His household is greatly upset. His cook and three footmen have gone to
the war. He apologised for not inviting us to dine during these
depressing days, but said he could not, as his cook was a Lucretia di
Borgia. He is confident that the war is going to knock Brussels life
into a cocked hat this winter. So many of the families will be in
mourning, and so much poverty will come as a result of the war. Life
goes on so normally now, save for the little annoyances of living under
martial law, that it is hard to realise that such great changes are
imminent.
* * * * *
_Brussels, August 16, 1914._--This morning I walked out of my office and
bumped into Frederick Palmer. I had no idea he was so near. Two weeks
ago he was in Vera Cruz, but made a bee-line for Brussels at the first
news of impending war. In the breathing spaces during the morning I got
in a little visiting with him. He stayed to lunch at the Legation and so
did I. In the afternoon I took him to the Foreign Office and the War
Office and the Gendarmerie, and got him outfitted with passes, so that
he can make a try to get towards the front. As a measure of precaution I
added another _laisser-passer_ to my collection, with a beautiful
photograph on it. The collection grows every day.
I went to the Palace to dine with Palmer and Blount. We had hardly got
seated when in walked Richard Harding Davis and Gerald Morgan, and
joined us. I had not expected Davis here so soon, but here he is. He was
immaculate in dinner jacket and white linen, for war does not interfere
with his dressing.
While we were dining, a lot of motors came by filled with British
officers. There was a big crowd in the square, and they went crazy with
enthusiasm, cheering until the windows rattled.
* * * * *
_Brussels, August 18, 1914._--At ten in the morning I started with
Frederick Palmer and Blount in the latter's car, to see whether we could
get a little way out of town and get a glimpse of what was going on. We
were provided with _laisser-passers_ and passports and all sorts of
credentials, but as a strict prohibition against sightseers has been
enforced for some days, we rather doubted whether we should be able to
get farther than the edge of town. Before we got back we had gone more
than a hundred kilometers through the heart of things and saw a great
deal more than anybody should be allowed to see. We got back to town
about eight o'clock, thoroughly tired and with eyes filled with dust and
cinders.
Part way out the avenue we were hailed by a soldier, who asked us for a
lift as far as Tervueren. He climbed into the car beside me and rode
out. The Forêt de Soignes was mournful. Quatre Bras, where the cafés are
usually filled with a good-sized crowd of bourgeois, was deserted and
empty. The shutters were up and the proprietors evidently gone. The
Minister's house, near by, was closed. The gate was locked and the
gardener's dog was the only living thing in sight. We passed our Golf
Club a little farther on toward Tervueren. The old château is closed,
the garden is growing rank, and the rose-bushes that were kept so
scrupulously plucked and trim, were heavy with dead roses. The grass was
high on the lawns; weeds were springing up on the fine tennis courts.
The gardeners and other servants have all been called to the colours.
Most of the members are also at the front, shoulder to shoulder with the
servants. A few caddies were sitting mournfully on the grass and greeted
us solemnly and without enthusiasm. These deserted places are in some
ways more dreadful than the real horrors at the front. At least there is
life and activity at the front.
Before we got out of town the guards began stopping us, and we were held
up every few minutes until we got back to town at night. Sometimes the
posts were a kilometer or even two kilometers apart. Sometimes we were
held up every fifty yards. Sometimes the posts were regulars, sometimes
Gardes Civiques; often hastily assembled civilians, mostly too old or
too young for more active service. They had no uniforms, but only
rifles, caps, and brassards to distinguish them as men in authority. In
some places the men formed a solid rank across the road. In others they
sat by the roadside and came out only when we hove in sight. Our
_laisser-passers_ were carefully examined each time we were stopped,
even by many of the guards who did not understand a word of French, and
strangely enough, our papers were made out in only the one language.
They could, at least, understand our photographs and took the rest for
granted.
When we got to the first outpost at Tervueren, the guard waved our
papers aside and demanded the password. Then our soldier passenger
leaned across in front of Blount and whispered "_Belgique_." That got
us through everything until midday, when the word changed.
From Tervueren on we began to realise that there was really a war in
progress. All was preparation. We passed long trains of motor trucks
carrying provisions to the front. Supply depots were planted along the
way. Officers dashed by in motors. Small detachments of cavalry,
infantry and artillery pounded along the road toward Louvain. A little
way out we passed a company of scouts on bicycles. They are doing good
work, and have kept wonderfully fresh. In this part of the country
everybody looked tense and anxious and hurried. Nearer the front they
were more calm.
Most of the groups we passed mistook our flag for a British standard and
cheered with a good will. Once in a while somebody who recognised the
flag would give it a cheer on its own account, and we got a smile
everywhere.
All the farm houses along the road were either already abandoned or
prepared for instant flight. In some places the reaping had already
begun, only to be abandoned. In others the crop stood ripe, waiting for
the reapers that may never come. The sight of these poor peasants
fleeing like hunted beasts and their empty houses or their rotting crops
were the worst part of the day. It is a shame that those responsible for
all this misery cannot be made to pay the penalty--and they never can,
no matter what is done to them.
Louvain is the headquarters of the King and his État-Major. The King is
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces operating in Belgium, and is
apparently proving to be very much of a soldier. The town is completely
occupied and troops line the streets, stopping all motors and inspecting
papers, then telling you which way you can go. We were the only civilians
on the road all day, except the Red Cross people. The big square was
completely barred off from general traffic and was surrounded with
grenadiers. We got through the town and stopped at the only café we could
find open, where we had a bottle of mineral water and talked over what
we should do next.
In Louvain there is an American theological seminary. We had had some
correspondence with Monseigneur de Becker, its Rector, as to what he
should do to protect the institution. At our suggestion he had
established a Red Cross Hospital and had hoisted a big American flag,
but still he was not altogether easy in his mind. I called on him and
did my level best to reassure him, on the ground that the Germans were
certainly not making war on seminaries or priests, and that if the
Germans reached Louvain, all he had to do was to stay peacefully at home
and wait for quiet to be restored. Most of his students were gone and
some of the faculty had followed them, so his chief concern was for the
library and other treasures. My arguments did not seem to have very much
weight, but I left with a promise to look in again at the first
opportunity and to respond to any call the Rector might make.
From the seminary we drove out the Tirlemont road, to see if we could
get to that little town and see some of the fighting that was known to
be going on. At the edge of the town we came to a barricade of carts,
road-rollers and cobble stones, where we were courteously but firmly
turned back. Everybody was anxious to make it as nice as possible for
us, and one of the bright boys was brought forward to tell us in
English, so as to be more convincing. He smiled deprecatingly, and said:
"Verreh bad. Verreh sorreh. Oui mus' mak our office, not?" So we turned
and went back to town. They had told us that _nobody_ could go beyond
the barricade without an order from the _Commandant de Place_ at Louvain.
On the way back we decided that we could at least try, so we hunted
through the town until we found the headquarters of the Commandant.
A fierce-looking sergeant was sitting at a table near the door, hearing
requests for visés on _laisser-passers_. Everybody was begging for a
visé on one pretext or another, and most of them were being turned down.
I decided to try a play of confidence, so took our three cards and
walked up to his table, as though there could be no possible doubt of
his doing what I wanted. I threw our three _laisser-passers_ down in
front of him, and said in a business-like tone: "_Trois visés pour
Tirlemont, S.V.P._" My man looked up in mild surprise, viséed the three
papers without a word and handed them back in less time than it takes to
tell it. We sailed back to the barricade in high feather, astonished the
guard with our visé, and plowed along the road, weaving in and out among
ammunition wagons, artillery caissons, infantry, cavalry, bicyclists--all
in a dense cloud of dust. Troops were everywhere in small numbers.
Machine guns, covered with shrubbery, were thick on the road and in the
woods. There was a decidedly hectic movement toward the front, and it
was being carried out at high speed without confusion or disorder. It
was a sight to remember. All along the road we were cheered both as
Americans and in the belief that we were British. Whenever we were
stopped at a barricade to have our papers examined, the soldiers crowded
around the car and asked for news from other parts of the field, and
everybody was wild for newspapers. Unfortunately we had only a couple
that had been left in the car by accident in the morning. If we had only
thought a little, we could have taken out a cartful of papers and given
pleasure to hundreds.
The barricades were more numerous as we drew nearer the town. About two
miles out we were stopped dead. Fighting was going on just ahead, between
us and the town, and the order had been given out that _nobody_ should
pass. That applied to military and civilians alike, so we could not
complain, and came back to Louvain, rejoicing that we had been able to
get so far.
We hunted up our little café and ate our sandwiches at a table on the
sidewalk, letting the house profit to the extent of three glasses of
beer. We were hardly seated when a hush fell on the people sitting near.
The proprietor was summoned and a whispered conversation ensued between
him and a bewhiskered old man three tables away. Then Mr. Proprietor
sauntered over our way with the exaggerated carelessness of a stage
detective. He stood near us for a minute or two, apparently very much
interested in nothing at all. Then he went back, reported to "Whiskers"
and the buzz of conversation began again as though nothing had happened.
After a bit the proprietor came over again, welcomed us to the city,
asked us a lot of questions about ourselves, and finally confided to us
that we had been pointed out as Germans and that he had listened to us
carefully and discovered that we were nothing of the sort. "_J'ai très
bonne oreille pour les langues_," he said. Of course we were greatly
surprised to learn that we had been under observation. Think of German
spies within 200 yards of the headquarters of the General Staff! (And
yet they have caught them that near.) Every active citizen now considers
himself a policeman on special duty to catch spies, and lots of people
suffer from it. I was just as glad the proprietor had not denounced us
as spies, as the populace has a quite understandable distaste for them.
I was glad the bright café proprietor could distinguish our lingo from
German.
After lunch we went down to the headquarters of the General Staff, to
see if we needed any more visés. We did not, but we got a sight of the
headquarters with officers in all sorts of uniforms coming and going.
The square was full of staff autos. The beautiful carved Hôtel de Ville
is the headquarters. As we walked by, a British Major-General came down
the steps, returned everybody's salutes and rolled away--a fine gaunt
old type with white hair and moustache--the sort you read about in story
books.
After lunch we found that there was no use in trying to get to Tirlemont,
so gave that up, and inquired about the road to Diest. Everybody who was
in any sort of position to know told us we could not get more than a few
kilometers along the road, and that as Uhlans were prowling in that
neighbourhood, we might be potted at from the woods or even carried off.
On the strength of that we decided to try that road, feeling fairly
confident that the worst that could happen to us would be to be turned
back.
As we drew out along the road, the traffic got steadily heavier. Motors
of all sorts--beautifully finished limousines filled with boxes of
ammunition or sacks of food, carriages piled high with raw meat and
cases of biscuit. Even dog-carts in large numbers, with the good Belgian
dogs straining away at the traces with a good will, and barking with
excitement. They seemed to have the fever and enthusiasm of the men and
every one was pulling with all his strength. In some places we saw men
pushing heavily-laden wheelbarrows, with one or two dogs pulling in
front.
From Louvain on most of the barricades were mined. We could see clearly
as we passed where the mines were planted. The battery jars were under
the shelter of the barricade and the wire disappeared into some
neighbouring wood or field. Earthworks were planted in the fields all
along the lines, good, effective, well-concealed intrenchments that
would give lots of trouble to an attacking force. There was one place
where an important intrenchment was placed in a field of hay. The
breastworks were carefully covered with hay and the men had it tied
around their hats in such a way as to conceal them almost completely.
This war is evidently going to be fought with some attention to detail,
and with resourcefulness.
Diest itself we reached at about half past three, after having been
nearly turned back six or seven times. We were the only civilians that
had turned up all day, and although our papers seemed to be all right
and we could give a good account of ourselves, our mere presence was
considered so remarkable that a good many of the outposts were inclined
to turn us back. By virtue of our good arguments and our equally good
looks, however, we did manage to get through to the town itself.
Diest is an old town which figures a good deal in the combats of the
middle ages. It has a fine old church, quite large, a good Hôtel de
Ville, and clean, Dutch-looking streets, with canals here and there. The
whole town is surrounded with high earthworks, which constituted the
fortifications, which were part of the line of forts erected by the
allies after Waterloo, as a line of defence against French aggression.
These forts were so numerous that Belgium in her younger days had not
sufficient men to garrison them. A number of them were abandoned,
finally leaving Antwerp, Liège and Namur to bear the burden. Brialmont,
who built the great ring forts at Liège, wanted to build modern
fortifications at Diest, but could not get those holding the
purse-strings to see things his way.
Diest was attacked by Germans about three days ago. They wanted to take
the old fortifications so as to control the road and use the place as a
base of operations. It could hardly be called a big battle, but was more
probably in the nature of a reconnaissance in force with four or five
regiments of cavalry. This part of Belgium is the only place on the
whole field of operations where cavalry can be used and they are
certainly using it with a liberal hand, probably in attempt to feel out
the country and locate the main body of opposing troops. They have got
into a lot of trouble so far, and I am sure they have not yet located
the main bodies of the allied armies.
The shops were all closed and most of the people were sitting on the
sidewalk waiting for something to turn up. Some of them had evidently
been to America, and we had an ovation all the way in. The Grande Place
was filled with motors and motor trucks, this evidently being a supply
depôt. We had some of the local mineral water and talked with the people
who gathered round for a look at the _Angliches_.
They were all ready for anything that might come, particularly
Prussians. In the old days the Uhlans spread terror wherever they
appeared, to burn and shoot and plunder. Now they seem to arouse only
rage and a determination to fight to the last breath. There was a little
popping to the north and a general scurry to find out what was up. We
jumped in the car and made good time through the crowded, crooked little
streets to the fortifications. We were too late, however, to see the
real row. Some Uhlans had strayed right up to the edge of town and had
been surprised by a few men on the earthworks. There were no fatalities,
but two wounded Germans were brought into town in a motor. They were
picked up without loss of time and transported to the nearest Red Cross
hospital.
Cursing our luck we started off to Haelen for a look at the
battlefields. Prussian cavalry made an attack there the same day they
attacked Diest, and their losses were pretty bad.
At one of the barricades we found people with Prussian lances, caps,
haversacks, etc., which they were perfectly willing to sell. Palmer was
equally keen to buy, and he looked over the junk offered, while some two
hundred soldiers gathered around to help and criticise. I urged Palmer
to refrain, in the hope of finding some things ourselves on the
battlefield. He scoffed at the idea, however. He is, of course, an old
veteran among the war correspondents, and knew what he was about. He
said he had let slip any number of opportunities to get good things, in
the hope of finding something himself, but there was nothing doing when
he got to the field. We bowed to his superior knowledge and experience,
and let him hand over an English sovereign for a long Prussian lance. I
decided to do my buying on the way home if I could find nothing myself.
The forward movement of troops seemed to be headed toward Diest, for our
road was much more free from traffic. We got into Haelen in short order
and spent a most interesting half hour, talking to the officer in
command of the village. As we came through the village we saw the effect
of rifle fire and the work of machine guns on the walls of the houses.
Some of them had been hit in the upper story with shrapnel and were
pretty badly battered up. The village must have been quite unpleasant as
a place of residence while the row was on. The commanding officer, a
major, seemed glad to find some one to talk to, and we stretched our
legs for half an hour or so in front of his headquarters and let him
tell us all about what had happened. He was tense with rage against the
Germans, whom he accused of all sorts of barbarous practices, and whom
he announced the allies must sweep from the earth. He told us that only
a few hours before a couple of Uhlans had appeared in a field a few
hundred yards from where we were standing, had fired on two peasant
women working there, and then galloped off. Everywhere we went we heard
stories of peaceful peasants being fired on. It seems hard to believe,
but the stories are terribly persistent. There may be some sniping by
the non-combatant population, but the authorities are doing everything
they can to prevent it, by requiring them to give up their arms and
pointing out the danger of reprisals.
Before we moved on, our officer presented me with a Prussian lance he
had picked up on the battlefield near Haelen. We got careful directions
from him for finding the battlefield and set off for Loxbergen, where
the fight had taken place the day before. The run was about four
kilometers through little farms, where the houses had been set on fire
by shrapnel and were still burning. The poor peasants were wandering
around in the ruins, trying to save odds and ends from the wreck, but
there was practically nothing left. Of course they had had to flee for
their lives when the houses were shelled, and pretty much everything was
burned before they could safely venture back to their homes.
We had no difficulty in locating the field of battle when we reached it.
The ground was strewn with lances and arms of all sorts, haversacks,
saddle bags, trumpets, helmets and other things that had been left on
the ground after the battle. There were a few villagers prowling around,
picking things up, but there were enough for everybody, so we got out
and gathered about fifteen Prussian lances, some helmets and other odds
and ends that would serve as souvenirs for our friends in Brussels. As
everybody took us for English, they were inclined to be very friendly,
and we were given several choice trophies to bring back. While we were
on the field, a German aeroplane came soaring down close to us and
startled us with the sharp crackling of its motor. It took a good look
at us and then went its way. A little farther along, some Belgian troops
fired at the aeroplane, but evidently went wide of their mark, for it
went unconcernedly homeward. We wandered through the ruins of some old
farms and sized up pretty well what must have happened. The Germans had
evidently come up from the south and occupied some of the farmhouses
along the road. The Belgians had come down from the north and opened
fire on the houses with rapid-fire guns, for the walls were riddled with
small holes and chipped with rifle fire. Then shrapnel had been brought
into play, to set the houses on fire and bring the German troops out
into the open. Then they had charged the Belgians across an open field
and apparently with disastrous results. Part of the ground was in hay
which had already been harvested and piled in stacks, the rest was in
sugar beets. The Prussians had charged across the field and had come
upon a sunken road into which they fell helter-skelter without having
time to draw rein. We could see where the horses had fallen, how they
had scrambled to their feet and tried with might and main to paw their
way up on the other side. The whole bank was pawed down, and the marks
of hoofs were everywhere. The road was filled with lances and saddles,
etc. All through the field were new-made graves. There was, of course,
no time for careful burial. A shallow trench was dug every little way--a
trench about thirty feet long and ten feet wide. Into this were dumped
indiscriminately Germans and Belgians and horses, and the earth hastily
thrown over them--just enough to cover them before the summer sun got in
its work. There were evidences of haste; in one place we saw the arm of
a German sergeant projecting from the ground. It is said that over three
thousand men were killed in this engagement, but from the number of
graves we saw I am convinced that this was a good deal overstated. At
any rate it was terrible enough; and when we think that this was a
relatively unimportant engagement, we can form some idea of what is
going to happen when the big encounter comes, as it will in the course
of a few days more. It is clear that the Germans were driven off with
considerable losses, and that the Belgians still hold undisputed control
of the neighbourhood. There were a few scattered Uhlans reconnoitering
near by, but they were not in sufficient numbers to dare to attack.
After gathering our trophies we were ready to start for home; and it was
well we should, for it was getting rather late in the afternoon and we
had a long trip ahead of us with many delays.
Soon after leaving Haelen, on our way back we met a corps of bicycle
carabiniers who were rolling along toward Haelen at top speed. The
officer in command held us up and asked us for news of the country we
had covered. He seemed surprised that we had not seen any German
forces, for he said the alarm had been sent in from Haelen and that
there were strong forces of Belgians on the way to occupy the town and
be ready for the attack. When he had left us, we ran into one detachment
after another of infantry and lancers coming up to occupy the little
village.