Drop Cap A

ALTHOUGH time passed somewhat less dully than later, the incidents that, during the winter and summer of 1915, relieved our otherwise monotonous days were of such distressing character that they only deepened the gloom. One by one our British friends were carried off to RÜhleben, while their wives were left behind without sufficient means—in some cases absolutely destitute, since they could receive nothing from without, and were consequently worse off than the really impoverished Belgians, for whom charity provided. For months at a stretch, this monotony of misery was broken by nothing more encouraging than bad news from the front, and the tragic events at the Tir National, where citizens were shot for patriotic deeds, seldom graver than that of Miss Cavell, or the brave Belgian girl Gabrielle Petit, twenty-one years of age. She, however, was given a chance of having her punishment commuted to imprisonment, but declined this favour which had been denied the Englishwoman. The murder of Miss Cavell caused a pervading mood of mourning that seemed unlikely ever to diminish, even in those who did not know her personally. That crime, so pitilessly carried out, in secrecy and under cover of false promises, was perhaps most appalling to those in the vicinity whose hopes were stimulated by misleading assurances, until the post-mortem announcement proved them vain! Although a British subject has referred to the deed as rather a “blunder” than a crime,—she being proven guilty of having assisted young men across the frontier,—the fact that other women, not British, found guilty of the same humane, although forbidden, acts, were yet spared the extreme punishment reserved for spies and the worst of treason, takes all logic from the argument of this apparently prejudiced Irishman. Edith Cavell’s martyrdom impressed us in Brussels, as it must always impress history, not only as shortsighted stupidity—the very determination, secrecy, and haste with which it was perpetrated contradicts such interpretation—but rather as a deliberate and atrocious act of vengeance toward a hated nation!

But other tragedies followed so quickly that this one gradually became lost in the mass of appalling incidents related by relatives of those who suffered, or widely announced in German affiches in order to strike fresh terror to the hearts of a sorrowing and helpless people.

Yet hope lived on; despite the prevailing misery, each gleam of good news that reached us from the front was magnified to a great victory for the Allies, and twenty-four hours sufficed to develop the conviction that a glorious and triumphant peace was about to be proclaimed.

Secret organizations in Belgium occasionally brought us a ray of encouragement, despite the twenty thousand German civilians endeavouring to discover and destroy these sources of information opposed to what was allowed to appear in our papers. But, by dint of passing from mouth to mouth, the news became so distorted or exaggerated that one scarcely knew what to believe.

We all had maps spread over our walls, on which every mile that the British and French advanced was marked with pins bearing little flags of the nations. For how many months—years, indeed—we pored over that line as it crept closer and closer to St. Quentin, Cambrai, and other points considered the keys to a rapid and overwhelming victory! I cannot recall them without painful recollection of our many disappointments.

In the spring of 1918 we put those maps out of sight, and ceased reading the communiquÉs vouchsafed us by a German press.

The most trying element of all, in regard to the front, was the authentic information we received by word of mouth, as early as December 1916, of the taking of Courtrai, St. Quentin, etc., by the Allied armies. The stirring account grew as it passed from one excited recounter to another. It was originally obtained, as stated above, from some unknown but trustworthy source. But later on we came to believe that these stories were, in great part, spread by the Germans in order to weaken and destroy what faith and hope still survived in the country. I heard soldiers, even at this time, express very gloomy views as to their nation’s prospects in the war. Once in a tram, just before the last temporarily successful onslaught of the Germans at Verdun, I heard one, who pretended he was drunk and had possibly been taught the words in French, cry out hysterically: “Our cause is lost! Nous sommes fichus! Nous sommes fichus!”

For some reason beyond the comprehension of civil minds the occupying Government appeared bent upon destroying every vestige of hope in Belgian hearts. Invariably on the eve of a German victory, exhilarating rumours of great Allied successes were set forth from unknown sources awakening joy in the prison city which often verged on an outburst of dangerous enthusiasm. Then, as invariably, the blazing blue affiche appeared, announcing an overwhelming defeat of the Allies in the very section where they were understood to have been successful.

The subtle trickery of such tactics might in time have attained its object; certainly there could be no better method of wearying and torturing a people into losing faith. And while it did not succeed with the better classes, it tired and broke the spirit of the suffering poor to such an extent that, even when positive proof of successes reached us, they would not believe; for they had come to the conviction that the Germans were invincible and would never give up an inch of Belgium.

We who had witnessed the easy and rapid advance of the enemy through Belgium and deep into France, cut off as we were from all reliable information, could not, during the first years, form any idea of the vastly differing conditions affecting the Allied armies. As the Germans, opposed only by hastily-mustered, unorganized, and infinitely weaker forces, had swept on so quickly, we looked for like speed from the Allies when once their strength was massed and ready. That the enemy had had time to root himself in and fortify his positions almost invulnerably, while England was forming an army of untrained men, and France was preparing hers, we did not comprehend until later. Few details reached us from the outer world, although during the first year a London Times was occasionally smuggled in. A Times! No one outside can realize what that meant to us! The poor sheet, usually more than a week old, passed surreptitiously from hand to hand, was reduced to a flimsy rag before reaching its last reader! Enormous prices were paid for it. The members of the Anglo-American club paid a hundred francs for one copy which contained nothing of importance, but was nevertheless of inestimable value to us as a voice from friendly regions whence, week by week, we were further cut off. But soon these rare and precious journals appeared no more; and the apparently innocent newsvendors who shouted aloud: “La Belgique!”—and whispered, when someone known to be trustworthy passed: “Le Teems, Monsieur?”—no longer added the zest of dangerous intrigue to our saunterings through the dull streets.

But tales of heroic deeds done by the Belgians afforded a certain interest and satisfaction; tales only whispered to those who could be trusted not to repeat them. And many were performed by the Flemish, whom the Germans boasted they had won to their side. One may be given to illustrate the real sentiments of these people, so falsely represented in the German accounts. At Bruges, where the Flemish element predominates, an old man, for many years foreman in the unloading, etc., of canal boats, approached my friend the steel manufacturer in that town, gruffly complained that the Allies were making a mistake in bombarding the railroads from aeroplanes, since the Germans were shipping their ammunition and so forth exclusively by the canal, and asked the manufacturer if there was no means of sending them word to this effect. The latter, not wishing to betray himself, but meaning to attempt it, said he knew of no such means. Whereupon the old Fleming withdrew, muttering discontentedly, with bowed head and great bushy brows knitted over a pair of clever dark eyes, meditating mischief.

A few hours later, German officers came in hot haste to the manufacturer, and, in a frenzy of rage and excitement, made him accompany them to the canal. There a great crowd had gathered about the old foreman, who was under arrest, and threatened with death. He appeared stupidly indifferent to the menaces and curses heaped upon him by the infuriated Teutons, merely repeating over and over:

“I could not help it!—An accident!—I did my best!”

For some moments my friend, dazed by the reigning confusion, was unable to understand what it was all about, until, led by an officer to the canal bank, he saw the cause of their rage. He was so much affected by amusement mingling with a deeper emotion that a lump rose to his throat, and he could not speak.

The old foreman, as though by accident, had managed to let drop the hook of his great iron crane just as a boat, carrying a vast German war-cargo, was passing by. It caught the boat so firmly by the nose that, in his pretended efforts to free it, he not only overturned the bulky vessel, but dragged down his crane, which, with the boat, sank into the canal, blocking it against all navigation for nearly five weeks! He did this at the risk of his life, and only his able pretence of stupidity, and the manufacturer’s representation that he was in his dotage, won for him a term of imprisonment instead of the extreme penalty.

The brave passage of young Belgians over the frontier to join their army caused the barriers of our prison to be more closely guarded. Those who still ventured to cross—and there were many even after the deadly electric wires had been installed!—did so with scarcely a chance for their lives. Boys as young as seventeen ran the gauntlet of that “death-zone,” and many passed it in safety after incredible endurance and suffering.

A Belgian woman, whose two sons made a daring attempt to pass, told us their experience, related to her in part by one of their companions, obliged by illness to return; and in part by the German officer who coldly informed her of their fate.

After skulking for four days and nights under cover of a wood in the Campine, devoid of food, save what little they carried in their pockets, and exposed to incessant autumn rains, they at last reached a canal lying between them and Dutch territory. Having no other means of crossing, they plunged at night into the black water, and struck out for the opposite shore.

The mother, not hearing of their capture, which would have been widely published, concluded, after several days, that they had got over safely. But one morning she was startled by the visit of a German sub-officer who came to announce that one of her sons had been shot while swimming the canal.

As she pretended ignorance of his intention to cross, the information was considered sufficient punishment, especially when, several days later, the tidings of her other son’s death in like manner was conveyed to her by the same pitiless messenger.

This was the most tragic incident of the sort I heard first-hand at that time; but tales as sad, or others picturing the glorious success of such young heroes, were constantly circulating.

Later, when the electric wires and underground mines were installed, the matter was differently managed. By a carefully-organized plan, the boys were able to pass over in companies of twenty, thirty, and more at a time, each one contributing his share to the large bribe by which the sentinels were bought off.

Once, when, before this rare privilege was wholly withdrawn, my companion was permitted to go by motor into Holland on business, he was surprised to meet, in the little Dutch town of Nispen, a Belgian acquaintance whom he believed to be in Brussels. He and thirty companions had been safely conducted over the frontier the night before! Three thousand one hundred francs, one hundred from each member of the party, had secured them this easy passage. The youths, now free and eager for revenge, were glad to regain liberty at so small a price, and be able to join their colours. While he was relating this in the street, he noticed a crowd gathered about two German soldiers, unresistingly arrested by the Dutch police.

The young Belgian, on seeing them, uttered an exclamation: “Mon Dieu!” he said. “Those are our sentinels!—the men who led us over last night!” They hastened to the group, and the soldiers, recognizing him, grinned and nodded in a friendly manner.

“What are you doing here?” he asked them genially, for the men were evidently good-natured creatures, not reared in the army, whose military sympathies were apparently no deeper than their uniforms.

“Got tired of it over there!” returned one, still smiling. “We are not so free as you are, but we can wait for that more comfortably here than in Belgium!”

During the summer of 1916 the inhabitants of Brussels, weary of suffering and the “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,” began a rather forced effort to brighten their existence. When, after a bitterly gloomy winter, the first peep of green became visible in the Bois, it seemed as though a tremor of new life passed through the city. War, with its ever-recurring calamities and disappointments, had come to be looked on as an unalterable affliction, which must be endured with patience until some unforeseen and unimaginable event should bring it to an end. Confidence in early and rapid victory had gradually given place to a less definite though stubborn belief in final triumph; but now even this was less openly expressed. War, in fact, became a tacitly avoided subject of conversation. The tedious communiquÉs, giving only such details as the Government thought fit to present, were no longer discussed, even by bereaved and serious folk whose thoughts were ever at the front. We who, as yet, were spared the crape worn by so many, began to frequent tennis and golf clubs, where, while healthfully exercising on the courts, or “chasing a pill through a pasture”—as the Irishman defined golf!—we tried to forget that the air we breathed came to us over acres of death.

The Bois became alive again with children and pleasure-seeking couples; and although there were no horses to drive or ride, boats were launched, as of old, on the beautiful lake surrounding an island cafÉ, which reopened its doors to serve, not the dainty repasts of former days,—edibles were far too dear!—but tea and coffee of sorts, while procurable, and a light home-made beer. One lump of sugar was allowed to each cup, and no appeal or bribe could secure more. But in a short time the place was crowded, not only by Belgians, but German soldiers who mingled freely with them, seeking relief from the dull routine of their days of rest.

One of the touching sights of this little island retreat was that of these weary, battle-soiled men, to whose clothes still clung the mud and grime of the trenches, delightedly visiting the dovecot, where, for ten centimes, they procured grain to feed the pigeons. These pure white birds, emblems of peace and beauty, would settle on their hands, shoulders, and heads; and through their snowy plumage the men’s gruesome, green-grey uniforms appeared like the thought of an evil mind, marring the spiritual accord between God and man.

This reawakening of the people was a natural reaction—the demand of life for its own rights. As with individuals, sorrow’s tedium had evoked in the entire occupied country a certain helpless resignation to circumstances that after two years’ patient endurance and discouragement offered no promise of change. Oppression and deprivation had become permanent elements of existence. Tragedies even failed to impress us so deeply as of yore; incidents of heart-breaking pathos no longer brought tears to the eyes of those who could still dress warmly in winter, and indulge adequately, if not luxuriously, in the high-priced food. All had made such sacrifices for the poorer classes as each considered possible without serious menace to himself. Many had given the last centime they could spare, others substantial donations which they probably did not miss.

Nevertheless, evidences of distressing want increased, more especially among those too proud to ask alms, who, before the war, had been comfortably off.

During that summer and the following winter these once well-to-do and industrious citizens swelled the long lines of hunger-driven, ill-clad beings who, in rain, snow, or sunshine, stood for hours outside soup-kitchens to obtain the loaf of bread and jug of hot broth provided by charity. I think no visible sign of the country’s calamity was more painfully impressive than the sight of those silent, patient files of heterogeneous humanity, extending at certain hours along whole blocks of the city’s streets. Chiefly were they eloquent during the early dusk of winter, when, exposed to the blast of cold winds, to sleety rain, or penetrating fog, refined men and women, old and young, stood shivering side by side with the lowest inhabitants of rue Haute!

Some faces seen in those sad gatherings I shall never forget; faces of haggard, hopeless men, whose brave efforts to live honestly had been frustrated when success was almost attained; of wan women, whose husbands were dead or fighting in the trenches, whose children starved in a heatless home; old women and young, in whose eyes all human reasoning was eclipsed by an animal hunger—old men and young with that same anguish in their eyes, but with the hard and morose expression of embryo criminals lurking about their down-drooping, sullenly closed lips.

Ah, only those who lived in the midst of Belgium’s agony, who beheld a guiltless people verily crucified as recompense for their loyalty to honour and truth, can fully appreciate the wrong that was done them! Only those who saw with their own eyes the callous and inhuman rage of the invader’s earlier treatment,—when, confident of conquering a startled world with every diabolical device of destruction which mind could conceive, he ignored all laws, and deliberately aimed at crushing the very heart of this little land that had done no wrong,—only those can understand with what contempt, what loathing, we who did witness it came to look upon the ruler and the chiefs of that race whose history has been thus stained! For we saw these people starving while Germany was seizing their crops, their horses, cows, even the contents of dry-goods and other shops; shipping away the coal, for need of which so many perished during the cold winters; taking all fats, so that butter was unprocurable and milk too rare and dear for the poor to buy. We beheld the famished mothers struggling to keep their fading children alive on what charity could provide—so small a portion for each of the many thousands to be cared for!—the country’s youth stricken down with tuberculosis, and honest men driven to thieving and crime!

Indeed, the bare sight of those lines of hunger-wan creatures, stretching like black stains through the city, awoke depressing conjectures as to whether man’s intelligence was, after all, of a higher order than that of beasts, or merely the same limited capacity, artificially burnished! Through nearly two-thirds of the civilized world, life, beauty, and the harvests of ages were being ruthlessly and insanely destroyed; every principle of right, every element of higher sentiment scorned or ignored, in a senseless and hideous conflict between men—between the most exalted of all living creatures! Truth, the acknowledgment of a higher Power, and even kindred sympathy—manifested even by the lowest animals—were sacrificed day after day to an atrocious passion, costing millions of lives, billions of wealth, and a loss in treasures, in architecture, literature, and art such as a thousand years of labour can never replace!

What wonder that individuals did not escape the almost universal retrogression, and that, amid a people who had so nobly stood loyal to their ideals, dishonesty and contempt for law gradually developed from the festering and unalleviated wounds unjustly dealt them!

Signs of this inevitable consequence of war became apparent later, not only in Brussels, but throughout the whole of Belgium, as in Russia and (more or less) in all the involved nations.

War! who after this can ever again insult patriotism by relating it to the beat of drums and the roar of cannon? Every rational being who has witnessed its dire and degrading effects, even in so small a scene as the prison-capital of its vast tragic stage, must curse those philosophic minds of Germany who exerted their intellects to exalt intellect’s most horrible opponent, and sold their souls to the devil for a vain Emperor’s praise!

On them, as much as on him they flattered, must be laid the crime of a catastrophe that has menaced the very foundations of civilization. Where now can be seen the benefits of that “drastic medicine for the human race” which Treitschke informs us must always recur by the Almighty’s will? He pretends that war is elevating because the individual disappears before the great conception of the State, and that to check war would be “a perversion of morality,” in that it would abolish heroism! Is heroism more beautiful or advantageous when forced from a man on the battlefield, than when, of his own will, he proves it in a peaceful struggle to live righteously and let others live?

How many criminals, for selfish objects, have evinced personal courage like that of a soldier in action?—far greater, because not in obedience, but in opposition to power! Paid or commanded heroism is not heroism in the true sense. Thousands upon thousands in the peaceful walks of life have more worthily deserved glory by labour and sacrifice for the common good than they who are driven, under command, to slay their kind—who obey for no clearly-comprehended object, but first and foremost to preserve themselves. There are perhaps fifty men in five hundred, apart from the officers, whose dominant incentive in battle is other than self-preservation; whereas in peace one-half, if not more, of a like body of men utilize their physical and intellectual powers for the improvement of general conditions—and often without aiming at other recompense. The hour for lauding the soldier above the scientist and artisan is long since past, and vast military power, or military power of any sort, is a mockery of the present glorious age.

Can there be any more absurd sophistry than that of pretending that war corrects egoism? War is bred of egoism, bred of the cruellest of all egoisms—imperial ambition! In peace the basest selfishness is less harmful than the selfishness of international conflict. Even those men who have amassed enormous fortunes by robbing the poor have been of greater benefit to the world in general than if their intelligence and force had been utilized in planning how to crush another nation. Egoism, after all, is necessary to progress, and war is but its most barbaric expression.

Machiavelli’s assertion that power is the keynote of all policy has been grasped by the German war-philosophers, who flatter themselves they see clearly when looking upon the present epoch through the eyes of an unscrupulous fifteenth-century Italian. Machiavelli perhaps spoke truth for his time—a truth, moreover, still real for our own; but his word power has now a different significance. Now only is the power of reason generally developed; now only the many nations of the world speak the same moral language; now only the masses, formerly forced to be war-like animals, are thinking and, to a great extent, cultured beings.

But what is the use of reiterating what every thoughtful mind has heard crying to-day over the bleeding earth? That Reason which vast catastrophes invariably rouse to ephemeral life soon dies in the gathering storm-cloud of humanity’s innately savage passions! If the race most boastful of its culture, a race which leapt so rapidly from the confining narrowness of old-time heresies, could give birth to the devastating horror that has reigned for nearly five years, and threatened to thrust the world back into medieval darkness, what faith can be placed in mere Reason? What faith can be placed in any human argument, ideal, or belief—what faith in Man himself?—The majesty of human intellect, before so deliberate a destruction of its own works, is made to appear no more than a vain invention of fancy; and the supreme creature of all knowable creation appears of no more enduring significance than as depicted by Lamartine: “Ce pauvre insecte c’est l’homme, qui chante quelques jours devant Dieu sa jeunesse et ses amours, et puis se tait pour l’ÉternitÉ!”

---