A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium Part 11

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."

Our friend, the officer, said Bulle was right, and that it would be the part of wisdom for us all to fall back to the station, where we would be near the car in case anything happened. He started off at a good pace, and as we were in no mood to argue we went meekly along in his wake. We overtook Bulle engaged in an altercation with a very drunken soldier, who wanted to see his papers and was insulting about it. Instead of taking the easy course and showing his papers Bulle was opening a debate on the subject, when we arrived and took a hand. Our officer waded into the soldier in a way that would have caused a mutiny in any other army, and the soldier, very drunk and sullen, retreated, muttering, to his armchair on the curb. We then moved on to the station.

Outside the station was a crowd of several hundred people, mostly women and children, being herded on to trains by soldiers, to be run out of the town. They seemed to be decently treated but were naturally in a pitiable state of terror. Just inside the gates of the freight yard were a couple of women telling their troubles to a group of officers and soldiers. They had both lost their husbands in the street-fighting, and were in a terrible state. The officers and men were gathered about them, evidently distressed by their trouble, and trying to comfort them. They had put the older woman in an armchair and were giving her a little brandy in a tea cup. And the same men may have been the ones who killed the husbands....

We went on into the freight yards and were greeted by a number of officers with hopeful talk about a train coming from Brussels with food.

We were given chairs and an orderly was despatched for a bottle of wine so that a drink could be given to Bulle, who said that after what he had been through he would appreciate a gla.s.s of something comforting.

We settled down and listened to the stories of the past few days. It was a story of clearing out civilians from a large part of the town; a systematic routing out of men from cellars and garrets, wholesale shootings, the generous use of machine guns, and the free application of the torch--the whole story enough to make one see red. And for our guidance it was impressed on us that this would make people _respect_ Germany and think twice about resisting her.

Suddenly several shots rang out apparently from some ruins across the street and the whole place was instantly in an uproar. The lines of civilians were driven helter-skelter to cover--where, I don't know. The stands of arms in the freight yard were s.n.a.t.c.hed up, and in less time than it takes to tell it, several hundred men were scattered behind any sort of shelter that offered, ready for the fray.

I took one quick look about and decided that the substantial freight station was the most attractive thing in sight. In no time I was inside, closely followed by my own crowd and a handful of soldiers. First, we lay down upon the platform, and then, when we got our bearings, rolled over on to the track among a lot of artillery horses that were tethered there.

Apparently a number of civilians, goaded to desperation by what they had seen, had banded together, knowing that they were as good as dead, and had determined to sell their lives as dearly as they could. They had gathered in the ruins of the houses fronting on the station and had opened up on us. There was a brisk interchange of shots, with an occasional tinkle of broken gla.s.s and a good deal of indiscriminate cursing by the soldiers, who had taken refuge with us.

The artillery horses did not welcome us very cordially and began to get restive in a way that made us debate whether we preferred staying up on the platform with a chance of being potted or staying under cover and being ingloriously trampled to death. A joint debate on this important question kept us occupied for several minutes. We finally compromised by fis.h.i.+ng down a few boxes from the platform and erecting a barricade of sorts to protect us against any stray kicks.

As we sat in the undignified position imposed on us by circ.u.mstances, we exchanged various frivolous remarks, not because we felt particularly gay, but because we had to do something to keep ourselves interested and to keep our courage up. Bulle resented this, and raised his head to look at me reproachfully over the barricade, and say: "Don't talk like that; it is nothing short of tempting Providence."

After a time Blount and I decided to make a reconnaissance in force and see how the car was getting on. We crawled along the floor to a place from which we could see out into the square. The soldiers were flat on their stomachs behind a low wall that extended around the small circular park in the centre of the square, and behind any odd shelter they could find. The car lay in the line of fire but had not been struck. We were sufficiently pessimistic to be convinced that it would go up in smoke before the row was over, and took a good look at our shoes to see whether they would last through a walk back to Brussels.

Our officer came out from behind his barricade and showed us where the attacking force was concealed--at least he told us that they were there and we were willing to take his word for it without going across the street to make a first-hand investigation.

He tried to impress us with the black sinfulness of people who would fire upon the German troops, and called our particular attention to the proof now offered us that civilians had started the row by firing on German troops. According to the German story, which was the only one we had heard, civilians had been hunted down like rats in garrets and cellars and shot down in cold blood in the streets when they sought safety in flight. To my mind it was not surprising that men driven to desperation by seeing their friends and neighbours murdered in cold blood, should decide to do any harm possible to the enemy. Three days of the reign of terror that had been described to us was enough to account for anything, and the fact that civilians were firing now did not in any sense prove that they were guilty of starting the trouble. For all we could tell they may have started it or they may not, but firing by them three days after the row began was no proof to any one with the slightest sense of the value of evidence. On the other hand, the story freely told us by the Germans as to their own behaviour, is enough to create the darkest presumptions as to how the trouble started, and would seem to place the burden of proof on them rather than on the Belgians.

While we were talking about this there came another rattle of fire, and we scuttled back to our shelter, among the horses. Every now and then a surly soldier with two huge revolvers came and looked over the ledge at us, and growled out: _Was machen Sie denn hier?_ followed by some doubting remarks as to our right to be on the premises. As he was evidently very drunk and bad-tempered I was not at all sure that he would not decide on his own responsibility to take no chances and put us out of our misery. After several visits, however, he evidently found something else more interesting, and came back to trouble us no more.

When the row began a motor had been despatched toward Brussels to recall some troops that had left a few hours before. Now and then our officer came in to tell us what he thought of their chances of getting back.

On one of these visits, Blount remarked by way of airy persiflage, that that drink of wine that had been sent for was a long time coming.

Anything as subtle as that was lost on our friend, for he walked solemnly away, only to reappear in a few minutes with a bottle and several gla.s.ses which he set up on the edge of the platform and filled with excellent Burgundy. We stood up among the horses and drained a b.u.mper of the stuff, while the officer wandered back to his work. He had gone calmly out into the thick of things to rescue this bottle, and took it as a matter of course that we should claim the drink that had been promised us.

Presently, with a good deal of noise, a fairly large force of troops came marching down the boulevard, and took up positions around the station. Our officer returned, waving a smoking revolver, and told us to lie down as flat as we could among the horses, and not to move unless they got restive. He said it looked as though an attempt would be made to take the station by storm, and that there might be a brisk fight.

However, there were only a few scattering shots, and then our friend came back and told us that we had better get out and start for home before things began again. He added, however, that we must have the permission of the commanding officer who was on the other side of the station, but offered to pilot us to the great man and help us get the permission. The way lay straight out into the square, in full view of the houses across the way, along the front of the station just behind the troops and into the railroad yard on the other side.

That station seemed about four miles long, and the officer was possessed of a desire to loiter by the way, recounting anecdotes of his school days. He would walk along for a few steps and then pause to tell Bulle some long and rambling yarn about his uncle. Bulle would take him by the arm and get him in motion again. Then the old chap would transfer his conversational fire to another member of the party, and we were obliged almost to pull him the length of the square.

The commanding officer was a pleasant-faced little man who stood in the shelter of a water tank and received us in a puzzled way, as though he wondered what civilians were doing in that neighbourhood anyway.

Permission was readily granted for us to leave, with the ludicrous proviso that we did so "at our own risk." Then Bulle put everybody in good humour by inquiring innocently if there was any danger. Everybody burst into peals of laughter, and we were escorted to our car by the same slow-moving officer, who insisted on exchanging cards with us and expressing the hope that we should meet again, which we could not honestly reciprocate. Then, after an hour and a half in the station, we got away amid a great waving of hands.

The boulevards were deserted save for the troops coming back into the town. New houses were burning that had been intact in the afternoon.

After pa.s.sing the Porte de Tirlemont, we began to see people again--little groups that had come out into the streets through a craving for company, and stood huddled together listening to the fighting in the lower part of the town.

In harmony with the policy of terrorising the population, the Germans have trained them to throw up their hands as soon as any one comes in sight, in order to prove that they are unarmed and defenseless. And the way they do it, the abject fear that is evident, shows that failure to comply with the rule is not lightly punished.

Our worst experience of this was when in coming around a corner we came upon a little girl of about seven, carrying a canary in a cage. As soon as she saw us, she threw up her hands and cried out something we did not understand. Thinking that she wanted to stop us with a warning of some sort, we put on the brakes and drew up beside her. Then she burst out crying with fear, and we saw that she was in terror of her life. We called out to rea.s.sure her, but she turned and ran like a hunted animal.

It was hard to see the fear of others--townspeople, peasants, priests, and feeble old nuns who dropped their bundles and threw up their hands, their eyes starting with fear. The whole thing was a nightmare.

We were dreadfully depressed, and rode along in silence until Bulle turned around from the front seat and inquired in a matter-of-fact voice:

"What sort of wine was that we drank at the station?"

We told him, and then he shook his head and said as though to himself:

"I drank a big gla.s.s of it, but I was so frightened that I didn't taste it at all."

That broke the edge of the strain we were under, and we had a good laugh in which Bulle joined.

And so back to the Legation without further mishap, to find everybody worrying about us, and the Minister putting his foot down and announcing that there were to be no more expeditions of the sort, no matter what the reason for them.

NOTE--The foregoing is an impression of one afternoon at Louvain, taken from a journal written at the time. It was intended to pa.s.s on the question of responsibility for precipitating the orgy of murder and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity indulged in by the German army from the 25th of August until the 30th, when orders were received from Berlin to stop the destruction and restore public order.

Many subsequent visits to Louvain, and conversations with people who were there when the trouble began, have only served to strengthen the impression that the whole affair was part of a cold-blooded and calculated plan to terrorise the civilian population.

While we were there, it was frankly stated that the town was being wiped out; that its destruction was being carried out under definite orders.

When the German Government realised the horror and loathing with which the civilised world learned of the fate of Louvain, the orders were cancelled and the story sent out that the German forces had tried to prevent the destruction, had fought the fire, and by good fortune had been able to save the Hotel de Ville. Never has a government lied more brazenly. When we arrived, the destruction of the town was being carried on in an orderly and systematic way that showed careful preparation. The only thing that saved the Hotel de Ville was the fact that the German troops had not progressed that far with their work when the orders were countermanded from Berlin.

It was only when he learned how civilisation regarded his crimes, that the Emperor's heart began to bleed.

The true facts as to the destruction of Louvain will startle the world--hardened though it has become to surprise at German crimes.

Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to publish the details at this time without endangering the lives of people still in Belgium under German domination. But these people will speak for themselves when the Germans have been driven from Belgian soil, and they are once more free to speak the truth.

During the afternoon Count Clary had come over and announced that Austria-Hungary had declared war on Belgium, and that he had to leave at once. He has turned his Legation over to us. I went around to see him late in the evening, and made the final arrangements. This afternoon the Danish Minister came in and turned his Legation over to us, as he expects to go in a day or two. That will make four Legations besides our own under our protection.

Austrian guns have been in action for some days, and now it has been thought worth while to regularise the situation. The Austrian Minister has, therefore, under instructions from his Government addressed the following note to the Belgian Government:

_August 28, 1914._

"Whereas Belgium, having refused to accept the proposals made to her on several occasions by Germany, is affording her military a.s.sistance to France and Great Britain, both of which Powers have declared war upon Austria-Hungary, and whereas, as has just been proved (_no indication as to how or when it has been proved_), Austrian and Hungarian subjects in Belgium have been obliged to submit, under the very eyes of the Belgian authorities, to treatment contrary to the most primitive demands of humanity and inadmissible even toward subjects of an enemy State, therefore Austria is obliged to break off diplomatic relations and considers herself from this moment in a state of war with Belgium. I am leaving the country with the staff of the Legation, and am entrusting the protection of Austrian interests to the United States Minister in Belgium. The Austro-Hungarian Government is forwarding his pa.s.sports to Count Errembault de Dudzeele.

CLARY."