together in a café. It
was at the time when Belgian civilians were being taken by force to
work for the enemy, and one of the party had related a heart-breaking
scene witnessed at one of the railroad stations. Mothers, wives,
and sisters were gathered there, weeping and shrieking against the
unpardonable cruelty.
This pitiable tale, and others quite as distressing, had roused them
all; but the young fellow referred to was beside himself, and when
others endeavoured to quiet him, he sprang up and rushed into the
street. One or two followed, fearing what he might do, and saw him
deliberately cross to the centre of a public square, where, standing
bare-headed, he shouted at the top of his voice: “To hell with the
Kaiser! To hell with the Kaiser!”
Had he not been dragged back to the café by his companions, he
probably would have continued his perilous insult until brought into
the desired contact with some German. But such brief satisfaction
would have caused not only distress to his entire family, but probably
more wide-spreading difficulties. Another American was arrested and
dragged to the Kommandantur for having been rude to a soldier in
the street, and several were in the German black-book for betraying
inimical feelings more or less openly.
Some time later, when the Teuton spirit was considerably broken, a
young American accidentally trod on a soldier’s foot while boarding
a tram and, being insulted, answered back, to be at once arrested by
a spy who stood near. When brought to trial, guarded by armed men,
before three officers with revolvers in their belts, he was ordered
to stand straight, to take his hands from his pockets and show the
respect that German officers demanded. He was, in fact, goaded and
bullied in order to force him to a show of temper for which a larger
fine could be imposed upon him!
The country’s distress was greatly augmented when hundreds of homes,
already darkened by bereavement and want, echoed the wailing of women
robbed of those dear to them under particularly painful circumstances.
For every man, young or old, of those taken to Germany solemnly
swore, before departing, that he would die of starvation rather
than do a stroke of work for the hated enemy. All refused, also, to
sign statements (into which the Germans endeavoured to trick them)
declaring they left their country willingly!
But they were dragged off, crowded into cattle cars, side-tracked, and
left to wait without warmth or food until the military authorities
saw fit to let their train pass on. What those men suffered has been
recounted by those who investigated these cruelties. I can only judge
by the few instances I saw myself. The unspeakable horror of these
will never leave me. Several lads came back to die, with hands and
feet frozen, too far gone even to take hot milk with which one sought
to coax them back to life. The butcher’s boy, also, who delivered our
meat, returned maimed for life owing to the freezing of his feet.
These, like most others, had refused to help their country’s
destroyers, and were consequently starved and subjected to all manner
of ill-treatment. When reduced to the last atom of vitality they were
shipped back like beasts—with less care, indeed, than beasts—locked
into bitterly cold cars where the conditions became vile, since they
were not allowed to leave them for a moment during the long, slow,
oft-impeded journey. Many, it is stated, died on the way back, and a
number of those who survived, after careful feeding with spoonfuls of
hot milk, were cripples for life.
Much later, when life here became intolerable for these poor wretches
and hope of deliverance had died in them, I believe that some of the
weaker ones did go willingly to do _harvest_ work in Germany. At the
time referred to, however, all intended to work for the army refused
as one man, and were taken by brute force.
But the German people were told that these men were carried off
because they were starving at home! One of the most outrageous deeds
in a whole list of evils was represented as an act of charity!
It is this trickery, this systematic lying, which, from the war’s very
beginning, has stained the Prussian standard and will always stain
it in the eyes of posterity. Their war has been one, unfortunately,
in which the shameful deeds of their leaders must always overshadow
the courage of their troops. Acts of severity, even crimes, when
committed for a vital and otherwise unattainable object, if daringly
and humanely done, command a certain amount of respect. But the
Prussian tactics were neither daring, merciful, nor wise. Always some
excuse, stupid and transparent, was offered, and never, under any
circumstances, was tact exercised. Had those unhappy Belgians been
well treated on their out-going journey (some even said the soldiers
spat in their coffee, the only nourishment they received, after twelve
hours locked up in the cars!), had they been cared for even as cattle
_must_ be, how much more likely would they have yielded to the demands
of their persecutors!
Deceit, clumsiness, and obvious delight in giving pain were the
principal elements of the German occupation; self-evident trickery
like the trumped-up delegation of Flemings sent to Berlin; the
hurling of shrapnel into the city of Brussels, and attributing it
to the Allies! As the Germans photographed waving handkerchiefs at
windows in Brussels when some Prussian of consequence visited the
city, in order to impress Germany with the pro-German sentiment of a
Belgia in love with her ravagers!
I have often wondered, had England been the invader and tactful
Britons—such as those who won the confidence even of the Boers and of
all the Indian tribes—had been the masters of Belgium, what would have
been their influence, in the end, upon a people weary of suffering,
whose original faith in ultimate triumph was being extinguished month
by month. Many might have been won by kindness even from the hand
that had smitten them; indeed, had the enemy thereafter shown them
even ordinary consideration, it is rather terrible to think what the
consequence might have been during a period of subjection far longer
than the least sanguine could have anticipated.
In November 1917 news of the Italian disaster, grossly exaggerated,
was published in three languages on all the city walls, with galling
comments and childish boasts. Attention was called to the fact that
the Central Powers had won from Italy, in three days, all that she
had acquired in two years, and so forth. No chance was lost to
dishearten the Belgian people, though, considering their absolutely
helpless condition, the object of this is hard to imagine. It can
only be understood as the same shortsighted and unnecessary bullying
which a British soldier later told me he had endured for seven months
when a prisoner in Germany. This poor fellow, a New Zealander, who
had volunteered “for Belgium’s sake”—one of the many half-starved
and filthy heroes who swarmed to Brussels when freed of their
chains—recounted horrors of his prison existence almost beyond belief.
Besides being obliged to work for the military advantage of their
enemies, they were crowded together in such numbers that to sit down
in their place of confinement was impossible; and when sleeping at
night, they were obliged to lie one on top of the other. The heat and
vermin were so intolerable, that a large percentage of them died, and
all were forced to discard their clothing, in order to fight lice
that swarmed over them “like a grey covering of dust”! But into those
ghastly details I have no heart to go. I only refer to this one of
innumerable stories, because of a feature that illustrates the ignoble
and needless bullying practised by the Prussian officials. This man
stated that their presiding officer not only obliged them to salute
him with the utmost humility, but made them wait upon him as slaves.
He would deliberately drop his pencil to the ground several times,
and order a British soldier to return it each time with a subservient
obeisance!
In the midst of the discouragement caused by the news from Italy, the
new copper raid took place, and an _avis_ appeared requisitioning all
dogs above forty centimetres in height. This _affiche_ appeared soon
after a tax of forty francs on every dog had been announced—a tax
resisted by the Belgian police, who refused to supply the authorities
with information as to dog owners. It was said, and the bicycle affair
gave weight to the supposition, that the demand for dogs was merely
a preliminary to exacting the tax. At any rate, the requisition was
either vengeance for opposition, or a means of learning who had dogs;
for the matter eventually died out, after causing a panic of grief
and the painless slaughtering of many pets, in order to save them
from ill-treatment by the army. I went to a vet. for this purpose,
and there saw a man of middle age openly weeping, and with him his
one remaining home companion—since his wife was dead, and a son lost
in battle—a soft-eyed, beautiful Groenendael. Even in the streets
women were sobbing, and what occurred in the houses where dogs were
cherished, I can only imagine by the distress reigning in ours.
Some time later, another _affiche_ announced that only dogs under
four years old would be taken—a correction which came too late, for
many hundreds of persons had already sacrificed their animals. But
dogs too old for training would only have been an encumbrance to the
army; so, after many worthless dogs had been given up, for a small
payment, by those who stole or secured them in other ways, this
amendment, which would have spared many a heartache, was tardily
published.
Our dogs we never declared, and kept in hiding until the matter
gradually died down; and so saved them, after many weeks of anxiety
and fear, although hundreds were taken day by day. There was some
mystery about the whole affair. It can only be explained as another
mean scheme for obtaining money, whose failure evoked this method of
vengeance, for there was abundance of dogs to be had for army work,
without depriving people of their pets.