The Spell of Belgium Part 23

Adolphe Max, the Burgomaster of Brussels, was forced to take charge of all supplies. The city fed the Germans for eight days without pay. After this period the Mayor refused to furnish food longer without compensation. Then field kitchens were established in several prominent squares--in the Grande Place, before the Palais de Justice, and in front of the King's palace--where the beautiful trees of the park were cut down for firewood. The museums and hotels were turned into sleeping places for officers and men. The Palais de Justice was made not only a kitchen but also a bath house. The railway stations, too, were used for this purpose.

No carriages or bicycles were allowed to leave Brussels. The people lived in constant terror from German aeroplanes that were flying overhead. After the Germans occupied the city no one dared to speak English.

The Germans thought that Belgian weapons were hidden in the ponds, and so they drained them, and carted away the fish to be eaten by themselves. Fish and bread could not be bought by the people, even if they offered to pay for them.

Every day fresh troops and aeroplanes and ammunition pa.s.sed through or over Brussels. Cartloads and trainloads of dead Germans were brought night and day to the Gare du Luxembourg to be s.h.i.+pped on to the Fatherland. The moaning of the wounded and the dying was pitiful.

Non-combatants of all nations fighting the Germans were taken prisoners and sent to Germany. All women between the ages of fifteen and forty were kept under German guard; those over forty were told to report every few days to the German authorities.

Villages like Hofstade and Sempst were taken and retaken again and again. Dinant and Termonde fell within a week after the occupation of Brussels. The bombardment of Malines lasted three weeks. Termonde changed hands twice, Malines three times.

The siege of Antwerp began the 26th and lasted several days. The Zeppelin raid before the bombardment was most terrible, but the Germans did not accomplish their purpose of striking the palace and killing the royal family. After this, the Queen went to England for a time with her children, returning later, but the King remained in Antwerp and led the defense.

The small Belgian force had at least kept the Germans out of Antwerp until the valuable oil tanks had been destroyed, as well as the s.h.i.+ps in the harbour and the precious stores of rubber from the Congo. The English marines appeared toward the last, and gave some a.s.sistance, but the city was finally captured by the Germans, before whom, on September 5th, the Belgian army retired to La Panne. Ostend was occupied by the Germans the 16th of October. Severe fighting took place at Nieuport the 23d, and Westende and Middelkerke were destroyed. Dixmude fell November 11th. Between the 12th and the 15th, 100,000 Germans were killed, and the Yser Ca.n.a.l flowed with human blood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Nieuport_]

November 18th, Flanders, as in days of old, was flooded from the sea-coast almost to Ypres, drowning out the enemy. In December, activities were renewed along the Yser, but the trenches about Ypres, "the key to the coast campaign," were only captured February 15th. Ypres at last fell in May, after repeated attacks.

The exodus of a bleeding race was one of the saddest sights in history.

The Belgians literally swarmed into Holland, where they are cared for in camps even today. The reason of this exodus to England and Holland is found in the treatment of the Belgians by the invaders. I will not go into the subject of atrocities, but simply give an extract from the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Violation of the Rules of International Law, and the Laws and Customs of War.

"From the total ma.s.s of evidence received by us we are able to deduct and prove absolutely true the following conclusions....

"I. The first was the barbarous device of compelling bodies of citizens, old and young, male and female, to march in front of German troops in order to s.h.i.+eld them from the fire of the Allies.

"II. The second was the imprisonment, either under the t.i.tle of 'Hostages,' or on other pretexts, of individuals, families, or groups of people, who were arrested at hazard and for no good reason, shut up without air, without sanitary precautions, and without food, in churches, barns and stables, and carried off to Germany, where they were kept under conditions which made hygiene and decency impossible.

"III. The third series of acts consists of wholesale murders of civilians and of the sack and burning of dwelling houses; concerning these incidents the light of evidence grows daily stronger."

These men were in command when the atrocities were perpetrated: The Governor-General of Belgium was Field Marshal Baron von der Goltz; von Buelow was in command of Namur and Liege; von Boehn was in command at Termonde. Others in this list were von Emmich, von Nieker, von Luetwitz, and Major Dieckmann.

But the Belgians are a brave people and they are used to misfortune, so we may believe that though seemingly conquered, they will finally be triumphant. Long live the Belgians! Long live their King!

II

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT

I insert a few extracts from letters written by reliable people about Belgium, or by Belgians during the war, in order to show the true state of affairs. Most of them were written in French and have been translated. With the exception of the Cardinal's letter,[14] none of them have been published.

[14] Note:--I have heard the spreading of the Cardinal's letter by Mme. Carton de Wiart was one of the reasons of her arrest, trial and imprisonment.

Extract from a letter from Brussels in August, 1914.

"We are living in suspense now, as the Germans are getting very strict and angry. Boys and young men leave daily to join the army, and the different ways of crossing the frontier are very amusing. The Germans have forbidden the letter by the Cardinal of Malines to be read in the churches, but needless to say, we all have it."

Extract from the Pastoral Letter of His Eminence, Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium:

"My very dear brethren:

"It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings--stroke after stroke--of the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain, next of the burning of the library and of the scientific installations of our great university, and of the devastation of the city, and next of the wholesale shooting of the citizens and of tortures inflicted upon women and children and upon unarmed and undefended men.

"And, while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful metropolitan church, of the church of Notre Dame au dela Dyle, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear city of Malines....

"I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these; a disaster has visited the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation so faithful in the great ma.s.s of her population to G.o.d, so upright in her patriotism, so n.o.ble in her King and Government, is the first sufferer. She bleeds; her sons are stricken down within her fortresses and upon her fields, in defense of her rights and her territory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL MERCIER.]

"Soon there will not be one Belgian family not in mourning. Why all this sorrow, my G.o.d? Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken us?...

"When, immediately upon my return from Rome, I went to Havre to greet our Belgian, French and English wounded; when, later, at Malines, at Louvain, at Antwerp, it was given to me to take the hand of those brave fellows who carried a bullet in their flesh, a wound on their forehead, because they had marched to the attack of the enemy or borne the shock of this onslaught, it was a word of grat.i.tude that rose to my lips. 'O valiant friends,' I said, 'it was for us, it was for each one of us, it was for me, that you risked your lives and are now in pain. I am moved to tell you of my respect, of my thankfulness, to a.s.sure you that the whole nation knows how much she is in debt to you.'

"For, in truth, our soldiers are all saviours. A first time, at Liege, they saved France; a second time, in Flanders, they arrested the advance of the enemy upon Calais. France and England know it, and Belgium stands before the entire world a nation of heroes.

"Never before in my life did I feel so proud to be a Belgian as when, on the platform of French stations, and halting awhile in Paris, and visiting London, I witnessed the enthusiastic admiration our Allies feel for the heroism of our army....

"I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated in my diocese, and the ruins I beheld and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined.

"Other parts of my diocese, which I have not had time to visit, have in a like manner, been laid waste. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents in great numbers are in ruins.

Entire villages have all but disappeared. At Werchter Wackerzeel, for instance, out of three hundred and eighty homes one hundred and thirty remain. At Tremeloo, two-thirds of the village is overthrown. At Beuken, out of one hundred houses twenty are standing. At Schaffen, one hundred and eighty-nine houses out of two hundred are destroyed; eleven still stand. At Louvain, a third of the buildings are down, one thousand and seventy-four dwellings have disappeared. On the town land and in the suburbs, one thousand six hundred and twenty-three houses have been burned.

"In this dear city of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnificent church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendour. The ancient college of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of the University, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique and unpublished ma.n.u.scripts, its archives, its gallery of great portraits of ill.u.s.trious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time of its foundation, which preserved for its masters and students alike a n.o.ble tradition, and was an incitement to their studies--all this acc.u.mulation of intellectual, of historic and artistic riches, the fruit of the labour of five centuries--all is in the dust....

"Thousands of Belgian citizens have been deported to the prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone, three thousand one hundred civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the physical and mental torments of their long martyrdom.

"Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but I know there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain of death, their fellow citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In the Louvain group of communes one hundred and seventy-six persons, men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned....

"We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure of our ruins. And what would it be if we turned our sad steps toward Liege, Namur, Audennes, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi, and elsewhere? Families. .h.i.therto living at ease, now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined, industry at a standstill; thousands upon thousands of working men without employment; working men, shop girls, humble servants, without means of earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever, crying, 'O Lord, how long, how long?'

"Thirteen ecclesiastics have been shot in the diocese of Malines. There were, to my own actual personal knowledge, more than thirty in the diocese of Namur, Tournai, and Liege....

"On the 19th of April, 1839, a treaty was signed in London by King Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one part, and by the Emperor of Austria, the King of France, the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia on the other; and its seventh article decreed that Belgium should form a separate and perpetually neutral state, and should be held to the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other states. The co-signers promised, for themselves and their successors, upon their oath, to fulfil and observe that treaty in every point and every article without contravention or tolerance of contravention. Belgium was thus bound in honour to defend her own independence. She kept her oath. The other Powers were bound to respect and to protect her neutrality.

Germany violated her oath, England kept hers....

"Accept, my dearest brethren, my wishes and prayers for you and for the happiness of your families, and receive, I pray you, my paternal benediction.

"_D. J. Cardinal Mercier_,

"_Archbishop of Malines_."

Here is a letter from a soldier at the front to his parents:

"TIRELEMONT, 8 August, 1914.

"My dear Parents: