Bismarck was given to quoting, with approval, a saying which has often been attributed to him, but which was, in reality, first made in his presence by a hero of the American Civil War—General Sheridan. It was, that the people of a country occupied by a conquering army should be left nothing—save eyes to weep with!

And we Belgians, truly, are weeping: weeping for our native country, invaded, in contempt of the most solemn conventions, by one of the signatories of those treaties; weeping for our villages, which are levelled to the ground, and our cities, which are burned; our monuments, which are broken by shell-fire, and our treasures of art and science, which are for ever destroyed. We mourn to think of those hundreds of thousands of our countrymen who have wandered without shelter along the highways of Europe; of Belgium, lately so proud of her prosperity, but now taxed and crushed and exhausted by war requisitions and contributions, and reduced to holding out her hand for public charity.

Who could help but weep when, in Flanders, our soldiers are defending the very last corner of our territory; when, in our villages, men, old folks, women, and children have been, and are yet, shot down without pity in reprisal for imaginary crimes; when thousands of civilians are imprisoned in Germany as hostages; when the burgomaster of the capital, for daring to defend the rights of his constituents, is confined in a Silesian prison;[1] when our rural clergy is decimated, to such a point that divine service has necessarily been suspended in entire cantons; when a scholar like Van Gehuchten dies in exile, after seeing his manuscripts and his drawings, the fruit of ten years' labours, disappear in the flames of Louvain?

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Our sobs are mingled with tears of gratitude for the compassionate intervention of Holland, America, Spain, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and Italy ... not forgetting our Allies. It is this generosity that has prevented us from dying of hunger and want; a million of our refugees have found in Holland a fraternal succour which has never for a moment been relaxed; the United States, thanks to the influence and the incomparable activity of their Minister in Brussels, Mr. Brand Whitlock, supply us with our daily bread.

Belgium will never forget the exactions of those who have reduced to famine one of the richest and most fertile countries in the world, nor the unequalled charity of the nations which have enabled us to live to this day, and have saved us from death by starvation.

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We are weeping! But we do not surrender ourselves to despair, for we have kept intact our faith in the future, and the firm resolve to leave no stone unturned that we may for ever be spared such another trial. Above all, we refuse to bow our heads beneath the yoke. In vain have the Germans afflicted us with increasingly unjust and unjustifiable and vexatious demands; they will never daunt us. Let them proscribe the Belgian flag as a seditious emblem; we have no need to unfurl it to remain faithful to it; they are welcome to forbid the Te Deum on the day of the King's patron saint; since the King and the Queen are valiantly sharing, on the Yser, in the efforts and the sufferings of our brothers and our sons, royalty has no firmer supporters among us than the leaders of Socialism. No, we assuredly are not ready to abandon ourselves to despair. And nothing can sustain us more than the international sympathies by which we feel ourselves surrounded in this our unmerited misfortune.

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The time has not yet come to judge the events which have delivered Europe to fire and blood. Yet we hold that it is the duty of all those who believe themselves in a position usefully to intervene to make themselves heard. For Germany possesses so perfect an organization for the diffusion of her propaganda in foreign countries, that the public opinion of neutral States, hearing but one side of the question, would finally come to believe our enemies.

It would be useless and ineffectual to accumulate, as did the ninety-three German "intellectuals," among others, a number of denials and affirmations, without supporting them by a single definite fact. We do not wish to put forward anything which we cannot immediately support by easily verified proofs. This rule which we have compelled ourselves to observe, has forced us narrowly to limit our field of investigation. We shall speak only of actions and intellectual manifestations which are immediately connected with the present war; and as the field would be too vast even when so circumscribed, we shall say nothing of military operations properly so-called, nor of all that has happened beyond the Belgian frontiers. We do not propose to write a history. We leave to those more competent the task of extricating the truth as to present events; we shall content ourselves with taking indisputable documents, which are nearly always cuttings from German books, or German newspapers, or German posters, and with analysing their mental significance; and, further, with showing how the Belgians react against the actions recorded.

In the following pages we shall first of all examine the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany, then the infractions of the Hague Convention of 18th October, 1907. We shall be careful to invoke only precise and unquestionable facts; but for that matter the number of German infractions of the law of nations in Belgium is so enormous that we have been able provisionally to exclude all those which are not established in the most positive manner. At the same time we shall endeavour to derive from these facts a few indications as to our enemies' manner of thinking. This last will be studied in further detail in a third chapter: German Mentality Self-depicted.

Intellectual Life in Belgium.

A few words as to the documents utilized.

As the Germans occupied our country they took pains to isolate us from the rest of the world. They immediately suppressed all our journals, as these naturally refused to submit to their censorship. At the same time the Germans forced certain journals to reappear; notably L'Ami de l'Ordre, at Namur, and Le Bien Public, at Gand. The first of these journals took care frankly to inform its readers that the military authorities were forcing it to continue publication.

As for foreign newspapers, their introduction was forbidden under heavy penalties.

Official Notice.

Although the District Commandant[3] is continually causing authentic news of the military operations to be published, the foreign newspapers are intentionally publishing false news.

It is brought to the knowledge of the public that it is therefore strictly forbidden to any one whomsoever to introduce into Spa and the surrounding district newspapers other than German, without the previous authorization of the District Commandant.

Offenders will be punished according to the laws of war.

The same penalties will be applied to those who have verbally spread false news.

The District Commandant,
Aske, Colonel.

Spa, 22nd September, 1914.
(Placard posted at Spa.)

Notice.

I call the attention of the population of Belgium to the fact that the sale and distribution of newspapers and of all news reproduced by letterpress or in any other manner which is not expressly authorized by the German censorship is strictly prohibited. Every offender will be immediately arrested and punished by a long term of imprisonment.

The Governor-General in Belgium,
Baron von der Goltz,
Field-Marshal.

Brussels, 4th November, 1914.
(Posted in Brussels.)

In pursuance of 18, 2 of the Imperial decree of 28th December 1899, the following persons have been punished:—

(a) The coal-merchant Jules Pousseur, of Jambes, with 2 months' imprisonment and a fine of 100 marks, or 20 days' additional imprisonment.

(b) His daughter, Camille Pousseur, with 2 months' imprisonment, because they frequently bought foreign newspapers and articles from newspapers whose sale is prohibited; and further because the daughter copied and collected, with the knowledge and permission of her father, poems and articles hostile to Germany, containing, for the most part, vulgar and obscene insults in respect of the Emperor, the Confederate Princes, and the German Army; and because she further, as one may fully realize from the careful manner in which the numerous copies were made, communicated the originals to others, and finally because Jules Pousseur admits that he has for some time been engaged in forwarding letters, which is forbidden.

The terms of imprisonment will run from the first day of detention. The copies and other writings will be retained.

L'Ami de l'Ordre, 4th April, 1915.

The German Censorship.

After the 20th August the eastern half of Belgium was thus deprived of all intellectual communication with the outside world. For a fortnight we were left absolutely without news. Then, from the 5th September, the German Government permitted the publication of journals which were carefully expurgated, and falsified by a rigorous censorship:[4] Le Quotidien, Le Bruxellois, L'Écho de Bruxelles, Les DerniÈres Nouvelles; and later Le Belge, La Belgique, La Patrie, etc., in Brussels, L'Avenir in Antwerp, and many more. Although submitted to the censorship, the appearance of these newspapers was only provisional and uncertain. Le Bien Public reminds its readers of the fact in its issue for the 13th December, 1914. All these journals were on occasion suspended; for example, Le Quotidien, from the 9th to the 11th December, 1914, without any reason being given; L'Ami de l'Ordre, from the 2nd to the 7th September, 1914, for having printed an acrostic regarded as insulting; and Le Bien Public, during the whole of May, 1915.

The illustrated journals were as much subject to the censorship as the ordinary newspapers. Numbers 1 to 3 of 1914 IllustrÉ, published before the arrival of the Germans, could no longer be exposed for sale: No. 1 containing portraits of King Albert, Nicholas II, M. PoincarÉ, and King George V; No. 2 the portrait of General Leman, and No. 3 that of M. Max. From November onwards the issues were severely edited, so that they contained, for example, scarcely any more photographs of towns burned by the German army. The other illustrated papers—ActualitÉ IllustrÉ, Le Temps PrÉsent, etc., also had none but anodyne photographs, such as portraits of the new masters, military and civil.

In some degree to replace the newspapers, the printers conceived the idea of publishing little booklets relating to the war, but giving no direct news of the military operations. These publications were naturally subjected to the censorship, and many of those which were published before the decree of the 13th October, 1914, were prohibited; it was thus with the very interesting brochure, M. Adolphe Max, bourgmestre de Bruxelles, son administration du 20th aoÛt au 26th septembre, 1914, and the Nos. 1 to 10 of the booklets issued by Mr. Brian Hill. Illustrated postcards also were censored; the series in course of publication, representing the ruins of Louvain, Dinant, Charleroi, LiÉge, etc., had to be interrupted. Music even had to receive the official approbation (see the placard of 27th March, 1915, p. 274).

In short, it will be seen that our public life already very closely approached the German ideal: Alles ist verboten. To think that Belgium, so justly proud of her constitutional liberties, is now crushed, breathless, under the heavy Prussian jack-boot!

Authorized German Newspapers.

As a compensation for those which the German Administration felt obliged to suppress, it allowed us, about the 10th September, to receive some German newspapers—the KÖlnische Zeitung, KÖlnische Volkszeitung, DÜsseldorfer Tageblatt, DÜsseldorfer General-Anzieger, and also a few illustrated papers, notably the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Die Wochenschau, Du Kriegs-Echo. At a later date other newspapers were tolerated: Vossissche Zeitung, Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, L'Ami du Peuple (a special edition, for Belgium, in French and German, of Der Volksfreund, of Aix-la-Chapelle), and also some new illustrated papers, for example, Kriegsbilder, Zeit im Bild, and above all the Illustrierte Kriegs-Kurier, published in German, Flemish, French, and English,[5] whose sixteen pages, all covered with illustrations, cost only 15 centimes: evidently an instrument of propaganda, subsidized by the Central Administration. We shall have occasion later on to insist on its veracity, if one may call it that. For a long time none of these journals reached us regularly.

We had also access to two journals published by the Government itself: (1) the Deutsche Soldatenpost (Herausgegeben von der Zivil-Vorwaltung des General-Gouverneurs in BelgiËn), originally reserved for soldiers, but which was also sold to civilians—in a very intermittent fashion, it is true—from September 1914 to the beginning of December 1914; (2) Le RÉveil (Écho de la Presse, Journal officiel du Bureau allemand À DÜsseldorf pour la publication de nouvelles authentiques À l'Étranger), the latter being published simultaneously in French and German. Forty-nine numbers were published. It felt such an insurmountable disgust for untruth that having announced in the introductory article of its first number that Belgium was entirely in the hands of the Germans, it spoke, in a neighbouring column, of battles in Western Flanders between the Germans and the Allies. Let us say at once that from the point of view of sincerity and liberty of opinion all the newspapers of the Trans-Rhenian world are of equal worth: official or otherwise, they only publish that which is allowed, or rather, inspired, by the Government.

Authorized Dutch Newspapers.

One newspaper not subject to the Imperial censorship, one only, has found grace with the authorities—the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant. Its tendencies, clearly favourable to Germany, enable it to penetrate into Belgium; but not equally all over the country. At Gand one may subscribe to it; but its sale in single numbers is prohibited. In Antwerp it was proscribed for several months from the 7th December.

At Louvain and Brussels it may be sold in the street, and also supplied to subscribers. But it must not be supposed that the paper is anywhere regularly distributed; the edition of the morning of the 10th November, 1914, was forwarded on the 27th November to a few subscribers who were particularly persistent in their demands; it is true that this number contains the article on the letters of prisoners of war made by the Belgians (pp. 104-5), and that these letters annihilate not a few accusations made by the Germans, while they throw a singular light on their lies and acts of pillage. As for the issues for the 6th, 7th, and 8th December, 1914, they were never distributed; an official announcement, which appeared in L'Ami de l'Ordre of the 9th and 10th December states that these numbers contain "inadmissible communications as to the dislocation of troops." The issues of the 24th, 25th, and 26th December were also withheld. Since January 1915 some ten numbers have been prohibited each month.

From the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant we have copied only the articles by contributors and correspondents of the journal itself; it has seemed to us that to reproduce articles extracted from Belgian newspapers was a proceeding which, while quite usual among the Germans, is not entirely honest.

Another Dutch journal, the Algemeen Handelsblad of Amsterdam, arrived in Brussels at the beginning of November; but its licence was withdrawn at the end of a week.

From February 1915 its sale was again authorized in Belgium. At the same time the introduction of a few other Dutch journals was permitted, their pro-German character being indubitable: such were Het Vaterland, De Maasbode, De Nieuwe Courant.

Newspapers introduced surreptitiously.

Let us say at once that despite all prohibitions and all the sentences pronounced, prohibited newspapers continue to trickle into the occupied portion of the country. These newspapers were at first those which were normally appearing in the towns not yet subject to German authority. Thus La MÉtropole and Le Matin of Antwerp, Le Bien Public and La Flandre LibÉrale of Gand were very soon carried as contraband and secretly sold in Brussels. Again, in the regions not yet invaded, some of the newspapers of the towns already occupied were printed: thus L'IndÉpendance Belge of Brussels appeared at Ostend until the arrival of the Germans in that town.

The agents who sold these newspapers had also foreign papers, especially French and English. Later, when all Belgium, save a corner of Flanders, was subjected to the Germans, a number of Belgian papers were printed abroad: La MÉtropole and L'IndÉpendance Belge in London and Le XX^e SiÈcle at Havre.

We also used to receive from time to time occasional newspapers published by Belgian refugees abroad. Of these we may cite: L'Écho Belge, of Amsterdam, La Belgique, of Rotterdam, Les Nouvelles, and Le Courrier de la Meuse, of Maastricht.

It will be understood that prohibited journals are rare. On certain days, when the hunt for the vendors is particularly fruitful, people will offer fifty francs, or even two hundred, for a copy of the Times. As it is chiefly across the Dutch frontier that the smuggling of the English "dailies" is carried on, the authorities have enacted measures which grow more and more Draconian relating to the traffic across this frontier. By the end of 1914 it had become practically impossible to enter Belgium from Holland by the ordinary route (see the DÜsseldorfer General-Anzeiger of the 20th December, 1915). The smugglers of journals are therefore obliged to insinuate themselves in secret, and their trade is not without danger; only in the suburbs of Putte (province of Antwerp) the German sentinels killed two of them in December 1914.

Since the spring of 1915 the frontier has been guarded with barbed wire and wires traversed by high-tension electric currents; the crossing has naturally become more difficult. But "difficult" is not "impossible."

Secret Propagation of News.

So that a greater number of readers may profit by the newspapers smuggled into the country, the important passages, especially those relating to military operations, are copied by means of the typewriter. These extracts are searched after as much as the originals, but none the less there are those who continue to prepare and to distribute them in secret. In Brussels alone there are fifteen of these secret sheets, each of which has its public of subscribers; many of them are gratuitous. From time to time our oppressors scent out one of these typewriting establishments, but some other devoted person immediately continues the business.

In certain well-known establishments one could, for a time, obtain the use of a newspaper for ten minutes for one or two francs; but the secret was finally betrayed, thanks to one or other of the innumerable spies supported by the Government.

Secret Newspapers.

Finally, not a few persons, possessing a typewriting machine or other means of reproducing writing, copy and sell clandestinely, for the profit of some charitable undertaking, articles from foreign newspapers or reviews, which bear upon the current political situation. Many documents have reached us in this form.

Lastly, courageous Belgians have undertaken to print, in the midst of the occupied territory, and in spite of all the German prohibitions, newspapers which reach a circulation of many thousands. The two most important are La Libre Belgique and La VÉritÉ. In vain have our persecutors promised the most enticing rewards to those who should denounce the authors of these sheets; they continue imperturbably to appear. Which proves, be it said in passing, that the Germans lie most horribly when they state that numbers of Belgians send them anonymous information.

German Placards.

Our intellectual pasture also includes placards. In the first place, the Notices, Orders, and Proclamations of all kinds. Then the News published by the German Government, placards usually written in three languages, in the principal towns. In Brussels, where they are known as Lustige BlÄtter, they are particularly numerous. At Louvain, Vilverde, and Mons they are in manuscript, and usually written in German only.

Two important sources of documentation are completely closed: photography and correspondence by post. The taking and reproduction of photographs is strictly prohibited, above all in the towns ruined by the Germans.

Notice.

Whosoever produces, without authorization, representations of destruction caused by the war, or who displays, offers for sale, sells, or otherwise distributes, by means of postcards, illustrated reviews, daily newspapers, or other periodicals containing such representations, above all of buildings or localities burned or devastated by the war, will be punished by a fine not exceeding 5,000 marks or a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year. The seizure of formes and plates which shall have served for the reproduction of these representations, as well as their destruction, may also be ordered.

The Imperial Governor,
Freiherr von Huene,
General of Infantry.

Antwerp, 1st December, 1914.
(Posted at Antwerp.)

Regulations as to Correspondence.

The sending of letters by carrier is prohibited. Until about the middle of December correspondence was carried from town to town by the carriers who undertake the goods traffic since the suspension of the railways; one could still, therefore, easily enough obtain news. But, as a souvenir of his joyous entry, the Herr Baron von Bissing, who succeeded the Herr Baron von der Goltz as Governor-General in Belgium, suppressed this little supplementary vocation of the carriers. Thus Senator Speyer was condemned to pay a fine of 1,000 marks and to undergo 10 days' imprisonment for the conveyance of letters. We have no longer the resource of sending letters by carrier pigeons, as these are closely scrutinized by the Germans. Finally, two remaining methods of transmitting letters were taken from us: the use of a bow and arrow (N.R.C., 1st January, 1915), and enclosure in a loaf baked in Holland and sold in Belgium. So it is needless to say that we have neither telegraph nor telephone.

There is nothing to be done but to go in search of information oneself, after finding out the hours (highly variable) during which one is allowed to "circulate" in the localities through which one has to pass.

Since then it has become very difficult to obtain precise information as to an event which has occurred in another locality, for obviously one cannot trust a missive of this kind to the German post, which accepts only open letters, and passes them through a cabinet noir; moreover, it does not guarantee communication with all points.

By Order of the German Authority.

After 8 p.m. (7 p.m. Belgian) there must be no lights in the windows of the houses of the town of Herve.

The patrol has orders to fire into every window lit up, giving upon the street.

Ad. Cajot, Sheriff.
F. de Francquex, Judge.

(Posted at Herve.)

It must also be explained what administrative formalities one had to fulfil in order to obtain a lodging. Thus, from January 1915 no one could obtain a lodging in Gand, whether in an hotel, or a boarding-house, or apartments, without first obtaining the authorization of the Kommandantur.

Railway Journeys.

Once furnished with a proper passport, one has only to set out. By suitably arranging one's route, one can often take advantage of the local tramways. All other means of communication are extremely precarious. The automobile is forbidden. Horses have been requisitioned by the military authorities.

November 1914.

Official Railway Time-table

of railways at present operating in Belgium under the administration of the German Government. With details of journeys. Price, 0 fr. 10.

General Arrangements.

A certain number of trains have during the last few days been run over the Belgian railways by the German Government.

These are:—

1. Brussels—Aix-la-Chapelle.
2. Brussels—Lille.
3. Brussels—Namur.
4. Brussels—Charleroi.
5. Louvain—Charleroi.
6. Brussels—Antwerp.
7. Brussels—Courtrai.

Owing to the defective state of the lines and the telegraphic and signalling apparatus, these trains can as yet travel only at a moderate pace, and the duration of the journey is not guaranteed. For this reason it is prudent to provide oneself on departure with the necessary provisions for the journey.

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The time-table of the railways is often made up in such a way that the Belgian cannot make use of the trains. Thus the only train leaving Brussels for Mons in November 1914 reached Mons at 9 p.m. But after 9 p.m. it is forbidden to walk through the streets of Mons. The only train leaving Mons for Brussels leaves at 12.14 a.m., but one may not "circulate" in the streets of Mons earlier than 4 a.m.

We see to what extremities the Belgian population is reduced. Well, well!—despite all these difficulties, we have procured documents of great importance. We cannot, unfortunately, publish them all at this juncture; for they would result in the identification of those who conveyed them to us, and expose them to reprisals; and we have learned, to our cost, all that this term signifies according to the ideas of our present rulers.

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This work, then, will necessarily be incomplete. We publish it only because we think it useful to demonstrate that in spite of all the annoyances which they receive at the hands of the Germans, the Belgians do not allow themselves to be intimidated. Moreover, whatever may be the provisional lacunÆ (mostly intentional) of our documentation, we cannot in any case be reproached with falsification. This, whatever our enemies may think, is a point of capital importance.

[1] Since this was written, M. Max is reported to have been released, and to be living in Switzerland.