The Spell of Belgium Part 27

West of the road from Antwerp to Mons the people are being fed. East of the road the Germans did not permit it during the winter. In April, however, it was arranged that the Commission should also feed Northern France. In June General von Bissing permitted the Commission to furnish grain for seed, to be planted and harvested by Belgian peasants for their own use. The report of the Commission for the first year of the war showed that for the people of Belgium and the 2,500,000 French people hemmed in behind the German battle front, an expenditure of $10,000,000 a month was required.

The despatch of a s.h.i.+pload of food every other day from America during the winter const.i.tuted the largest commissary that the world has ever seen. "The Fleet of Mercy is constantly making voyages." Every cent collected in America for the purchase of food was spent in America. It is said that up to May 1st the United States made gifts amounting to about six million dollars. The American Relief Commission today has branches not only in the United States, Canada and Holland, but also in London and Belgium and France. From sixteen American seaports food has been sent direct to Belgium. Forty-eight States, the District of Columbia and Hawaii, organized Belgian Relief Committees, and endless sub-committees. Thirty-seven of the States of the Union are represented by the women's section.

Queen Elizabeth, now called the "Wandering Queen," sent this letter to thank the women of this Commission:

"It gives me great pleasure to accept the invitation which has been transmitted to me to become a patroness of the Women's Section of the American Commission for Relief in Belgium. I wish to extend to the women of America the deep grat.i.tude of the women of Belgium for the work which they are doing for my people. The food which your country is daily providing to our women and children comes like a ray of suns.h.i.+ne in the darkest hour in Belgium's history. The Belgian women have fought a brave fight, and are still fighting for the common cause of human liberty, so dear to every American woman's heart.

"ELIZABETH."

By May 1st the New York Belgian Fund amounted to more than a million dollars. California raised over a hundred thousand in a day. Chicago has been conspicuous with large gifts. Kansas sent a great quant.i.ty of flour, and Mr. Wanamaker of Philadelphia s.h.i.+pped cargoes worth half a million dollars.

The New England Committee believes that its results up to May first are substantially as follows: Cash collected, $300,000; value of goods collected, $100,000; money sent from New England direct to New York, $50,000; and goods sent to New York, about $50,000. The Kermesse Flamande cleared $15,000, and Madame Vandervelde's meetings raised about $14,000 in Boston alone. Three s.h.i.+p-loads of food and clothing left Boston harbour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE _HARPALYCE_] Copyright by Boston Photo News Co.

The _Harpalyce_ was the first and largest of the s.h.i.+ps. She sailed on January 7th, reaching Rotterdam the 23d. On April 10th, while on another voyage, she was torpedoed in the North Sea. She carried a crew of fifty-three men, twenty-six of whom were drowned, among them the captain, whom we knew personally.

The work of Madame Vandervelde while she was in this country deserves special mention. She is an English woman, the wife of Emile Vandervelde, the leader of the Socialists in Belgium. He had several times been offered a place in the Cabinet but had refused. When the war broke out, however, feeling that he could be of real service to his country, he became one of the Ministers of State. He came with the Minister of Justice, Monsieur Carton de Wiart, an old friend of ours, and several others, as one of a commission sent to America in the autumn of 1914.

Madame Vandervelde followed shortly to make a lecture tour in the United States. We found her a charming and well-educated woman, and a speaker of unusual power. She came to this country in a spirit of splendid patriotism for the sake of helping Belgium.

Before the food question became urgent, she asked for money to help the Belgian refugees return to their homes. But this did not seem wise, as we shall see from a report quoted below, so the money that she collected was turned into food.

"For example, the towns Waelhem, Malines, Duffel, and Lierre, are reduced practically to ruins and are certainly not in a condition to receive back more than one-third of their ordinary population. There is, moreover, a smell of decay in the air, which probably proceeds from corpses buried in the ruins, which may, at any time, breed a pestilence.

To send people back to their homes when those homes no longer exist, I believe to be cruel. Vise and Tamines and, I suppose, ten or a dozen other small towns in Belgium, are practically in the same condition as those I visited, desolate and uninhabitable, half of their houses wrecked, many scattered and isolated farmhouses practically destroyed, and a considerable portion of the land under cultivation laid waste, either by military operations or by inundation for defense.

"There is no work. The factories are closed because they have no raw material, coal, or petrol, and because they have no markets. And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure upon a people whose hands are empty, whose workshops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle have been taken."

In one of her lectures Madame Vandervelde said: "The sight of the poor refugees streaming into Antwerp from Louvain and Malines, women with babies in their arms, older children clinging to their skirts, men wheeling their decrepit fathers in wheelbarrows or helping along a crippled brother or son, is more pitiful than any words can express."

From the reports in the daily papers, Madame Vandervelde said, one knows little of the overwhelming nature of the tragedy. She told many interesting stories of the land which had been ravaged by the horrors of war, and the murderous raids of the Zeppelins.

Her mission was not a political one; it was a plea for help. She arrived in September, bringing good letters of introduction. Wherever she spoke--in private houses on Long Island, at Beverly, Ma.s.s., or Dublin, New Hamps.h.i.+re, or in cities--she was so attractive, and her appeal was so pathetic, that people wept and opened their pocketbooks. In the big cities of Canada she spoke in halls and churches, and was most enthusiastically received. From Syracuse she went to Chicago, also to St. Paul and Minneapolis, starting committees where they did not already exist. At Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston she was especially successful in raising money. She was present at the sailing of several of the food s.h.i.+ps, when hundreds of people crowded the docks, speeches were made, and patriotic music played.

Three thousand people attended the ma.s.s meeting at Tremont Temple, in Boston, and over a thousand were turned away. She went to Providence and then to New Haven, where she was introduced by ex-President Taft. She was introduced in Boston by Bishop Lawrence, and in Baltimore by Cardinal Gibbons. A large meeting was held for her in Cooper Union Hall in New York. During her stay in Was.h.i.+ngton she visited the Belgian Minister and his wife. Where committees were already started, she turned over the money she made to them. She sailed for Europe on the third of April, having raised about three hundred thousand dollars.

Her last lecture before sailing contained these words: "We, the Allies, do not want peace. We appreciate the well meaning, high minded, n.o.ble Americans who are planning a conference at your national capital whereby the neutral nations shall decide on some peace plan to be submitted to the belligerent nations without armistice, but we cannot hear of peace at this or any other time until Prussian army caste has been wiped from the face of Europe. We want peace, but only peace with honour, and lasting peace. Peace now, before militarism has been conquered, will not be lasting peace. At the most, it would only be for five or six years, until Prussian militarism could reconstruct itself, and then the whole reign of terror for all Europe would begin again. We can scarcely understand an att.i.tude that would even suggest peace at this time. Such an att.i.tude is embarra.s.sing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADAME VANDERVELDE.]

Just as Madame Vendervelde left the country, Madame Depage arrived to take her place. She had had experience in the Balkan War, when she accompanied her husband to Constantinople and acted as an auxiliary nurse. She directed the equipment of the hospital and within a very short time had turned the building into one of the best military hospitals in Europe. During the present war she has aided in the establishment of a large number of military hospitals, not only in Brussels but also in other Belgian cities. When Brussels was taken the Germans seized the hospitals and devoted them to their own uses. The Governor-General of Belgium issued a decree breaking up the organization of the Belgian Red Cross. All the funds were seized, and the archives were handed over to a German officer, who was appointed to carry on the work. It is said that forty thousand dollars' worth of Red Cross supplies was taken over. As the National Belgian Headquarters of the Red Cross were in Brussels, the heads of the organization were temporarily cut off from the army.

Dr. Depage stayed with the King while his wife remained in the capital until she received word from him that she was needed at the front. She made her way to Holland, then to England, and then to Calais. Her husband was at that time in charge of the Gendarme Ambulance. He gave her some orderlies and told her to proceed to La Panne and select a site for a military hospital. She found an empty hotel, and had things ready with three hundred beds when the Doctor arrived from Calais to take charge. Now there are a thousand beds, and he has a large corps of a.s.sistants.

As Belgium was not receiving American Red Cross supplies, for the simple reason that it seemed impossible to reach their headquarters, Madame Depage came to this country to solve the difficulty. She was here only a short time, but obtained a hundred thousand dollars by her lectures. Our American Red Cross had previously contributed thirty thousand dollars through the Belgian Relief Commission, and gave Madame Depage thirteen thousand more, besides promising six surgeons and twenty-four nurses to Belgium, furnis.h.i.+ng two field hospitals and paying for their maintenance for six months. The total gifts of the American Red Cross organization have amounted to about $100,000. Fortunately the money that Madame Depage raised was deposited here, for this brave, executive woman went down on the _Lusitania_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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