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ON 12th October, President Wilson’s reply to the German peace plea was made known to us, and its brief dignity, its firm, just, and benevolent strength, stirred every American heart with pride, and awoke among the Belgians enthusiasm only kept with difficulty within the limits their rulers ordained. Peace then, for the first time, began to be spoken of as a still vague but now conceivable possibility. The poor were eager for it at almost any price—that is, the uneducated and uncomprehending poor. The thoughtful wanted it that further carnage might be checked; but those whose wounds were too deep for forgetting, whose life-interest had been buried in some innocent grave, cried: “They shall not have peace until they are on their knees!” And to the argument that such satisfaction could only be attained at cost of Belgium’s total destruction the unhesitating reply came “Qu’importe? France has sacrificed her cities, why should not we? Better see even Brussels razed to the ground, than not achieve to the full that aim for which we have already sacrificed so much!”

Their determination to go on was not that of Germany, impelled by greed and pride; but desire to risk all in order to be rid for ever of an unscrupulous neighbour; to eradicate the smallest trace of that neighbour’s control, and see it finally broken. This, more even than a righteous and excusable desire for vengeance, was their reason for wishing to continue a conflict that had so injured them, while Germany’s object was merely to avoid punishment and the loss of her gains!

Those without work, without hope or ambition, the poor, famished, soup-kitchen folk, would not believe that the Germans really wanted peace: “There is a trick under it; we shall wait and see!” was all their comment. And it seemed as though theirs was the voice of prophecy when news of Prince Max von Baden’s famous and seemingly treacherous letter reached us. How this affected the outer world we had no means of judging, but it caused in Brussels mingled anger and fear.

In those days the feeling was very high and enthusiastic for America. “Ce sont les AmÉricains qui nous out sauvÉs!” was the popular sentiment, although America’s deeds at the front were never given in our papers. America, according to the German censorship, was even more negligible than England; only the French armies were allowed a certain amount of credit in regard to the “victorious alteration of our front” which the puissances centrales were so often obliged to acknowledge in those later days. People, nevertheless, were not so intoxicated by present events as to forget the first thrilling days, when Belgium alone held back that overwhelming tide, and sowed the seed of the victory now approaching; nor those later ones when France and England so marvellously achieved the real, the all-important defeat of Prussia at the Marne. Nor were those still more terrible days forgotten, following Russia’s withdrawal—those weeks of anguish when new hordes of Germans rushed through Brussels toward the front, and wiped out all the Allied advances we had been following so patiently, so eagerly, step by step over the torn and blood-soaked regions of France. That period was more appalling even than that of the first onslaught, more annihilating to hope. Looking back on it, recalling the almost crazing tension of anxiety, the reigning conviction that Germany was rushing on to conquest, the second stand before Paris, that wonderful, all-glorious victory, shines out as more brilliant, more soul-thrilling, even than the first. And yet of the imperishable, recklessly heroic charge of the American marines before Chateau-Thierry, that outburst of fresh and determined energy, which refired the Allies and helped once and for all to turn the tide of war, we knew nothing until after the Allied troops had entered Brussels. We knew only that the enemy was stronger both in numbers and in his determination to win at any cost, despite the hypocritical peace offer that gave him excuse to cry: “You will not have peace on our terms? Then bear the consequences!” and to make those consequences—already prepared—throw into shadow all the horrors of his first Massenschlacht.

No, glorious England, France, and Belgium! no plea of overwhelming numbers, no whine of enforced surrender before the entire world, can rob you of laurels won in the first awful years—that vast, unequalled victory which America’s generous hand helped at the critical moment to assure you!

The realization that victory was in sight came upon us in Brussels with the dazing suddenness of a comet in a starless night. The first evidence of Germany’s collapse was the sudden and astonishing independence of soldiers toward their superiors. We wondered at this for a day or two; then the truth burst on us with an avalanche of disbanded troops, from the Étape regions, who, flinging off all control, arrived in groups of twenty, more or less. No red flag could be seen among them, nothing explained their strange advent save their look of desperate weariness. So quietly they came that at first everyone believed they were returning on furlough, bearing with them booty seized on the way from the houses and farms of fugitives. Until the time when their increasing numbers attracted even the puzzled attention of children, there was no relaxation of the iron hand.

Even when the red flag of rebellion was glaring defiance of the Kaiser and his flatterers, the daily papers offered us their usual official lies. William the Second’s “invincible armies” were represented as still resisting the world; the Allies had been checked at this point or that; and the Belgians again were called upon to consider the dire consequences to themselves and their country of continuation of the war. And this when the war was virtually ended!

I think, from all evidence, the shock was as great to the occupying Powers as to us. They may have been more prepared than we for disaster, but they certainly seemed taken by surprise when that red flag appeared, waving at the head of their defeated troops.

If the war came like a lightning-stroke, it went, so far as we could judge, like a falling star of incalculable speed. Most of us were too dazed to comprehend the meaning of events.

Suddenly the pompous officer with shining helmet, loaded revolver, and dangling sword, who had reigned supreme in streets, cafÉs, and trams, disappeared.

Those were stirring, extraordinary, unprecedented days! And yet, by remaining indoors, one might have lived through the first of them without suspecting anything unusual. The troops entered quietly, too contented, apparently, to be done with past strife to plunge into more. Numbers of them sought concealment in Belgium, rather than go back to the discord they expected at home, openly stating they did not wish to return to Germany. These were not deserters, but men known to have come direct from the front. It was a strange experience, and one of peculiar psychological interest, to watch these battle-worn men, soiled, weary, and haggard, crossing the city all with the same look of internal perplexity, as though just waking from a nightmare whose meaning they were trying to solve. They appeared to have no set purpose,—probably none, but the leaders had,—nor did they evince the slightest humiliation at returning vanquished through conquered lands. On the contrary, their attitude toward the people of Brussels was kindly, almost friendly; they seemed even to expect applause from the throngs that gradually gathered to gaze upon them. Some of those watching would doubtless have given them a cry of farewell, in sheer satisfaction at their departure (if not in compassion for the guiltless among them), but for the hideous memories their uniforms evoked. Despite those memories, a genial or joking word was thrown them occasionally from the crowd, and replied to in the same spirit.

If, even one year earlier, some trustworthy reader of the future had predicted such a scene, not one of that gaping crowd would have considered it possible; for, as History has never recounted a conflict so frightful, so it has never seen so astounding a termination of war, such a mingling of tragedy and comedy! In those extraordinary street-scenes humanity was visibly struggling on the one side against the follies of tradition, and on the other against the cruel ache of unforgettable wounds. The German troops, repentent, broken, realizing that they had been fighting for nothing higher than a pride founded on their enslaved souls, seemed to crave recognition of their emancipation—looked for some sign of pardon and good fellowship from the people they had obediently ground to earth.

There were intervals between the passing of troops, but soldiers in small groups constantly wandered about looking for a resting-place. Nearly every house in Brussels was obliged to take some of them in for a day or two—soldiers and such officers as had decided to throw their lot in with the revolutionists. Others, the more aristocratic officers, despisers of the red flag, fled as best they could. Occasionally a high-power automobile tore through the city, bearing three or four of these outraged gods toward the German frontier. But soldiers, with levelled rifles, checked their course, two of whom mounted the cars, and, dragging the shining epaulettes from their superiors’ shoulders, threw them to the crowd. This done, they stepped back, quietly replaced their weapons, and allowed the car to go on. The officers offered no resistance; though blanched with rage, they were as helpless before their armed slaves as Belgium had been before the massed cannon and diabolic instruments of destruction.

During the first week after the revolution became known, a body of higher officers, with some loyal soldiers, took possession of the Gare du Nord, hoping to prevent the revolutionists making use of the railway. Had they had a greater number on their side, this act might have caused Belgium, besides all her other trials, to bear the brunt of Germany’s internal strife. As it was, many Belgians suffered loss of life and destruction of property through this selfishly stupid attempt to defy the avenging hand. Great throngs of people were in the streets; and I, with a friend, happened also to be in that crowded quarter where the outrage took place. Unwarned and unsuspecting, we were attracted thither by an interesting mass of troops, just returned from the front, with cannon, mitrailleuse, field-kitchens, and armoured war-cars. In the joy of freedom from stern military authority, we all swarmed as close as possible to these, now apparently harmless, features of war.

At a certain point on the main boulevard quite close to the station, one or two armed soldiers stood ineffectually warning back the throngs, without explanation, either too indifferent or too ignorant themselves to enforce their orders. Consequently many curious Belgians drifted past them, some returning the sentinels’ challenge with laughing bravado. One guard menaced with his rifle a couple who attempted to pass, but in so melodramatic a manner that, while those threatened fled in terror, many others slipped by him unperceived.

Then the report of a revolver rang out, immediately followed by others, and at the same moment a terrific volley of mitrailleuse was brutally discharged into the street, from windows of the station building—it was said by officers, who cared little how many civilians might be sacrificed to their folly. The amazed and terrified Belgians were driven back like dust before a hurricane—dazed by the deafening roar, by the plunging of frantic horses, the crash of windows on every side, and the whistle of deadly missiles that filled the air like a sudden storm of hail, riddling adjacent houses and felling many a startled Belgian, with the soldiers it recklessly aimed to destroy. In less than two moments after the mitrailleuse opened fire, the street was cleared as by magic of every living being, save the troops firing back. Rushing blindly from a menace so little expected, the people crowded into shops or fled up side-streets for protection. Meanwhile the roar continued until the officers, surprised by troops (who, I believe, entered the building unperceived from the rear), were obliged to capitulate, and the irrational conflict was brought to an end.

Local skirmishes of more or less serious character occurred at intervals throughout the city, during the passage of troops returning to their chastened Vaterland. In certain districts bullet-pierced windows and damaged faÇades bear witness of these outbreaks, mostly caused during an attack upon officers loyal to the Empire, discovered in their place of concealment. But, considering the unparalleled difficulty of the situation,—these vast armies of enemy troops, flushed with freedom from autocratic control, coming into the midst of a people taught to despise them,—there was extraordinarily little discord. The troops, for the most part, were amiable, taking even occasional gibes in a good spirit. Only the officers—those who still remained, mostly without epaulettes and wearing a bit of red—appeared to distrust the Belgians, and were ever on the alert for attack: the fear of guilty consciences, apparently quite lacking in the soldier! I myself saw some who (doubtless in accordance with von Hindenburg’s suggestion) stayed to settle up matters pertaining to the government, etc., carrying hand-grenades as they moved about the streets—weapons they could hurl into the midst of that massed attack they seemed to dread!

While standing, one day, at the Porte de Namur watching a battered regiment pass by on its slow, foot-weary way to LiÈge and Germany, I was amazed to hear what an amount of good-natured taunting they received from the crowd, not only without resentment, but often with responsive levity. One man near me cried out in Flemish: “They are bound to get to Paris, but have decided the shorter and best route is by way of Berlin!”

“Ja, ja!” returned laughingly a haggard-faced youth seated on a cannon-wagon, “Sie haben recht! the road to Berlin is the best of all roads!”

Another man in the crowd took a toy cannon from his pocket, and pointing it at a passing line of soldiers, cried: “Attention! The British are coming!” And to the amazement, I think, of most persons present, he was answered by the troops with a roar of spontaneous laughter.

Some scenes presented by the retreat of Germany’s disillusioned and crest-fallen army were pitiful enough to bring tears to the eyes of their bitterest enemies. Often small detachments passed through, not in line, but trudging along as best they could under heavy burdens—probably the sorry remnants of once-proud regiments. These had no commander and evidently no interest save the one fixed purpose to get back to their homes. They carried their belongings either on their backs, or in heavy carts which they dragged along, four or five together straining at the ropes. These cumbrous country carts, probably bought or stolen from peasants, were piled high with bulging knapsacks, boxes, French and English helmets, and other trophies of the battlefield. And, in strange contrast to these, were bits of furniture, coops containing live hens, and often a cow or two tethered behind.

Travel-worn peddlers could not have been more indifferent than these men to public observation. Ill-clad and ill-nourished, they gazed straight ahead, hungering for their wives and children; taking as little interest in the revolution as they did in the Kaiser; trying to forget what they had gone through—plodding along like animals, without hope of reward or acclamation for all they had courageously endured.

I saw one soldier, an elderly man whose uniform was almost in tatters, and his boots so worn they must have been painful to walk in, trudging alone along one of the main boulevards, leading a very small donkey attached to a cart in which were the treasures he was taking home. On top of all was a wooden cage containing live rabbits. He paid no attention to the amusement his appearance aroused in the onlookers, and, appearing to have forgotten he had ever pertained to a regiment, saw nothing but the long way ahead, toward the goal of his one absorbing desire—Heimat!

Later on, the troops strode through in regimental order under command of revolutionary leaders, but bearing, even then, little resemblance to the brilliant legions that had marched so haughtily through Brussels on the 20th of August 1914. The great monster had even then met its master on the banks of the Marne; but it refused to recognize the fact, or sacrifice Imperial pride in order to save the brave sons of the then prosperous nation: it threw palpitating, living hearts of those sons to the cannon, until a latent human instinct of self-preservation was awakened in them. Then those who survived understood, at last, that their real enemy was not behind those determined and avenging guns; but at home, seated upon the throne of despotism.

“Oh what a fall was there!” Not of a CÆsar deserving the eulogies of a Marcus Antonius, but the dignity of a nation worthy a nobler leader—diligent, prosperous, sober-minded Germany.

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