In the Claws of the German Eagle Part 1

In the Claws of the German Eagle.

by Albert Rhys Williams.

Instead Of A Preface

The horrible and incomprehensible hates and brutalities of the European War! Unspeakable atrocities! Men blood-l.u.s.ting like a lot of tigers!

Horrible they are indeed. But my experiences in the war zone render them no longer incomprehensible. For, while over there, in my own blood I felt the same raging beasts. Over there, in my own soul I knew the shattering of my most cherished principles.

It is not an unique experience. Whoever has been drawn into the center of the conflict has found himself swept by pa.s.sions of whose presence and power he had never dreamed.

For example: I was a pacifist bred in the bone. Yet, caught in Paris at the outbreak of the war, my convictions underwent a rapid crumbling before the rising tide of French national feeling. The American Legion exercised a growing fascination over me. A little longer, and I might have been marching out to the music of the Ma.r.s.eillaise, dedicated to the killing of the Germans. Two weeks later I fell under the spell of the self-same Germans. That long gray column swinging on through Liege so mesmerized me that my natural revulsion against slaughter was changed to actual admiration.

Had an officer right then thrust a musket into my hand, I could have mechanically fallen into step and fared forth to the killing of the French. Such an experience makes one chary about dispensing counsels of perfection to those fighting in the vortex of the world-storm.

Whenever I begin to get shocked at the black crimes of the belligerents, my own collapse lies there to accuse me.

It is in the spirit of a non-partisan, then, that this chronicle of adventure in those crucial days of the early war is written. It is a welter of experiences and reactions which the future may use as another first-hand doc.u.ment in casting up its own conclusions.

There is no careful culling out of just those episodes which support a particular theory, such as the total and complete depravity of the German race.

Despite my British ancestry, the record tries to be impartial-- without pro- or anti-German squint. If the reader had been in my skin, zigzagging his way through five different armies, the things which I saw are precisely the ones which he would have seen. So I am not to blame whether these episodes d.a.m.n the Germans or bless them. Some do, and some don't. What one ran into was largely a matter of luck.

For example: In Brussels on September 27, 1914, I fell in with a lieutenant of the British army. With an American pa.s.sport he had made his way into the city through the German lines. We both desired to see Louvain, but all pa.s.sage thereto was for the moment forbidden. Starting out on the main road, however, sentry after sentry pa.s.sed us along until we were halted near staff headquarters, a few miles out of the city, and taken before the commandant. We informed him of our overweening desire to view the ruins of Louvain. He explained, as sarcastically as he could, that war was not a social diversion, and bade us make a quick return to Brussels, swerving neither to the right nor left as we went.

As we were plodding wearily back, temptation suddenly loomed up on our right in the shape of a great gas-bag which we at first took to be a Zeppelin. It proved to be a stationary balloon which was acting as the eye of the artillery. It was signaling the range to the German gunners beneath, who were pounding away at the Belgians.

In our excitement over the spectacle, we went plunging across fields until we gained a good view of the great swaying thing, tugging away at the slender filament of rope which bound it to the earth.

Sinking down into the gra.s.s, we were so intent upon the sharp electric signaling as to be oblivious to aught else, until a voice rang a harsh challenge from behind. Jumping to our feet, we faced a squad of German soldiers and an officer who said:

"What are you doing here?"

"Came out to see the big balloon," we somewhat naively informed him.

"Very good!" he said. And then, quite as if he were rewarding our manifest zeal for exploration, he added, "Come along with me and you can see the big commandant, too."

Three soldiers ahead and three behind, we were escorted down the railroad track in silence until we began to pa.s.s some cars filled with the recently wounded in a fearfully shot-to-pieces state. Some one mumbled "Englishmen!" and the whole crowd, bandaged and bleeding as they were, rose to the occasion and greeted us with derisive shouts.

"Put the blackguards to work," growled one.

"No! Kill the d.a.m.n spies!" shouted another, as he pulled himself out of the straw, "kill them!"

A huge fellow almost wild from his wounds bellowed out: "Why don't you stick your bayonet into the cursed Englishmen?" No doubt it would have eased his pain a bit to see us getting a taste of the same thing he was suffering.

Our officer, as if to make concessions to this hue and cry, growled harshly: "Don't look around! d.a.m.n you! and take your hands out of your pockets!"

We heaved sighs of relief as we left this place of pain and hate behind. But a new terror took hold of us as a turn in the track brought our destination into view. It was the staff headquarters in which, two hours before, the commandant had ordered us to make direct return to Brussels.

"Wait here," said the officer as he walked inside.

We stood there trying to appear unconcerned while we cursed the exploring bent in our const.i.tutions, and mentally composed farewell letters to the folks at home.

But luck does sometimes light upon the banners of the daring. It seems that in the two hours since we had left headquarters a complete change had been made in the staff. At any rate, an officer whom we had not seen before came out and addressed us in English. We told him that we were Americans.

"Well, let's see what you know about New York," he said.

We displayed an intensive knowledge of Coney Island and the Great White Way, which he deemed satisfactory.

"Nothing like them in Europe!" he a.s.sured us. "I did enjoy those ten years in America. I would do anything I could for one of you fellows."

He backed this up by straightway ordering our release, and authenticated his claim to American residence by his last shot:

"Now boys, beat it back to Brussels."

We stood not on the order of our beating, but beat at once.

One may pick out of such an experience precisely what one wishes to pick out: the imbecile hatred in the Teuton--the perfidy of the British--the efficiency or the blundering of the German--or perchance the foolhardiness of the American, just as his nationalistic bias leads him.

So, from the narratives in this book, one may select just the material which supports his theory as to the merits or demerits of any nation. To myself, out of these insights into the Great Calamity, there has come re-enforcement to my belief in the essential greatness of the human stuff in all nations. Along with this goes a faith that in the New Internationalism mankind will lay low the military Frankenstein that he has created, and realize the triumphant brotherhood of all human souls.

Part I

The Spy-Hunters Of Belgium

Chapter I

A Little German Surprise Party

"Two days and the French will be here! Three days at the outside, and not an ugly Boche left. Just mark my word!"

This the patriarchal gentleman in the Hotel Metropole whispered to me about a month after the Germans had captured Brussels. They had taken away his responsibilities as President of the Belgian Red Cross, so that now he had naught to do but to sit upon the lobby divan, of which he covered much, being of extensive girth.

But no more extensive than his heart, from which radiated a genial glow of benevolence to all--all except the invaders, the sight or mention of whom put harshness in his face and anger in his voice.

"Scabbard-rattler!" he mumbled derisively, as an officer approached. "Clicks his spurs to get attention! Wants you to look at him. Don't you do it. I never do." He closed his eyes tightly, as if in sleep.

Oftentimes he did not need to feign his slumber. But sinking slowly down into unconsciousness his native gentleness would return and a smile would rest upon his lips; I doubt not that in his dreams the Green-Gray troops of Despotism were ridden down by the Blue and Red Republicans of France.

Once even he hummed a s.n.a.t.c.h of the Ma.r.s.eillaise. An extra loud blast from the distant cannonading stirred him from his reverie. "Ah ha!" he exclaimed, clasping my arm, the artillery--"it's getting nearer all the time. They are driving back the Boches, eh? We'll be free to-morrow, certain. Then we'll celebrate together in my country- home."

Walking over to the door, he peered down the street as if he already expected to catch a glint of the vanguard of the Blue and Red. Twice he did this and returned with confidence unshaken.

"Mark my word," he reiterated; "three days at the outside and we shall see the French!"

That was in September, 1914. Those three days pa.s.sed away into as many weeks, into as many months, and into almost as many years. I cannot help wondering whether the same hopes stirred within him at each fresh outburst of cannonading on the Somme.

And whether through those soul-sickening months that white- haired man peered daily down those Brussels streets, yearning for the advent of the Red and Blue Army of Deliverance. Red and Blue it was ever in his mind. If once it had come in its new uniform of somber hue, it would have been a disappointing shock I fear.