NO sooner did the Belgians know that the occupying government had fallen, than their long-hidden, beloved tricolour appeared. Revolutionary leaders, fearing this might cause trouble, asked those now in authority to have the colours removed, and the people were requested to withdraw them, until one appeared on the HÔtel de Ville. This was accordingly done in the more important thoroughfares, but in others the flag continued to float above the moving streams of enemy forces, who showed no resentment. On the contrary, they seemed to admire the daring patriotism it expressed; and on one occasion, to my knowledge, German troops marched under those flags through the ChaussÉe d’Ixelles singing the Marseillaise!

In the eyes of the more intelligent one could read the anguish at their hearts, and a passion of resentment that suggested they were mentally recalling the lines of their cherished poet:

Heine.

The extraordinary spirit of reconciliation shown by these men, their total lack of humiliation in defeat, was in such strange contrast to the confident pride with which they had originally invaded Belgium that it was difficult to believe one’s eyes. And in their individual self-control, in the genial smile with which they met the rabble’s taunts, was a more beautiful pride than before—the pride of awakened conscience, and of that innate moral force which, despite aristocratic plottings, had before the war raised Germany to a foremost place among nations; which will no doubt raise her again, like a phoenix, from the ashes of her errors.

However, there were also dark, familiar stains to mar this dawning of a new Germany whose sun, by a strange irony of Fate, arose in Belgium! The yesterday of trickery and terrorism in certain members of that vast host still survived the night of defeat. Soldiers, by force of arms, committed daring thefts throughout the country, mostly to obtain money, of which the troops seemed in great need—must indeed have been, since some sold their weapons, bed-covers, and even their clothing. One day I heard a young under-officer bartering his boots with a cafÉ garÇon for fifty francs, when shoes of any sort, at the time, could not be had for less than a hundred, or even more. Another evidence of this need, and one of enlightening significance, was the reckless sale of goods which they held in outlying districts of Brussels. At Forest and other suburban parts of the city, great car-loads of material, looted from shops and private houses probably months or years ago,—for the dry-goods shops of Brussels had been cleaned out quite two years before,—were offered at absurdly trivial prices. Silk-velvet, which could not be had in Brussels for less than two hundred francs, went at a mark a yard; warm woollen stuffs, which the shivering population, thinly clad in dyed cotton, could not obtain at any price in the shops, were sold—to such as deigned to buy—for an equally small sum. All these goods, taken on pretence of clothing the army—or Belgian prisoners!—were brought to light again, and not only stuffs, but all manner of other things, as if from some pirates’ cave, were bartered back to those who had been robbed of them.

But now thieving became more bold; not by officers, but by soldiers, who did not attempt to disguise it with transparent lies.

In some cases, nevertheless, that old trick was still tried, as in that of a prominent banker, who was robbed of one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs by six soldiers. Evidently familiar with banking affairs, they presented themselves at his office after business hours, and, finding him alone with one employÉ, coolly demanded the sum desired. The characteristic Teuton excuse was not wanting—characteristic in its absurdity: Belgians might rob the army en route!—unarmed Belgians might loot the German vans, under guard of many hundreds of armed soldiers!—therefore large sums were demanded from all banks as guarantee!

The banker stated that he was unable to grant their demand, as there was no money available in the bank. But even as he spoke two encaisseurs entered; their satchels, containing the amount mentioned, were seized, the contents quietly appropriated, and the soldiers, revolver in hand, retired. The banker appealed to the revolutionary chiefs, who refused to credit his story, stating proudly that “Germans were not thieves.” But by dint of perseverance, and many visits, he at last convinced them, and the money was returned to him, from army funds, just one hour before these high-minded leaders were, for some reason unknown to us, thrown out of power.

Another instance of the justice which these unfortunately displaced chiefs endeavoured to exercise, was the punishment of a German soldier, who, convicted of having murderously assaulted the woman cashier of a restaurant and stolen the contents of her caisse, was placed against a wall and shot—or so we were told.

The shocking original methods of German troops, in regard to places they inhabited, were also revived in these days. At one private hotel with whose proprietor we were well acquainted, their behaviour was almost beyond belief. The hotel had been requisitioned, and occupied during the war by German women, who left it in good condition. But the troops, who afterwards took possession for a few days only on their way out, reduced it to a state of uncivilized filth and wanton destruction, committing unmentionable acts whereby the up-to-date and valuable kitchen utensils, the flower-pots, and even the drawers of bureaus were rendered unfit for future service. Bombs were found under some of the beds, and the whole place had to be taken over by the State to be cleansed and examined.

Brussels, during that time, echoed day and night to spasmodic reports of firearms, sometimes of considerable duration, and consequently terrifying; at others merely an inexplicable exchange of shots.

But on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of November, the entire city trembled to blast after blast of cannon, and the shuddering shock of car-loads of ammunition set off in merciless proximity to inhabited quarters. The numerous mines buried in and about the city were also exploded—those treacherous death-traps awaiting the Allied armies, on which the occupying government had founded its boast that Brussels would be the “bouquet of the whole war,” a prediction constantly repeated.

While public attention was more or less centred on these continued explosions, fires broke out in all the railway stations, one of which was almost entirely destroyed. Many explanations were set afloat in the familiar German fashion, the most persistent being that rue Haute thieves had done it in order to pillage certain cars—an absurd suggestion, since thieves do not usually light a beacon to attract attention to their deeds. One damning fact, moreover—the simultaneity of the conflagrations—suggested some inexplicable Teuton object, perhaps mere vengeance.

The theory of vengeance was given weight by an account given us by the mayor of Charleroi. Just before the Germans withdrew, some officers visited him and, without giving a hint of their intentions, asked him to call together all the former Belgian railroad employÉs and send them to work at the station. The mayor, considering this a reasonable request, willingly agreed, got the men together, and set them to work. Scarcely were they all gathered in and about the station than terrific explosions took place in the yard and on near-by tracks. Fifty-eight of the unsuspecting Belgians were killed, and many others, living in the vicinity, either slain or wounded, while every window in the entire town was shattered, doors also and many objects of value. Hundreds of cars containing ammunition had been secretly attached by a fuse wire, which the Germans lighted and left to do its deadly work, while they fled into safety and were never again seen.

Some intrepid Belgians, fortunately, discovered the fuse, cut it, and thus saved two hundred and twenty car-loads of high-power explosives, some of which stood in the centre of the town and would have caused its entire wreckage.

The mayor also told us a shocking story in regard to a hospital in his town which the Germans had occupied during the war. At their departure they removed their wounded, and announced that the hospital was at his disposal. On going to visit it, he found a number of French and English wounded lying on the floor, who stated they had never had a bed, and were in a deplorable condition. Outside, in the ambulance garage, the door of which was locked, he found seventeen dead bodies of soldiers, entirely devoid of clothing and therefore impossible to identify as to nationality. In a corner of this place were heaped a ghastly collection of amputated human limbs. These and the bodies were in a state of decomposition that rendered their removal both dangerous and horrible.

A school-house that had been used to shelter troops up to the last day before the Germans left, he found in a condition quite as incredibly revolting. There were no beds; the floors, covered with a sort of mossy turf, were in a state of indescribable filth, whereon the soldiers slept and which they subjected to animal-like treatment. The stench, he said, was frightful, and the entire place so infected with vermin that the charwomen engaged to clean it were not allowed to leave the premises before being thoroughly fumigated and cleansed.

After such disclosures, could one wonder at the brutalized, unhuman appearance of those men who dragged their weary way through Brussels—men once hardy, self-respecting tillers of the soil, or workers in other useful pursuits? Such treatment as they had endured could leave no spark of military pride in them, no consciousness of shame at defeat, no desire even for the triumph of victory.

On Sunday, the 17th of November, when Germans were seen openly in the capital for the last time, the street scenes were something at which to marvel. Everyone was abroad. Among the throng surging to and fro, through those wide avenues and boulevards so long ruled by the enemy, the familiar grey-green Teuton uniforms were relieved by the khaki of the English and Belgians, and the pale blue of the French. Many Italians and Russians were there, and one or two American airmen who had descended from a cloudless sky to see how the armistice was affecting us. Although no organized part of the Allied armies had yet entered save certain Belgians on leave to visit their families, hundreds of liberated prisoners had come to the city from German camps where they had been forced to labour for the enemy. All of these save the French, who could speak the language, were a sorry-looking lot, wandering about, unable to express themselves. So numerous were they that it was impossible for the Belgians to collect them at once and give them the assistance and comfort which they so greatly needed. The British prisoners especially were pitiable to behold in their starved condition and wretched rags—poor helpless youths, that for many months had endured such moral and physical anguish under their cruel jailers that some stated they had looked back with regret to their life in the trenches.

Most of these had found kind hearts to look after them, before that amazing Sunday when foe and friend mingled in the streets of Brussels, presenting a sight so fantastic, so unforeseen, that it seemed to lend a strange element of travesty to all that had gone before.

On the crowded platforms of trams an occasional German might be seen, pressed close to a haggard-looking Britisher worn to emaciation after months of harsh treatment by the former’s compatriots; or shoulder to shoulder with a jubilant Belgian officer, hearing his response to the triumphant greeting of friends—hearing the wild applause given to units of all the Allied nations! Strange and incredible sight, in those streets where the casque À pointe had reigned supreme but a few days before, where—it seemed but yesterday—the hope of seeing a Belgian, English, or French uniform had been almost extinguished!

And now the spiked helmet was ignored. No voice was raised to acclaim it; the once-dreaded uniform passed unnoticed.

So far as I know, however, there was no serious outbreak or obvious resentment of conditions doubtless sorely trying to those men of defeated Germany, denied even the prospect of joyous welcome in their own country, already seething with civil strife. German soldiers—even German officers, whose rank could no longer be discerned, came face to face with surly, dark-browed Russians, and exchanged curious glances, as though furtively trying to read one another’s minds; with Italians, whose eyes twinkled with the satisfaction their impulsive natures were less able to conceal; with French, beginning to forget, in the joy of victory, the wrongs of their prison camps; and with British, into whose haggard faces they dared not look!

Even the knowledge of having discarded the Imperial yoke could not have lessened the pangs these men must have suffered, or blinded even the dullest of them to the evidence afforded by those units of wronged nations of a punishment too awful and complete to be attributed to mortal power alone.

Especially galling to them must have been the intense enthusiasm shown by the population for every Britisher. These, at the time, only wretched-looking prisoners, were the first Allies who appeared, and the sight of them sent the people into a frenzy of pride, excitement, and sympathy. Here and there, in the newly enlivened streets, would be seen a black swarm of Belgians gathered about one pitiably emaciated English lad, trying, without knowing a word of the language, to find some place of refuge to which he had been directed by the Belgian committee who looked after the prisoners. There was nothing, as a rule, to denote his nationality, save his speech, and a ragged khaki jacket, with his prison number painted on the back. In his poor, dazed face—made more haggard by several weeks’ growth of beard—in the filthiness of his whole appearance, there was little to denote the bath-loving Englishman. Some told me they had not changed their shirts during eight months of imprisonment; had been forced to do hard labour, with nothing to eat but turnip soup, and one loaf of bread a day shared by four men.

The Belgians, however, quickly took them in hand, fitted them out with clean clothes, and at times carried them on their shoulders through the streets, shouting, “Vive l’Angleterre!” right under the noses of the Germans.

All of those to whom I spoke had been captured at a certain point near ArmentiÈres, where, owing to the collapse of an adjacent Portuguese trench, the Germans had got behind them and so cut them off. They were rather bitter regarding the “Pork and Beans,” as they called the Portuguese, and stated with contempt that they had seen some of the latter, after their capitulation, pass into the German lines with hand-satchels, containing their belongings already packed!

On Monday, the 18th of November, scarcely two weeks after the first definite gleam of approaching deliverance penetrated the prison city, we realized with a strange, half-incredulous amazement that we were free! The grey uniform had disappeared; those of our deliverers were in view, and the outer world was once more a living reality! It seemed impossible—or rather like awaking abruptly from a hideous dream! No more roaring of cannon beyond the patient, proudly soaring trees of the Bois—where sad gaps bear witness of the vandal’s hand; no more racking thunder of mitrailleuse from the military exercise-field, or droning of German aeroplanes over our heads; no more dread of armed soldiers intruding upon our privacy, or of tyrannical affiches imposing penalties and checking liberty! We could go forth into the free streets without fear of the polizei. We could walk by lamplight at night, instead of inky darkness, and take from our windows the ugly blue paper or dark curtains by which the dim light of our houses was hooded. The door-bell could ring without causing panic, without forcing me, and others who plied the pen in secret, to rush off and conceal perilous manuscripts even before knowing who might be at the door. Buried treasures could be unearthed—newspapers read—letters written—we could breathe normally once more! Over four years of persecution, isolation, and association with misery, had led in a few days, as it seemed, to this intoxicating hour of triumph, when not only the victory we craved was attained, but the malignant world-menacing monster, vanquished by the sword of Justice, had, like a wounded scorpion, writhing in its pain, stung itself to death!