Malines road and would try to skirt around the zone of trouble and work
our way into Brussels from the west. We got ferried across the Scheldt
on a terrible tub of a steamer that looked as though she would go down
under the weight of the military automobiles that she had to get across
in order to take ammunition to the front. We all got away in a bunch
from the other side, but we drew ahead of them as we had not such a
heavy load; and within three-quarters of an hour we were outside the
Belgian lines. Van der Elst had secured for us a most imposing
_laisser-passer_, which took us through with practically no trouble
except that it was so impressive that we were held at each barricade
while all the men on duty took turns reading it. The only ticklish part
of the trip to the Belgian outposts was working our way through the
villages which had been mined in anticipation of a German invasion. It
is bad enough working one's way through there in a motor with everybody
helping you to keep out of harm's way, but it must be a trifle worse to
do it in a mass with a man on a hill a little way off waiting for you to
come up to the signal post so that he can touch a button and send you in
small pieces into the next world.
We struck out through St. Nicholas, Hamme, Termonde and Assche, and got
into Brussels from the west without mishap. We have got quite used to
having people poke bayonets in our faces and brandish revolvers at us,
so the latter part of the trip with only that to contend with seemed
quiet and almost boring.
On the road in from Assche, we passed near Eppeghem and Vilvorde, where
the fighting had been going on for a couple of days. After news had been
received in Antwerp of the defeat of the French and English at Mons and
Charleroi, the Belgians were ordered to fall back on Antwerp and had
left these little villages to be occupied by the Germans. As they
occupied them, they had set them afire and the flames were raging as we
came by. They were quaint little towns, and had excited our admiration
two days before when we had gone through--despite the fact that we had
other things on our minds beside admiring the beauties of architecture.
Now they are gone.
The Germans gave us no trouble, and we got back to the Legation by a
little before five. Everyone poured out to meet us, and greeted us as
prodigal sons. When we had not come back the day before, they had about
made up their minds that something dreadful had happened to us, and the
rejoicing over our return was consequently much greater than if we had
not whetted their imaginations just a little.
I found that the situation in Brussels had undergone big changes while I
was away. General von Jarotzky had been replaced by General von
Lüttwitz, who is an administrator and has been sent to put things in
running order again. There was no inkling of this change when I left,
and I was a good deal surprised. Guns have been placed at various
strategic points commanding the town, and the Germans are ready for
anything. The telephone wire they had put through the town to connect
the two stations and headquarters was cut day before yesterday by some
cheerful idiot who probably thought he was doing something good for his
country. The military authorities thereupon announced that if anything
of the sort was done again they would lay waste the quarter of the town
where the act was committed.
Some of the subordinate officers have since told us that von Jarotzky
was a fighting general, and had no business staying in a post requiring
administrative ability. The new man is cut out particularly for this
sort of work, and is going to start a regular German administration.
Functionaries are being brought from Berlin to take things over, and in
a short time we shall, to all intents and purposes, be living in a
German city. The first trains ran to-day in a halting fashion to Liège
and the German frontier. Perhaps we shall have a newspaper.
Most distressing news has come through from Tamines. I had a long talk
to-day with a trustworthy man from there, and his story was enough to
make one's blood run cold. He says that on the evening of the
twenty-first the Germans entered the village after a brush with French
troops which were still in the neighbourhood. Infuriated by the
resistance offered to their advance, they proceeded to vent their rage
on the town. They shot down a lot of villagers, and arrested many more.
A great many escaped to the country. A lot of houses were first sacked,
and then burned. The orgy continued during the night, and through the
next day. On the evening of the twenty-second, something over four
hundred men were collected near the church and lined up to be shot. The
work was done for a time by a firing squad which fired into the crowd
with more or less system, but this was too slow, and finally a
rapid-fire gun was brought out and turned loose. Of course, a great many
were not killed outright and lay groaning among the dead. Now and then
a German would put one out of his misery by a bayonet thrust. Others
settled their own troubles by rolling themselves into the nearby river.
Altogether over six hundred people were shot down, but it is hard to get
any exact figures yet. After the shooting was over, other civilians were
brought out and compelled to bury the dead. My informant says that some
of the scenes attending this duty were quite as poignant as the shooting
itself, for some buried their own fathers and brothers. One man about to
be thrown into the trench was found to be still alive, but the German
doctor, after a cursory examination, ordered him buried with the rest.
The man had enough life left in him to raise his hand in appeal but the
doctor shrugged his shoulder and repeated his order. There were many
incidents, most of them horrible. The man who told the story seemed
still dazed and spoke quietly, with few adjectives and little emphasis
on anything he said. It was a bare recital of facts, and far more moving
than if he had striven for effect.
Davis got back yesterday from his trip to the front, and we learned that
he had been through a perfectly good experience that will look well when
he comes to writing it up, but one that gave him little satisfaction
while it was in progress. He started off to follow the German army in
the hope of locating the English. After leaving Hal, some bright young
German officer decided that he was a suspicious-looking character, and
ought to be shot as an English spy. As a preliminary, they arrested him
and locked him up. Then the war was called off while the jury sat on
his case. One of the officers thought it would be a superfluous effort
to go through the form of trying him, but that they should shoot him
without further to do. They began considering his case at eleven in the
morning, and kept it up until midnight. He was given pretty clearly to
understand that his chances were slim, and that the usual fate of spies
awaited him. He argued at length, and apparently his arguments had some
effect, for at three o'clock in the morning he was routed out and told
to hit the road toward Brussels. He was ordered to keep religiously to
the main road all the way back, on pain of being shot on sight, and to
report at headquarters here immediately on his arrival. By this time he
was perfectly willing to do exactly what was demanded by those in
authority, and made a bee-line back here on foot. He turned up at the
Legation yesterday morning, footsore and weary, and looking like a
tramp, and told his story to an admiring audience. I was still away on
my little jaunt, and did not get it at first hand. The Minister took him
down to call on the General, and got them to understand that Richard
Harding Davis was not an English spy, but, on the contrary, probably the
greatest writer that ever lived, not excepting Shakespeare or Milton.
The General said he had read some of his short stories, and that he
would not have him shot. Just the same, he was not keen about having him
follow the operations. He is now ordered to remain in this immediate
neighbourhood until further orders. To-day he had several interviews
with the General in an attempt to get permission to leave the country,
but had no luck. The last we saw of Davis, he came in late this
afternoon to tell us that he did not know what to do next. He said that
he had been through six wars, but that he had never been so scared as he
was at that time. If he is allowed to get out of Belgium, I think that
he will not darken the door of General von Lüttwitz for some time to
come.
I was surprised to learn that Hans von Herwarth, who used to be military
attaché in Washington, and whom I knew very well, is here as Adjutant to
our new Governor. I have not yet had time to get over to see him, but
shall try to do so to-morrow. I am glad to have somebody like that here
to do business with. He is a real white man, and I anticipate a much
better time with him than with any other officer they could send here in
that capacity.
Baron Capelle came in late this afternoon to tell me that the Germans
were bringing in a lot of priests on carts filled with cows and pigs,
and were planning to hold them as hostages. One of them had called out
and asked him to notify us that Monseigneur de Becker, Rector of the
American College at Louvain, was among these prisoners. He is the priest
I went to see when I was in Louvain ten days ago. I had told him he was
perfectly safe, and scoffed at his fears.
The Minister was out when this news came, but I sallied forth and tried
to locate the Monseigneur. He was not to be found anywhere. When I got
back to the Legation, both the Minister and Villalobar were here and I
told them all about what had happened. The people of the town were
getting excited over the treatment that was being meted out to their
priests, and it was in a fair way to result in serious trouble. Both
Ministers made for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where the German
Government is established, and before they left, had secured orders for
the release of all the hostages. A lot of these terrible things are done
by subordinate officers, and the people at the top seem only too anxious
to learn of such affairs and do what they can to remedy them. The day
has been dreadful with stories of suffering and murder and pillage.
Not only are we cut off from communication with the outside world, but a
lot of the ordinary conveniences of life have already disappeared. We
have no newspapers, no trams, no taxis, no telephones. Milk is no longer
to be had, and within a day or two we shall have no butter or eggs. Then
it will begin to look like a real siege. In a day or so I am to have a
list of Jarotzky's demands for supplies, so that I can cheer myself with
thoughts of what our life is to be like.
There is bad news from Louvain. The reports we have received agree that
there was some sort of trouble in the square before the Hôtel de Ville a
day or two ago. Beyond that, no two reports are alike. The Germans say
that the son of the Burgomaster shot down some staff officers who were
talking together at dusk before the Hôtel de Ville. The only flaw in
that story is that the Burgomaster has no son. Some Belgians say that
two bodies of Germans who were drunk met in the dusk; that one body
mistook the other for French, and opened fire. Other reliable people
tell with convincing detail that the trouble was planned and started by
the Germans in cold blood. However that may be, the affair ended in the
town being set on fire, and civilians shot down in the streets as they
tried to escape. According to the Germans themselves, the town is being
wiped out of existence. The Cathedral, the Library, the University, and
other public buildings have either been destroyed or have suffered
severely. People have been shot by hundreds, and those not killed are
being driven from the town. They are coming to Brussels by thousands,
and the end is not yet. This evening the wife of the Minister of Fine
Arts came in with the news that her mother, a woman of eighty-four, had
been driven from her home at the point of the bayonet and forced to walk
with a stream of refugees all the way to Tervueren, a distance of about
twelve miles, before she could be put on a tram to her daughter's house.
Two old priests have staggered into the ---- Legation more dead than
alive after having been compelled to walk ahead of the German troops for
miles as a sort of protecting screen. One of them is ill, and it is said
that he may die as a result of what he has gone through.
* * * * *
_August 28th._--After lunch Blount and I decided to go out to Louvain to
learn for ourselves just how much truth there is in the stories we have
heard, and see whether the American College is safe. We were going
alone, but Pousette and Bulle, the Swedish and Mexican Chargés
d'Affaires, were anxious to join us, so the four of us got away together
and made good time as far as the first outpost this side of Louvain.
Here there was a small camp by a hospital, and the soldiers came out to
examine our papers and warn us to go no farther, as there was fighting
in the town. The road was black with frightened civilians carrying away
small bundles from the ruins of their homes. Ahead was a great column of
dull gray smoke which completely hid the city. We could hear the muffled
sound of firing ahead. Down the little street which led to the town, we
could see dozens of white flags which had been hung out of the windows
in a childish hope of averting trouble.
We talked with the soldiers for some time in an effort to get some idea
of what had really happened in the town. They seemed convinced that
civilians had precipitated the whole business by firing upon the staff
of a general who was parleying with the Burgomaster in the square before
the Hôtel de Ville. They saw nothing themselves, and believe what they
are told. Different members of the detachment had different stories to
tell, including one that civilians had a machine gun installed on top of
the Cathedral, and fired into the German troops, inflicting much damage.
One of the men told us that his company had lost twenty-five men in the
initial flurry. They were a depressed and nervous-looking crew, bitter
against the civil population and cursing their ways with great
earnestness. They were at some pains to impress upon us that all
Belgians were _Schwein_, and that the people of Louvain were the lowest
known form of the animal.
After talking the situation over with the officer in command, we decided
to try getting around the town to the station by way of the ring of
outer boulevards. We got through in good shape, being stopped a few
times by soldiers and by little groups of frightened civilians who were
cowering in the shelter of doorways, listening to the noise of fighting
in the town, the steady crackle of machine guns, and the occasional
explosions.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Rue de Diest, Louvain]
[Illustration: The dead and the living. A Belgian civilian and a German
soldier]
They were pathetic in their confidence that the United States was coming
to save them. In some way word has traveled all over Belgium that we
have entered the war on the side of Belgium, and they all seem to
believe it. Nearly every group we talked to asked hopefully when our
troops were coming, and when we answered that we were not involved, they
asked wistfully if we didn't think we should be forced to come in later.
A little boy of about eight, in a group that stopped us, asked me
whether we were English, and when I told him what we were, he began
jumping up and down, clapping his hands, and shouting:
_Les Américains sont arrivés! Les Américains sont arrivés!_
His father told him to be quiet, but he was perfectly happy and clung to
the side of the car as long as we stayed, his eyes shining with joy,
convinced that things were going to be all right somehow.
About half way around the ring of boulevards we came to burning houses.
The outer side of the boulevard was a hundred feet or so from the
houses, so the motor was safe, but it was pretty hot and the cinders
were so thick that we had to put on our goggles. A lot of the houses
were still burning, but most of them were nothing but blackened walls
with smouldering timbers inside. Many of the front doors had been
battered open in order to start the fires or to rout out the people who
were in hiding.
We came to a German ammunition wagon, half upset against a tree, where
it had been hurled when the horses had turned to run away. The tongue
was broken and wrenched out. Near by were the two horses, dead and
swollen until their legs stood out straight. Then we began to see more
ghastly sights--poor civilians lying where they had been shot down as
they ran--men and women--one old patriarch lying on his back in the sun,
his great white beard nearly hiding his swollen face. All sorts of
wreckage scattered over the street, hats and wooden shoes, German
helmets, swords and saddles, bottles and all sorts of bundles which had
been dropped and abandoned when the trouble began. For three-quarters of
a mile the boulevard looked as though it had been swept by a cyclone.
The Porte de Tirlemont had evidently been the scene of particularly
bloody business. The telegraph and trolley wires were down; dead men and
horses all over the square; the houses still burning. The broad road we
had traveled when we went to Tirlemont was covered with wreckage and
dead bodies.
Some bedraggled German soldiers came out from under the gate and
examined our passes. They were nervous and unhappy and shook their heads
gloomily over the horrors through which they were passing. They said
they had had hardly a minute's sleep for the past three nights. Their
eyes were bloodshot and they were almost too tired to talk. Some of them
were drunk--in the sodden stage, when the effect begins to wear off.
They told us we could proceed in safety as far as the station, where we
would find the headquarters of the commanding officer. Here we could
leave the motor and learn how far we could safely go. This crowd varied
the wording a little by saying that the Belgians were all dogs and that
these particular dogs were being driven out, as they should be, that all
that part of town was being cleared of people, ordered to leave their
homes and go to Brussels or some other town, so that the destruction of
Louvain could proceed systematically. We thought at the time that they
were exaggerating what was being done, but were enlightened before we
had gone much farther.
We continued down the boulevard for a quarter of a mile or so till we
came to the station. Sentries came out and looked through our passes
again. We parked the motor with a number of German military cars in the
square and set off on foot down the Rue de la Station, which we had
admired so much when we had driven down its length, just ten days
before.
The houses on both sides were either partially destroyed or smouldering.
Soldiers were systematically removing what was to be found in the way of
valuables, food, and wine, and then setting fire to the furniture and
hangings. It was all most businesslike. The houses are substantial stone
buildings, and fire will not spread from one to another. Therefore the
procedure was to batter down the door of each house, clean out what was
to be saved, then pile furniture and hangings in the middle of the room,
set them afire, and move on to the next house.
It was pretty hot, but we made our way down the street, showing our
passes every hundred feet or so to soldiers installed in comfortable
armchairs, which they had dragged into the gutter from looted houses,
till we came to a little crossing about half way to the Hôtel de Ville.
Here we were stopped by a small detachment of soldiers, who told us that
we could go no farther; that they were clearing civilians out of some
houses a little farther down the street, and that there was likely to be
firing at any time.
The officer in command spoke to us civilly and told us to stick close to
him so that we could know just what we ought to do at any time. He was
in charge of the destruction of this part of the town and had things
moving along smartly. His men were firing some houses near by and he
stood outside smoking a rank cigar and looking on gloomily.
We exchanged remarks with him in German for a few minutes, I limping
along behind the more fluent Pousette and Bulle. Then I said something
in an aside to Blount, and the officer broke into the conversation in
perfectly good English. He turned out to be a volunteer officer from
Hamburg, who had spent some thirty years in England and was completely
at home in the language.
We then accomplished the formal introductions which are so necessary to
Germans even at a time like this, and when we came to Bulle the officer
burst into a rapid fire of questions, which ended in his proclaiming in
rapture:
"Why, I knew your father in Hamburg and went to school with your Uncle
So-and-so!"
Reminiscence went on as though we were about a dining table at home;
minute inquiry was made into the welfare and activities of the Bulle
family from the cradle to the grave. On the strength of the
respectability of Bulle's relatives we were then taken under the
officer's wing and piloted by him through the rest of our visit.
From where we stood we could see down the street through the smoke, as
far as the Hôtel de Ville. It was still standing, but the Cathedral
across the street was badly damaged and smoke was rising in clouds from
its roof. The business houses beyond were not to be seen; the smoke was
too dense to tell how many of them were gone.
Machine guns were at work near by, and occasionally there was a loud
explosion when the destructive work was helped with dynamite.
A number of the men about us were drunk and evidently had been in that
state for some time. Our officer complained that they had had very
little to eat for several days, but added glumly that there was plenty
to drink.
A cart, heaped high with loot, driven by a fat Landsturmer and pulled by
a tiny donkey, came creaking past us. One of our party pulled his kodak
from his pocket and inquired of our guardian in English: "May I take a
picture?"
His intent evidently escaped the German, who answered cordially:
"Certainly; go ahead. You will find some beautiful things over there on
the corner in the house they are getting ready to burn."
We kept our faces under control, and he was too much occupied with his
other troubles to notice that we did not avail of his kind permission
to join in the pillage.
He was rabid against the Belgians and had an endless series of stories
of atrocities they had committed--though he admitted that he had none of
them at first hand. He took it as gospel, however, that they had fired
upon the German troops in Louvain and laid themselves open to reprisals.
To his thinking there is nothing bad enough for them, and his chief
satisfaction seemed to consist in repeating to us over and over that he
was going the limit. Orders had been issued to raze the town--"till not
one stone was left on another," as he said.
Just to see what would happen I inquired about the provision of The
Hague Conventions, prescribing that no collective penalty can be imposed
for lawless acts of individuals. He dismissed that to his own
satisfaction by remarking that:
"All Belgians are dogs, and all would do these things unless they are
taught what will happen to them."
Convincing logic!
With a hard glint in his eye he told us the purpose of his work; he came
back to it over and over, but the burden of what he had to say was
something like this:
"We shall make this place a desert. We shall wipe it out so that it will
be hard to find where Louvain used to stand. For generations people will
come here to see what we have done, and it will teach them to respect
Germany and to think twice before they resist her. Not one stone on
another, I tell you--_kein Stein auf einander!_"
I agreed with him when he remarked that people would come here for
generations to see what Germany had done--but he did not seem to follow
my line of thought.
While we were talking about these things and the business of burning and
looting was pursuing its orderly course, a rifle shot rang out near by.
Instantly every soldier seized his rifle and stood waiting for an
indication as to what would happen next. In a few seconds a group of
soldiers rushed into a house about a hundred feet away. There was a
sound of blows, as though a door was being beaten in; then a few shots,
and the soldiers came out wiping the perspiration from their faces.
"Snipers!" said our guide, shaking his fist at the house. "We have gone
through that sort of thing for three days and it is enough to drive us
mad; fighting is easy in comparison, for then you know what you are
doing." And then almost tearfully: "Here we are _so_ helpless!"
While he was talking another shot rang out, and then there was a regular
fusillade, which lasted for fifteen seconds or so; then an explosion.
Bulle stood not upon the order of his going, but ran for the station,
calling back:
"I've had enough of this. Let's get out and go home."