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THE lower-class Belgian’s horror of the invaders grew daily, as more and more harrowing tales of their atrocities came to us from regions through which their armies were rushing. “Schrechlichkeit” was attaining its object at a bitter price to the poor unreasoning peasants, who saw not only those dear to them slain for no apparent cause, but also their superiors, priests, prominent townsmen, and even women and children. Stories reached us of such unparalleled ugliness that many refused to credit them, and only when like crimes were committed in and about Brussels could we believe modern humanity capable of such deeds. These are now more or less known to the outer world; although doubtless many done in secret will never come to light, save when the victims, at the Last Judgment, add their voice of condemnation to those of innocent men, women, and children sent to sudden and ghastly death on the Lusitania. But that revolting crime had not yet happened, to inflame neutral minds in Brussels, which, until convinced of those done in Belgium, were genuinely neutral.

So unbiased, indeed, was the feeling among them that even the violation of Belgium was looked on by some as an ugly action, but not wholly damning according to war morals. I heard neutral men, who admired Germany, even seek to excuse it as a daring and possibly necessary “strategic move.” But less than three weeks after the fall of LiÈge, these very men were among the bitterest and most outspoken haters of the race they had tried to defend. Civilized sentiment was so outraged by the wrongs heaped upon Belgians that several Americans, Dutch, and other neutrals undertook, for their own satisfaction, to investigate certain awful incidents related. When they were convinced that these were not only true, but in some cases too mildly depicted, their neutrality fled in a storm of rage.

The terror which these acts temporarily roused in the peasantry was revealed to me the day I ventured out, by bicycle, to our villa in the vicinity of Wavre. No other means of conveyance being available, I discovered, after considerable search, an old wheel unearthed from the depths of a merchant’s cellar—one of the few secreted to escape requisition. No trains were running and no trams, and offer of high payment failed to tempt the drivers of such few miserable hack-horses as remained after the taxi-cabs had been seized. But, by starting early in the morning, it was possible to make the trip by wheel, pack, and return before nightfall. So, having obtained a German pass from Government headquarters the day after my visit to the sleepy officer at the post office, I attached a small American flag to the handle-bar, and started forth at six a.m. through the deserted Bois, and thence to still more deserted country roads. There was no traffic in those days save occasional German military cars, and no sign of human or any other life on the roads. The Belgians were then for the most part keeping indoors, in some cases through fear of the Germans, in others because, commerce and business being dead, they had nothing to tempt them out; therefore, until I reached an outlying village, I met no one to direct me. Here, while coasting down the main road, flanked by modest peasant abodes, I was startled by seeing two men rush out, and wave frantically to stop me.

“You can’t proceed!” exclaimed one as I dismounted. “Come quickly into the house! Vite! Vite! They are there, just beyond!”

“Who?” I asked, amazement at this hysterical excitement making me forget the cause of their terror.

“Les Allemands! Come—be quick; they will appear at any moment!”

If a tribe of hungry cannibals had been in the vicinity, their agitation could not have been greater. Women were shrieking warnings from windows, children peering terrified from behind curtains, and the two men literally trying to drag me indoors.

“But I must go on!” I exclaimed. “I have a pass and am an American!”

“C’est Égal! they respect nothing!” was the reply. “They will shoot you down! They will rob and tear you to bits! Ne savez-vous pas ce que c’est qu’un Boche? He is a beast without reason! He stops at nothing! Think only what our innocents have suffered!”

“And my old father, who did no wrong!” wailed a woman from the window.

“They are burning the village beyond!” cried another.

Then several at once: “They killed my brother.... They cut off the hands of little children; ... they burned the farm of So-and-so and murdered his daughter!... Et mon fils! mon fils! the father of a family! he lies, buried with twenty others in a heap, at Tamines!”

All that was said I could not hear, indeed did not try to, and being anxious to go on, sought to escape the two men’s kindly attention. When they were at last persuaded to resign me to the predicted doom, I sped on down the hill to a cross-road, and, turning to the right, saw a moving mass of troops rapidly approaching in the direction I was obliged to take—on foot, as the road mounted too steeply to permit of riding. The troop gained on me so rapidly that their heavy tramp and rough breathing were soon audible. Before we reached the level they were striding along within arm’s reach, line after line of dusty, perspiring, war-brutalized men, pressing on to new scenes of slaughter. The mounted officers in command glanced at me, noted the flag which then had not been forbidden, and returned their eager gaze to the distance beyond, evidently controlled but by one idea. Haste—that was the motto of these frenzy-driven legions, ordered to rush into France despite all obstacles, over the living and the dead, treading even, if need be, their own fellows under foot!

The soldiers were the heavy, stalwart men of the first German army, trained and hardened for war—conscious machines of destruction, who appeared to have forgotten they were human. In their faces one saw only an animal-like, unquestioning obedience that had become, through long domination, the very essence of their strength, the will actuating their movements, their thought, their very life; “Not to reason why; but to do and die,” seemed branded on their souls. In none of the many different army contingents that later came to Brussels, either allied or German, was this strange, dogged, unhuman and unthinking obedience so strikingly visible. While watching them and noting their expression of unintelligent, inexorable determination to push on according to supreme command, the impression came to me that, had I fallen and lain disabled in the road, they would have marched over me as unhesitatingly as they trod the dust.

At the hotel where we were staying, a party of English nurses were putting in a weary time waiting vainly for the wounded. One of these had offered to accompany me on the trip to our villa, but at the last moment was forbidden to do so by her superior. The evening of my return from the expedition, which proved successful and less eventful than predicted, I told them that it had been accomplished without the difficulties expected by their matron. “Really? So glad!” replied the one referred to, evidently regretting that she had been denied this chance to relieve her dull days.

They were a rather disconsolate lot, very smart-looking, in their pretty nursing uniforms, but bored by enforced idleness. More than one told me, with true British spirit, that she would prefer to be in the most dangerous section of the front rather than pass another idle day at the expense of those they had come to serve. Later on this wish was gratified, and no doubt each of them has more than repaid the cost of their brief period of sloth.

A certain man, also residing at the hotel, was constantly haunting these women, who complained of his persistent attentions and efforts to draw them into conversation. He posed as an Englishman, and, before England entered the war, had been in that country. But his appearance was not English, and his voice had a guttural accent that made me suspect him of being a German spy—a suspicion that I later had reason to believe was well founded. He had the room next to mine, with a communicating door, through which one could hear voices even when lowered. Visitors constantly came there, mostly women who spoke French along the corridor to the servant directing them, but, once in his room with the door closed, spoke German, and usually took care that no word should be heard outside. But one day a woman entered so early that the knock at his door awakened me; I then heard low voices and the crisp rattle of papers. Presently another woman was shown into the room; and she, evidently agitated, spoke in German loud enough for me to hear in my bed these significant sentences: “Ach Gott, you are confident, but I am not! It is said the Russians mean to make of it a religious war. In that case it will go hard with Germany.” The man’s reply was too low to be heard, and she continued: “To be sure; but look at this.” A sound came of paper like that of a letter being opened. At this moment the telephone-bell rang; the man answered it in French, and his words came to me clearly: “Hallo! Yes. She is here with me now; I have seen the letter.... Pas du tout! Do nothing until I see you.... Yes, he is a Belgian, but his wife is English—there are two sons; one got away the day the Germans entered.... Inquire at the Anglo-American club, Toison d’Or.... Oh zut!—tell him I shall be at your place at eleven and——” The rest was drowned by someone’s pet dog barking in the corridor—a soldier’s dog, as it proved afterwards.

On descending for dinner that evening, my companion and I were joined, while awaiting the lift, by two German soldiers—probably the orderlies of officers lodged on the same Étage. With them was a fox terrier, doubtless the one that interrupted my eavesdropping. It approached to be caressed, which led me to ask the soldiers if they intended to take it to the front.

“Gewiss!” replied one, rather aggressively; “he will come with us to Paris and then to London!”

The emphasis on the last word betrayed that he thought me English, and the intended taunt angered me.

“Really?” I replied; “evidently you think I am English!”

He smiled shamefacedly, and blurted naÏvely: “Aren’t you?”

I coldly told him my nationality, and added: “But if I were English your boast would not trouble me. You are still a long way from Paris, and even if you ever should get there, you would not remain long. And as for London—you might more easily get to heaven!”

They received this sally with confident laughter, and left the lift, one repeating significantly, emphasizing the words with an upraised finger: “You’ll see! You’ll see!”

As the German military element was increasing daily at the hotel, all persons of other nationalities departed, save those obliged to remain. We, the British nurses, and some few Belgians, unable to return to their homes in other parts of Belgium, were consequently in constant association with numerous high officials, who, in the first pride of victory, discarded their war-raiment for brilliant blue dress-uniforms, ornamented with gold or silver. They strutted about with a domineering air of superiority which later became greatly modified, but at that time was insufferable.

One evening, immediately after the fall of Reims, when the Belgian spirit was more depressed than ever before, a dinner was held in the public dining-room by a number of high-grade officers. They were seated at a long table close to ours, all in gala attire, and evidently jubilant over some new disaster to the Belgian forces—a satisfaction which they appeared particularly anxious should be noted by the Belgians present. But the latter, who hid their aching hearts under lowered eyelids, appeared not to heed them. Outside, however, there were many interested watchers. As the evening was warm, windows had been left open, and at them gathered the idle street crowds, with nothing, night or day, to divert their thoughts—no business, no theatres, no cafÉs—and too anxious to remain in their homes.

No slight consideration for their helpless and ruined victims, looking in on the joyous party, stayed the gay laughter and toasts of those at that table! Triumph, which common decency should have impelled them to indulge privately, was flagrantly flourished in the wan faces of men who knew not how they were to feed their families in a week’s time, of youths cast out of employment and unable to give their country the aid they longed to give.

Soldiers bearing dispatches constantly entered the room, trod heavily, with clatter of spurs, to within a few paces of the table, drew up, brought their heels together, and stood at salute until given permission to approach. Officers of lower rank paused, on seeing the august and radiant gathering, saluted, and continued to bow and salute while passing the table to find a smaller one in another part of the room. Judging by their servility and that of the soldiers, the two in general’s attire at the dinner must have been of high rank, but their identities were not known in the hotel. To my eyes each looked as important as the other, puffed up with pride, betraying, in every glance and movement, confident conviction that the present satisfaction was but a fore-runner of greater triumphs.

Again and again when a dispatch was read, evidently containing satisfactory news from the front, the joyous cry, “Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!” rang out to that pathetically wistful audience, who knew it was in celebration of a fresh wound dealt to the country they loved. And yet in their pale, troubled faces no sign of hatred or rage could be detected, only the same childlike curiosity expressed on the first day, and a sort of puzzled wonder, as though they found it difficult to believe that atrocities such as were committed in their land had been ordered by men of such good appearance, and apparently so civilized. Even to us it seemed incredible, while watching that gathering of smart-looking, intelligent beings, who might have won the respect, possibly even the admiration, of a people accustomed throughout their history to the wrongdoings of mightier nations; who, as a whole, would have appreciated a generous recognition of their noble and courageous stand for honour. But those men, whose close-cropped, sabre-scarred heads were held so high above a uniform they gradually made odious to the entire world, were blinded by vanity, delirious with success. The long-awaited hour of opportunity had arrived, as pregnant with great promise as those that bred the first Roman and the first French empires; an hour when Europe, lulled by the harmony of peace, might be shocked to submission before Germany’s secretly-created Frankenstein!

It was amazing to see, during the first week or so of the occupation, with what naÏve interest the Belgians clustered about even minor units of the army that had so ruthlessly afflicted them. They would pause to stare at a common soldier with something of the awed perplexity the Indians of America evinced on their first introduction to firearms; or gather, silent and gaping, about the great automobiles to watch imposing officers alight. This unconscious flattery, evidently relished, disappeared, however, in a short time, not only because Prussians became so prevalent that they no longer attracted attention, but because the more intelligent citizens took a stand against it, and reproved those who thus gratified the vanity of their enemies. And the people were not slow to realize an error due more to their lack of occupation than to tolerant interest in the intruders. Disaster, in fact, had come so suddenly upon them; their lives had been so abruptly changed from the even tenor of prosperity to want and misery, that they were too stunned at once to realize the cause. Some among the lower classes, indeed, appeared incapable of seeing the situation as other than a temporary, inexplicable calamity, not likely to endure more than a week or two. For this reason, no doubt, there was very little resentment in speech or action. The general attitude was one of patient endurance of incomprehensible ills, a fact which made the lying German excuses for their atrocities ring false to all who had witnessed the inoffensive bearing of the inhabitants at the time of their bitterest hour, when the enemy entered Brussels.

Better-class Belgians, who understood the situation, were bitter enough in private speech, and in their determined and unflinching efforts to hamper the invaders by every possible means which their unarmed and imprisoned condition permitted. That they accomplished much secretly, and despite the severe and ever-increasing espionage, was acknowledged by the Germans themselves, when information of their every movement was proved to have reached the Allied forces within an hour. Every effort was made by the Government to solve the mystery, and discover the secret means by which the exact locality of a Zeppelin garage or ammunition depot, army movements, etc., was at once conveyed to their adversaries. Many suffered death or long imprisonment on mere suspicion of connection with these secret societies, and spies in civil dress were set to watch even such as were not suspected, whose intelligence or standing made it possible they might be in the secret. Another mystery especially galling to the Prussians was the inexplicable publication and distribution of the Libre Belgique, a small truth-telling journal, which spared neither the Kaiser nor his army in its caustic and often insulting criticism, and served as a tonic to the oppressed people; an antidote to poison injected with malignant persistency by the occupying Powers. No amount of persecution, investigation, or bribery led to the discovery of where this brave little sheet was published, or who managed it; but several entire families were arrested and subjected to the torture of military inquisition, to fines and long terms of imprisonment, on very slight grounds of suspicion.

Although the Libre Belgique seldom contained any definite news from outside, its free voice, speaking openly what everyone longed to utter but dared not, was a delight to us all. Persons of the very highest social standing undertook its circulation, carrying copies in hollowed-out walking-sticks, lining of hats, and so forth, in order to distribute them as widely as possible. Some day the story of its origin, its compositors, and indiscoverable place of publication will be known and welcomed with intense interest by all who drew from its single page almost the only ray of encouragement and hope those dark years offered for jaded spirits.

On the evening of the military dinner above referred to, which was in the early part of September, an incident occurred serving, in an impressive manner, to relieve the fretting recollection of that callously gay party, which had forced us and, I think, many others to leave the hotel immediately afterwards.

In the midst of that discordant levity, when the Prussians’ laughter and noisy toasts were ringing through the room, there suddenly sounded from without a wild and excited cry that swelled to a very thunder of voices as it was taken up by the throngs in the street. Naturally, we all sprang from table and hurried to the entrance door, anticipating we knew not what, for the cries were too glad in tone to suggest any fresh blast of all-too-familiar calamity.

Outside many persons from near-by houses had gathered in the middle of the boulevard—men in shirt-sleeves, women only partly dressed, children, and aged grandparents, all electrified by a note of joy such as they had not heard since they had cheered their departing army only a few weeks ago; weeks already seeming like years! All were gazing upwards into the pale sky of a summer-like twilight. “Le voilÀ! le voilÀ!” was shouted on every side in rough men’s voices, the shriller tones of women, and the piping treble of children. When the object of interest became visible to all—an Allied aeroplane soaring, like a bird of good omen, just above the street—those disjointed cries blended into one universal roar, that seemed to shake to their foundations the lines of massive buildings against which it rang.

So hysterically intense was the excitement that it looked for some moments as if the people had lost control of themselves, and as if some perilous outbreak would be the consequence—an event that could only lead to ruthless slaughter of the unarmed citizens. But the pathetic, almost tragic, poetry of the scene made one oblivious of everything threatening. One felt only the doleful significance of that high-soaring, unapproachable friend from the outer world, at whose message of encouragement we could only guess; whose coming only made clearer the fact that all who watched it from the dusk-shadowed streets were prisoners, as much cut off from the free world as though interned on some island far removed from the sphere of former interests, and denied all communication with it.

I had not fully realized our woeful position before the air-craft’s appearance, which stirred me to echo the excitement and joy of that helpless throng, watching, many with tears in their eyes, this proof that they were not forgotten by the nations they had so bravely served.

Although it was nearly eight p.m., daylight still lingered in the heavens, or rather a soft, green aftermath of day where the great bird circled, high above the house-tops, dark and awe-inspiring in that sea of pale light.

“C’est un Anglais!” cried some; and others: “C’est un FranÇais!” “C’est un Belge!” while again and again a wild shout of glad greeting rose from the streets to that far visitor, which was presently recognized as a Belgian.

Suddenly a still louder sound shocked these cries to a brief silence. The echoing report of cannon, already set up at advantageous points in the city, told that the visitor had been espied by less loving eyes. However, he seemed to know that nothing could reach him at that particular point. At any rate, he never wavered, and while the cannon roared, and cries rose again, now in frantic applause of his courage, he hovered as before, quietly winging in a circle above the darkening capital, seeming, by easy and fearless movement, to express sympathy and encouragement.

When light deepened and lamps began to flare in the sombre streets, the air-craft, whose driver evidently realized he would soon be invisible, turned with a wide sweep and, heading southward, flew off into the violet mist of distance, dying into a mere speck still passionately watched by yearning eyes from that sea of upturned faces.

Later on these aerial visits became frequent; but this one, the first sign we had had since the occupation from the outside world, made a lasting impression. It was said later that printed slips—a sample of which I unfortunately never saw—had been dropped from the aeroplane bearing this cheering message: “Have courage for a little time; we shall soon deliver you.”

That, alas, was in the first days of autumn 1914!

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