The extraordinary spirit of reconciliation shown by these men, their
total lack of humiliation in defeat, was in such strange contrast to
the confident pride with which they had originally invaded Belgium
that it was difficult to believe one’s eyes. And in their individual
self-control, in the genial smile with which they met the rabble’s
taunts, was a more beautiful pride than before—the pride of awakened
conscience, and of that innate moral force which, despite aristocratic
plottings, had before the war raised Germany to a foremost place among
nations; which will no doubt raise her again, like a phœnix, from the
ashes of her errors.
However, there were also dark, familiar stains to mar this dawning of
a new Germany whose sun, by a strange irony of Fate, arose in Belgium!
The yesterday of trickery and terrorism in certain members of that
vast host still survived the night of defeat. Soldiers, by force of
arms, committed daring thefts throughout the country, mostly to obtain
money, of which the troops seemed in great need—must indeed have been,
since some sold their weapons, bed-covers, and even their clothing.
One day I heard a young under-officer bartering his boots with a café
_garçon_ for fifty francs, when shoes of any sort, at the time, could
not be had for less than a hundred, or even more. Another evidence of
this need, and one of enlightening significance, was the reckless sale
of goods which they held in outlying districts of Brussels. At Forest
and other suburban parts of the city, great car-loads of material,
looted from shops and private houses probably months or years ago,—for
the dry-goods shops of Brussels had been cleaned out quite two years
before,—were offered at absurdly trivial prices. Silk-velvet, which
could not be had in Brussels for less than two hundred francs, went at
a mark a yard; warm woollen stuffs, which the shivering population,
thinly clad in dyed cotton, could not obtain at any price in the
shops, were sold—to such as deigned to buy—for an equally small sum.
All these goods, taken on pretence of clothing the army—or _Belgian
prisoners_!—were brought to light again, and not only stuffs, but all
manner of other things, as if from some pirates’ cave, were bartered
back to those who had been robbed of them.
But now thieving became more bold; not by officers, but by soldiers,
who did not attempt to disguise it with transparent lies.
In some cases, nevertheless, that old trick was still tried, as
in that of a prominent banker, who was robbed of one hundred and
twenty-five thousand francs by six soldiers. Evidently familiar
with banking affairs, they presented themselves at his office after
business hours, and, finding him alone with one employé, coolly
demanded the sum desired. The characteristic Teuton excuse was not
wanting—characteristic in its absurdity: Belgians _might_ rob the army
_en route_!—unarmed Belgians might loot the German vans, under guard
of many hundreds of armed soldiers!—therefore large sums were demanded
from all banks as guarantee!
The banker stated that he was unable to grant their demand, as
there was no money available in the bank. But even as he spoke
two _encaisseurs_ entered; their satchels, containing the amount
mentioned, were seized, the contents quietly appropriated, and the
soldiers, revolver in hand, retired. The banker appealed to the
revolutionary chiefs, who refused to credit his story, stating proudly
that “Germans were not thieves.” But by dint of perseverance, and many
visits, he at last convinced them, and the money was returned to him,
from army funds, just one hour before these high-minded leaders were,
for some reason unknown to us, thrown out of power.
Another instance of the justice which these unfortunately displaced
chiefs endeavoured to exercise, was the punishment of a German
soldier, who, convicted of having murderously assaulted the woman
cashier of a restaurant and stolen the contents of her _caisse_, was
placed against a wall and shot—or so we were told.
The shocking original methods of German troops, in regard to places
they inhabited, were also revived in these days. At one private hotel
with whose proprietor we were well acquainted, their behaviour was
almost beyond belief. The hotel had been requisitioned, and occupied
during the war by German women, who left it in good condition. But
the troops, who afterwards took possession for a few days only on
their way out, reduced it to a state of uncivilized filth and wanton
destruction, committing unmentionable acts whereby the up-to-date and
valuable kitchen utensils, the flower-pots, and even the drawers of
bureaus were rendered unfit for future service. Bombs were found under
some of the beds, and the whole place had to be taken over by the
State to be cleansed and examined.
Brussels, during that time, echoed day and night to spasmodic reports
of firearms, sometimes of considerable duration, and consequently
terrifying; at others merely an inexplicable exchange of shots.
But on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of November, the entire
city trembled to blast after blast of cannon, and the shuddering shock
of car-loads of ammunition set off in merciless proximity to inhabited
quarters. The numerous mines buried in and about the city were also
exploded—those treacherous death-traps awaiting the Allied armies, on
which the occupying government had founded its boast that Brussels
would be the “bouquet of the whole war,” a prediction constantly
repeated.
While public attention was more or less centred on these continued
explosions, fires broke out in all the railway stations, one of which
was almost entirely destroyed. Many explanations were set afloat
in the familiar German fashion, the most persistent being that rue
Haute thieves had done it in order to pillage certain cars—an absurd
suggestion, since thieves do not usually light a beacon to attract
attention to their deeds. One damning fact, moreover—the simultaneity
of the conflagrations—suggested some inexplicable Teuton object,
perhaps mere vengeance.
The theory of vengeance was given weight by an account given us by the
mayor of Charleroi. Just before the Germans withdrew, some officers
visited him and, without giving a hint of their intentions, asked him
to call together all the former Belgian railroad employés and send
them to work at the station. The mayor, considering this a reasonable
request, willingly agreed, got the men together, and set them to work.
Scarcely were they all gathered in and about the station than terrific
explosions took place in the yard and on near-by tracks. Fifty-eight
of the unsuspecting Belgians were killed, and many others, living
in the vicinity, either slain or wounded, while every window in the
entire town was shattered, doors also and many objects of value.
Hundreds of cars containing ammunition had been secretly attached by a
fuse wire, which the Germans lighted and left to do its deadly work,
while they fled into safety and were never again seen.
Some intrepid Belgians, fortunately, discovered the fuse, cut it, and
thus saved two hundred and twenty car-loads of high-power explosives,
some of which stood in the centre of the town and would have caused
its entire wreckage.
The mayor also told us a shocking story in regard to a hospital in
his town which the Germans had occupied during the war. At their
departure they removed their wounded, and announced that the hospital
was at his disposal. On going to visit it, he found a number of French
and English wounded lying on the floor, who stated they had never had
a bed, and were in a deplorable condition. Outside, in the ambulance
garage, the door of which was locked, he found seventeen dead bodies
of soldiers, entirely devoid of clothing and therefore impossible to
identify as to nationality. In a corner of this place were heaped a
ghastly collection of amputated human limbs. These and the bodies were
in a state of decomposition that rendered their removal both dangerous
and horrible.
A school-house that had been used to shelter troops up to the last day
before the Germans left, he found in a condition quite as incredibly
revolting. There were no beds; the floors, covered with a sort of
mossy turf, were in a state of indescribable filth, whereon the
soldiers slept and which they subjected to animal-like treatment. The
stench, he said, was frightful, and the entire place so infected with
vermin that the charwomen engaged to clean it were not allowed to
leave the premises before being thoroughly fumigated and cleansed.
After such disclosures, could one wonder at the brutalized, unhuman
appearance of those men who dragged their weary way through
Brussels—men once hardy, self-respecting tillers of the soil, or
workers in other useful pursuits? Such treatment as they had endured
could leave no spark of military pride in them, no consciousness of
shame at defeat, no desire even for the triumph of victory.
On Sunday, the 17th of November, when Germans were seen openly in the
capital for the last time, the street scenes were something at which
to marvel. Everyone was abroad. Among the throng surging to and fro,
through those wide avenues and boulevards so long ruled by the enemy,
the familiar grey-green Teuton uniforms were relieved by the khaki
of the English and Belgians, and the pale blue of the French. Many
Italians and Russians were there, and one or two American airmen
who had descended from a cloudless sky to see how the armistice was
affecting us. Although no organized part of the Allied armies had
yet entered save certain Belgians on leave to visit their families,
hundreds of liberated prisoners had come to the city from German camps
where they had been forced to labour for the enemy. All of these save
the French, who could speak the language, were a sorry-looking lot,
wandering about, unable to express themselves. So numerous were they
that it was impossible for the Belgians to collect them at once and
give them the assistance and comfort which they so greatly needed. The
British prisoners especially were pitiable to behold in their starved
condition and wretched rags—poor helpless youths, that for many months
had endured such moral and physical anguish under their cruel jailers
that some stated they had looked back with regret to their life in the
trenches.
Most of these had found kind hearts to look after them, before that
amazing Sunday when foe and friend mingled in the streets of Brussels,
presenting a sight so fantastic, so unforeseen, that it seemed to lend
a strange element of travesty to all that had gone before.
On the crowded platforms of trams an occasional German might be seen,
pressed close to a haggard-looking Britisher worn to emaciation after
months of harsh treatment by the former’s compatriots; or shoulder
to shoulder with a jubilant Belgian officer, hearing his response to
the triumphant greeting of friends—hearing the wild applause given
to units of all the Allied nations! Strange and incredible sight, in
those streets where the _casque à pointe_ had reigned supreme but a
few days before, where—it seemed but yesterday—the hope of seeing a
Belgian, English, or French uniform had been almost extinguished!
And now the spiked helmet was ignored. No voice was raised to acclaim
it; the once-dreaded uniform passed unnoticed.
So far as I know, however, there was no serious outbreak or obvious
resentment of conditions doubtless sorely trying to those men of
defeated Germany, denied even the prospect of joyous welcome in their
own country, already seething with civil strife. German soldiers—even
German officers, whose rank could no longer be discerned, came face to
face with surly, dark-browed Russians, and exchanged curious glances,
as though furtively trying to read one another’s minds; with Italians,
whose eyes twinkled with the satisfaction their impulsive natures were
less able to conceal; with French, beginning to forget, in the joy
of victory, the wrongs of their prison camps; and with British, into
whose haggard faces they dared not look!
Even the knowledge of having discarded the Imperial yoke could not
have lessened the pangs these men must have suffered, or blinded even
the dullest of them to the evidence afforded by those units of wronged
nations of a punishment too awful and complete to be attributed to
mortal power alone.
Especially galling to them must have been the intense enthusiasm
shown by the population for every Britisher. These, at the time, only
wretched-looking prisoners, were the first Allies who appeared, and
the sight of them sent the people into a frenzy of pride, excitement,
and sympathy. Here and there, in the newly enlivened streets, would be
seen a black swarm of Belgians gathered about one pitiably emaciated
English lad, trying, without knowing a word of the language, to find
some place of refuge to which he had been directed by the Belgian
committee who looked after the prisoners. There was nothing, as a
rule, to denote his nationality, save his speech, and a ragged khaki
jacket, with his prison number painted on the back. In his poor,
dazed face—made more haggard by several weeks’ growth of beard—in the
filthiness of his whole appearance, there was little to denote the
bath-loving Englishman. Some told me they had not changed their shirts
during eight months of imprisonment; had been forced to do hard
labour, with nothing to eat but turnip soup, and one loaf of bread a
day shared by four men.
The Belgians, however, quickly took them in hand, fitted them out with
clean clothes, and at times carried them on their shoulders through
the streets, shouting, “_Vive l’Angleterre!_” right under the noses of
the Germans.
All of those to whom I spoke had been captured at a certain point near
Armentières, where, owing to the collapse of an adjacent Portuguese
trench, the Germans had got behind them and so cut them off. They
were rather bitter regarding the “Pork and Beans,” as they called the
Portuguese, and stated with contempt that they had seen some of the
latter, after their capitulation, pass into the German lines with
hand-satchels, containing their belongings already packed!
On Monday, the 18th of November, scarcely two weeks after the first
definite gleam of approaching deliverance penetrated the prison city,
we realized with a strange, half-incredulous amazement that we were
free! The grey uniform had disappeared; those of our deliverers were
in view, and the outer world was once more a living reality! It seemed
impossible—or rather like awaking abruptly from a hideous dream! No
more roaring of cannon beyond the patient, proudly soaring trees of
the Bois—where sad gaps bear witness of the vandal’s hand; no more
racking thunder of mitrailleuse from the military exercise-field, or
droning of German aeroplanes over our heads; no more dread of armed
soldiers intruding upon our privacy, or of tyrannical _affiches_
imposing penalties and checking liberty! We could go forth into
the free streets without fear of the _polizei_. We could walk by
lamplight at night, instead of inky darkness, and take from our
windows the ugly blue paper or dark curtains by which the dim light
of our houses was hooded. The door-bell could ring without causing
panic, without forcing me, and others who plied the pen in secret, to
rush off and conceal perilous manuscripts even before knowing who
might be at the door. Buried treasures could be unearthed—newspapers
read—letters written—we could breathe normally once more! Over four
years of persecution, isolation, and association with misery, had led
in a few days, as it seemed, to this intoxicating hour of triumph,
when not only the victory we craved was attained, but the malignant
world-menacing monster, vanquished by the sword of Justice, had, like
a wounded scorpion, writhing in its pain, stung itself to death!