send the messages, when the Spanish Minister drove up in his big green
car with the Spanish flag flying at the fore. We told him our story,
whereupon he announced that he also had telegrams to send and that he
would go with us. We drove in state to the telegraph office, and found
that the entrance which had been indicated to us was the alley through
which the mail wagons drive in the good days when there are any. Before
an admiring crowd, we descended and made our way among Prussian troopers
through the noisome alley to a small side door, where we were stopped by
a sentry who stuck a bayonet in our general direction and said we could
go no further. I was immediately thrust into the foreground as the
brilliant German scholar; and, limbering up my heavy German artillery, I
attacked him. The sentry blanched, but stood his ground. An officer came
up as reinforcements, but was also limited to the German tongue; so I
had to keep it up, with two full-grown Ministers behind me thinking up
impossible things to be translated into the hopeless tongue. The
officer, who was a genial soul, announced as though there were no use
ever again to appear at that particular place, that the instruments had
all been removed, and that there was absolutely no way of sending any
messages--no matter from whom they came. We told him that we had come at
the special request of the General himself. He replied that that made no
difference whatever; that if there were no wires and no instruments,
there was no possible way of sending the messages. After three or four
repetitions, the Minister and I began to understand that there was no
use haggling about it; but the Spanish Minister was not so lightly to be
turned aside and took up the cudgels, himself bursting into the German
language. He stood his ground valiantly in the face of a volley of long
words, but he did not get any forrader. Prince Ernst de Ligne came in
with a permit from the General to send his messages, and joined forces
with the Spanish Minister; but the poor officer could only shrug his
shoulders and smile and repeat what he had already said a score of
times. Mr. Whitlock and I began to laugh, and had a hard time to control
ourselves. Finally we prevailed upon them to return to the Hôtel de
Ville. The Minister was beginning to get even madder than he was
yesterday, when I got back with my story of the way I had spent the
afternoon, going from one wild goose chase to another. We got the
Burgomaster in his private office and placed our troubles before him. He
understood the importance of the matter and sent for the General. He
appeared in short order, clicked his heels, and inquired whether we had
come in regard to the matter of telegrams. The old fox knew perfectly
well that we had, and was ready for us. We had come to the
conclusion--which I had reached yesterday afternoon and held all by
myself--that the old man was jockeying.
He listened to what we had to say, and then said that there was no means
of communication with the outside world; that he had just learned it a
few minutes before. It is hardly necessary to say that he had been fully
posted from the minute he set foot in the town. The Spanish Minister was
rather sarcastic about his opinion of a General who would venture to
occupy a capital without being in possession of means of telegraphic
communication. The old soldier was in no mood for argument on abstract
questions, and was playing for too big stakes to stop and dicker, so he
passed this over lightly and suggested that we go back and discuss with
the Director-General of Telegraphs the possibilities of reëstablishing
communications. Then the Spanish Minister let loose on him, and
announced that it was not consistent with the dignity of representatives
of World Powers to spend their time standing in back alleys disputing
with soldiers who barred the way and refused to honour the instructions
of their General. He threw in hot shot until the effect told. He said
plainly that the General was full of fair words and promises and agreed
to anything that was asked of him, but that when we went to do the
things he had authorised, we were baffled by subordinates that took it
upon themselves to disregard these orders--the intimation being
cleverly conveyed that their action might not be unconnected with
instructions from above. The old man then dropped his bluff, and asked
what we wanted. We asked that he send for the Director-General, and give
him, in our presence, the instructions and authorisation necessary to
enable him to reëstablish communication with the outside world, and
instruct him to receive and send all official messages for the Legations
of neutral Powers. There was no way out, short of flatly refusing to
give us our right to communicate with our governments, so the
Director-General was sent for and the Burgomaster wrote out, at our
dictation, the most general and comprehensive orders to meet our wishes
in all matters of official business. The General signed the order and
instructed the Director-General to go ahead.
The Director-General was a poor soul who could see nothing but technical
difficulties in everything that was proposed. He reluctantly agreed to
everything that he was told to do, and there is no telling when our
stories will get off. He told us that when the Germans had occupied the
telegraph bureau, instead of simply disconnecting the instruments and
placing a man there to see that communication was not reëstablished, the
officer in command had battered down the door leading to the roof and
had slashed all the wires with his sabre. As there were three or four
hundred wires leading out of the office, it will be a tremendous job to
get them all together again.
We also took occasion to arrange for the issuance of _sauf conduits_ for
all the members of the Legations and for such members of the foreign
colonies under our protection as we care to vouch for. Food is getting
very scarce because of the enormous demands of the Germans, and we told
von Jarotzky that we should expect that he make arrangements to see that
our colonies should not suffer from the requisitions--that ample food be
reserved to keep them all as long as it might be found necessary for
them to stay here. He agreed to this, but I don't see just how he is to
arrange it in practice. There are about fifty thousand men camping
within a few miles of Brussels, and another Army Corps is now marching
in. The food for all the people must be supplied by the city--all
importations from the outside world have been suspended for days. It is
a pretty bad situation, and it will probably get a great deal worse
before long. I don't know whether we shall get down to eating horse and
dog, but it is not altogether improbable. That is one of these things
that it is interesting to read about afterward.
We spent nearly two hours at the Hôtel de Ville, and got in a good deal
of talk that will be of service to all sorts of people. When we got
back, we found the chancery full of people who were waiting for us to
tell them just how they could send telegrams and letters, and get
passports and permits to pass through the lines in all possible
directions. Before leaving I had dictated a bulletin which was posted in
the hallway, stating that there were no communications with the outside
world by rail, telegraph or post, and that no _laisser-passers_ would be
granted by the authorities until conditions had changed, and that the
Legation could not issue any sort of papers which would enable people to
leave in safety.
About four o'clock, McCutcheon, Irwin and Cobb breezed in, looking like
a lot of tramps. Several days ago they had sailed blissfully away to
Louvain in a taxi, which they had picked up in front of the hotel. When
they got there, they got out and started to walk about to see what was
going on, when, before they could realise what was happening, they found
themselves in the midst of a Belgian retreat, hard-pressed by a German
advance. They were caught between the two, and escaped with their lives
by flattening themselves up against the side of a house while the firing
continued. When the row was over, they were left high and dry with no
taxi--of course it had been seized by the retreating troops--and with no
papers to justify their presence in Louvain at such a time. They decided
that the best thing to do was to go straight to the German headquarters
and report. They were received well enough, and told to lodge themselves
as best they could and stay indoors until it was decided what was to be
done with them. They were told that they might be kept prisoners here,
or even sent to Berlin, but that no harm would come to them if they
behaved themselves. The order had gone out that if a single shot was
fired at the German troops, from the window of any house, everybody in
the house was to be immediately taken out and shot. Not wishing to risk
any such unpleasant end, they rented all the front rooms of a house and
spread themselves through all the rooms, so that they could be sure that
nobody did any slaughtering from their house. They were there for three
days, and were told to-day that they might take themselves hence. They
came back to Brussels in the same clothes that they had worn for the
past three days, unshaven and dirty. When they drove up to the front
door this afternoon, they were nearly refused admittance as being too
altogether disreputable.
This evening, when I went to see my old friend the General, just before
dinner, he told me that he had had news of a great battle near Metz, in
which the French army had been cut off and practically destroyed, with a
loss of 45,000 prisoners. It sounds about as probable as some of the
other yarns. In view of the fact that my friend had no telegraphic
communication, I was curious to know where he got his information, but
my gentle queries did not bring forth any news on that point.
The Germans now expect to establish themselves for some time here in
Brussels. They are going to occupy the various governmental departments,
and it is quite possible that for some time we shall have to deal
exclusively with them. The Government to which we are accredited has
faded away, and we are left here with a condition and not a theory. We
shall have to deal with the condition, and I am not at all sure that the
condition will not require some pretty active dealing with.
Functionaries are to be brought from Berlin to administer the various
departments, so that it is evidently expected that the occupation is not
to be of a temporary character.
* * * * *
_Later._--After writing the foregoing, I went upstairs and listened to
some of the tales of the four people who were tied up at Louvain. Now
that they are safely out of it, they can see the funny side of it, but
it was certainly pretty dangerous while it lasted. Monsieur de Leval is
overcome with admiration for their _sang-froid_, and marvels at the race
of men we breed.
They seem to have made themselves solid with the Germans before they had
been there long; it would be hard for anybody to resist that crowd any
length of time. Of course they never saw their taxi again after getting
out to scout for the battle, and whenever the Major who had the duty of
keeping them under surveillance came to take a look at them, Cobb would
work up a sob-shaken voice and plead for liberty and permission to
return to Brussels. He was always at some pains to explain that it was
not his life he was worrying about, but the haunting thought of that
taxi running up at the rate of fifty centimes every three minutes. After
a while he got the Major's funny bone located, and then all was well. He
so completely got into the officer's good graces that he promised to
send us word that they were safe and well,--and then failed to do so.
While the Germans occupied the city, all inhabitants were required to be
indoors by eight o'clock; a light had to be kept in every window, and
the blinds left open, so that any one moving could be clearly seen from
the street. The windows themselves were to be closed. Dosch said he woke
up about four o'clock one morning with his head splitting; the lamp was
smoking and the air vile with smoke and smell. He decided he would
prefer to be shot than die of headache, so deliberately got up and
opened his window. The story loses its point by the fact that after
violating this strict rule, he was not taken out and shot.
They said it was really pretty dreadful. From their window, they saw,
every little while, a group of soldiers lead some poor frightened
Belgian to a little café across the street; several officers were
sitting at one of the tables on the sidewalk, holding a sort of drumhead
court martial. While they were examining the case, a squad would be
marched around behind the railroad station. A few minutes later the
prisoner would be marched around by another way, and in a few minutes
there would be a volley and the troops would be marched back to their
post; then, after a little while, a stretcher would be brought out with
a body in civilian clothes, a cloth over the face. Some of the prisoners
were women, and there were screams before the shots were fired. It must
have been a dreadful ordeal to go through.
* * * * *
_Brussels, August 27, 1914._--The day after my last entry I started on a
trip to Antwerp, got through the lines and managed to wriggle back into
Brussels last night after reëstablishing telegraph communication with
the Department and having a number of other things happen to and around
about me.
All I can remember now of the 23d is that it was a Sunday, and that we
could hear cannonading all day long from the east. It was hard to tell
just where it came from, but it was probably from the direction of Wavre
and Namur. It was drizzly all day. The German troops continued to pour
through the city. From time to time, during the last few days, their
march has been interrupted for a couple of hours at a time, apparently
as a result of a determined attempt on the part of the French and
English to stop the steady flow of troops toward the French frontier.
Each time we could hear the booming of the cannon, the deep voices of
the German guns and the sharp, dry bark of the French. At night we have
seen the searchlights looking for the enemy or flashing signals. Despite
the nearness of all this fighting and the sight of the wounded being
brought in, the streets barred off to keep the noisy traffic away from
the hospitals, and all the other signs of war, it has still been hard to
realize that it was so near us.
Our little German General, von Jarotzky, has kept clicking his heels
together and promising us anything we chose to ask. We have run around
day after day with our telegrams, and not one has got farther than the
Hôtel de Ville. Being naturally somewhat touchy, we got tired of this
after a few days, and decided that the only way to get any news to
Washington was for me to go to Antwerp and get into direct communication
over the cable from there. We got our telegrams ready and made a last
try on the General Monday morning. He was still effusively agreeable and
assured us that he had determined to place a military field wire at our
disposal so that we could communicate with Washington via Berlin. Our
previous experiences had made us suspicious, so it was decided that
while depositing our messages here, I would make a try at getting
through the lines and send whatever I thought best from Antwerp or any
other place I could reach. We told the General frankly what we intended
to do, and he was all smiles and anxiety to please. At our request he
had an imposing passport made out for me, signed with his hand and
authorized with his seal. The Burgomaster wrote out an equally good
letter for us when we reached the Belgian lines. Providence was to take
care of us while we were between the lines, and, just to make it
unanimous, He did.
We wanted to get away during the morning, but one thing after another
came up and I was kept on the jump. We had to stop and worry about our
newspaper correspondents, who have wandered off again. Morgan came
sauntering in during the morning and announced that he and Davis had set
out on foot to see whether there was any fighting near Hal; they had
fallen in with some German forces advancing toward Mons. After
satisfying themselves that there was nothing going on at Hal or Enghien,
Morgan decided that he had had enough walking for one day, and was for
coming home. Davis felt that they were too near the front to give up,
and with a Sherlock Holmes sagacity announced that if they stuck to
these German troops, they would succeed in locating the French and
British armies. Morgan thought this so probable that he was all for
coming back, and left Davis tramping along behind an ammunition wagon in
search of adventure. He found it.
After getting out of their trouble at Louvain, McCutcheon, Cobb and
Lewis set forth on another adventure. There are, of course, no motor
cars or carriages to be had for love or money, so they invested in a
couple of aged bicycles and a donkey cart. Cobb, who weighs far above
standard, perched gracefully on top of the donkey cart, and the other
two pedalled alongside on their wheels. They must have been a funny
outfit, and at last accounts were getting along in good style. The air
is filled with nervousness, however, and there is a constantly
increasing list of people who are being thrown into jail, or shot as
spies, and there is little time for careful and painstaking trials for
wanderers who are picked up inside the lines of the fighting armies and
are unable to render a convincing account of themselves. I shall be
rather uncomfortable about them until they reappear.
While we were waiting for the final formalities for our trip to be
accomplished, I invested in a wrist watch and goggles. We also bought a
fuzzy animal like a Teddy bear, about three inches high, and tied him on
the radiator as a mascot. He made a hit with all hands and got a
valuable grin from several forbidding-looking Germans. We had signs on
the car fore and aft, marking it as the car of the American Legation,
the signs being in both French and German. As we were the first to try
to make the trip, we thought it up to us to neglect nothing that would
help to get us through without any unpleasant shooting or bayoneting.
[Illustration: Letter signed by Burgomaster Max requesting the Belgian
authorities to allow Mr. Gibson to pass through the lines on his way to
Antwerp. This was one of the last documents signed by the Burgomaster
before he was sent to Germany as a prisoner of war.
Bruxelles, le 24 Septembre 1914
Le Bourgmestre de Bruxelles, prie les Autorités Belges de bien
vouloir laisser passer Monsieur Hugh S. Gibsen, secrétaire de la
Légation des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, accompagné de son chauffeur.
M.H.S. Gibsen est chargé d'une mission officielle.
Le Bourgmestre
Vu au Consulat de Belgique
à ROOSENDAAL (P.B.)
le 28 septembre 1914
LE CONSUL DE BELGIQUE]
After formally filing all our telegrams with the German General, Blount
and I got under way at half-past two. We pulled out through the northern
end of the city, toward Vilvorde. There were German troops and supply
trains all along the road, but we were not stopped until we got about
half way to Vilvorde. Then we heard a loud roar from a field of cabbages
we were passing and, looking around, discovered what looked like a
review of the Knights of Pythias. A magnificent-looking man on
horseback, wearing several orders, surrounded by a staff of some ten or
twelve others, was riding toward us through the cabbages, waving angrily
at us to stop. The whole crowd surrounded the car and demanded hotly how
we dared venture out of town by this road. While they were industriously
blowing us up, the Supreme Potentate observed the sign on the front of
the car, GESANDTSCHAFT DER VEREINIGTEN STAATEN, whereupon he came
straightway to salute and kept it up. The others all saluted most
earnestly and we had to unlimber and take off our hats and bow as
gracefully as we could, all hunched up inside a little racing car. Then
I handed out our pass, which the chief of staff read aloud to the
assembled notables. They were all most amiable, warned us to proceed
with great caution, driving slowly, stopping every hundred yards, and to
tear back toward town if popping began in our immediate neighbourhood.
They were so insistent on our not getting in the way of bullets that I
had to assure them, in my best rusty German, that we were getting into
this ragged edge of their old war simply because it was necessary for
business reasons and not because of any ardent desire to have holes shot
through us. They all laughed and let us go our way with a final caution.
From that time on we were in the midst of German patrols. We religiously
observed the officers' advice to drive slowly and keep a lookout. Five
minutes later we began to meet peasants running away from their homes in
the direction of Brussels. They reported fighting near Malines, and said
that we were running straight into it. They were a badly frightened
lot. We decided that the only thing to do was to go ahead, feeling our
way carefully, and come back or wait if things got too hot for us. We
were stopped several times by troops crossing the road to get into
trenches that were already prepared, and once had to wait while a big
gun was put in place. It was a ticklish business to come around a turn
in the road and light on a hundred men sneaking along behind a hedge
with their rifles ready for instant action. Just beyond Eppeghem we met
a troop of cavalry convoying a high cart filled with peasants, who had
evidently been taken prisoners. The officer in charge was a nervous
chap, who came riding at us, brandishing his revolver, which he had tied
to the pommel of his saddle with a long cord. He was most indignant that
we had been allowed to come this far and reluctantly admitted that our
pass was good. All the time he talked with us, and told us of the
skirmishing ahead, he kept waving that large blunderbuss in our faces. I
tried a little humour on him by saying, as nearly as the unwieldy
structure of the German tongue would permit: "Please point that thing
the other way; you can never tell when it may go off and hurt somebody."
He was quite solemn about it, however, and assured us that he had
perfect control over it, emphasising his remarks by shaking it under our
noses. I was glad to get out of his range, for I verily believe that if
somebody had shouted _boo!_ he would have let that gun off with a bang.
The German officers we talked with from time to time said that the
Belgians were advancing, and that several skirmishes had taken place;
that a big engagement was expected during the night or in the morning.
We passed the last of the German outposts about two miles this side of
Malines, but for fear we might tell on them, they would not tell us
whether we had any more of their kind ahead of us. We shot along through
the open country, between the last Germans and the edge of Malines, at a
fairly good rate, and kept a lookout for the English flag, which we had
been given to understand was flying from the tower of the Cathedral.
That is what we had been given to understand in Brussels, but along the
road they were very noncommittal about the whereabouts of the British
troops. When we finally did get a clear view of the Cathedral spires, we
saw the Belgian flag standing straight out in the good breeze that was
blowing, and while that showed that the English troops had not taken
over the place, it at least convinced us that the Germans were behind
us; As we drove through the little suburb on this side of the canal
which runs through the edge of the town, we found that all the houses
were battened up tight. One lone man, who came out from a little café,
told us that the Germans had been through about fifteen minutes before,
and had shot up the town, until they were driven off by a small force of
Belgian cavalry which had appeared from nowhere and had as quickly gone
back to the same place. Not knowing what forces were ready to start in
again on short notice, all the inhabitants who were fortunate enough to
have cellars were hiding in them, and the rest were trying to get into
town as best they could, leaving their belongings.
When we reached the canal, we found that the drawbridge had been taken
up, and that there was no way to get across. There were a few gendarmes
on the other side, and a few carts on our side of the canal. All were
anxious to get across, but the Burgomaster had ordered traffic suspended
until things had quieted down. We prevailed upon a genial gendarme to
run back and get orders to govern our special case. After waving our
credentials and showing how much influence we had with the local
administration, we were quite popular with the panic-stricken peasants
who wanted to get into town. Orders came very soon, and we made straight
for the Hôtel de Ville to thank the Burgomaster for letting us in, and
also to pick up any news he had as to conditions. We did not get any
great amount, however, as he could not get over the fact that we had
come straight through from Brussels without having been shot by the
German or the Belgian patrols, who were out with orders to pick up
strays like us. We tried several times to get information out of him,
but he could do nothing but marvel at our luck, and above all at our
_prouesse_, which left him quite bowled over. We gave him up and went
our way. He has had other things to marvel about since.