Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

II

I am sure all of you are now familiar with the glorious name of Liège, but you may not know so well that of the hero whose name is now linked for ever with that of Liège—I mean General Leman, who conducted the splendid defence.

The flower of the German Army was hurled against the city and the forts and thirty thousand Belgians fought like lions repulsing the enemy. Great deeds of individual valour were done, and a special interest attaches to them as they were the first gallant deeds of this Great War.

Here is the story of a young soldier whose name is inscribed for ever on the Belgian roll of honour.

I must tell you that waterways, almost always very beautiful and picturesque waterways, play a great part in the life of Belgium, and much fierce fighting has gone on, as we shall see, on the banks of rivers, canals, and streams. In order to cut off the enemy, it became all important to the Belgians to cross a canal, but the bridge was up, and the mechanism was on the side held by the Germans.

A young soldier, named Tresignies, facing certain death, dived into the stream, and swam across under the German fire. He leapt up the bank of the stream, got hold of the pulley, and so lowered the bridge; but as it fell in place, he himself fell dead.

The days went on, and still Liège held out amid terrible scenes of bloodshed and heroism. Outside the forts the Belgians were not idle. Fiercely they fought the enemy, and the Germans on their side were full of pluck and of determination to conquer or die.

A fort is always built on the top of a hill or huge mound. Up the slopes of each fort the Germans advanced again and again, under a withering fire, and it was said that eight hundred men were killed within an half mile square. If valour could have taken the forts during those early days of the siege, Liège would have fallen. According to an eye-witness who has seen much of the actual fighting during the war, the enemy never fought so well as at Liège. But the enemy had a foe worthy of its steel.

An exciting and heartening incident of the fighting round Liège was the capture by a brave Belgian boy of a German general.

A day may come when some of you British boys and girls will understand why grown-up people smile when they note that this boy’s name is Jean Jacques Rousseau. For Jean Jacques Rousseau was also the name of one who, if a great thinker and writer, was not, in a physical sense, a brave man; indeed, so vivid was the original Jean Jacques Rousseau’s wonderful imagination, and so poor his courage, that he would probably have fainted with fright had he been vouchsafed a vision of his namesake’s gallant and daring deed!

The brave Jean Jacques Rousseau is only nineteen, yet he had already been a soldier for three years when at Zelk, close to Liège, he succeeded in making this officer of high rank his prisoner. The German general seems to have put up very little fight; tamely he surrendered to his captor a satchel containing not only papers, but six thousand pounds in notes and gold! Jean Jacques handed over the money to the Red Cross, for its noble work of tending the wounded, but he was allowed to keep the satchel, and the General’s silver helmet.

When the Germans found they could not take Liège by what is called a frontal attack—that is by an attack from the front—they brought up their huge siege guns.

Now here I must stop to tell you about these guns. They were the first surprise of the War, for their construction was kept a profound secret by Germany, who with their help believed herself invincible! It is suspected by some people that these new siege guns were to be kept hidden till the enemy wished to strike terror into the defenders of the huge forts which guard Paris. If that be so, then the gallant defence put up by Liège forced the German generals to alter their plan, for as soon as they found they could not take the Belgian stronghold by assault, they dragged up seven huge guns—it takes thirty-five pairs of horses to drag one along—and began battering the Liège forts to pieces!

Soon the Fort of Loncin, where the brave General Leman had his headquarters, was entirely isolated. Each man, however, went on with his work calmly and courageously, and that even when the bombardment was so terrible that many were made—we must hope only temporarily—stone deaf.

One afternoon, just as General Leman and his staff were hastily drinking a cup of tea, a terrific explosion shook the whole fort, and a moment later its concrete walls collapsed in a cloud of flame and dust. Many were killed outright; those who survived had the anguish of seeing the enemy rush in.

In the midst of a scene of frightful horror and confusion the Germans sought with frantic eagerness for General Leman. Soon they found him, but at first they thought he was dead. He was, however, breathing, and so, still unconscious, he was placed on a stretcher and taken out of the ruins of the fort he had defended so gloriously.

There then occurred a fine little incident, and one to the credit of the enemy. At the end of a gallery of which the sides were still standing, were gathered together all that was left of the garrison. Black with powder, their faces streaked with blood, their clothes in ribbons, their hands clasping shattered rifles, the heroic little group, some twenty-five men, still stood to resist. Touched by such splendid courage, the Germans, instead of attacking, flung aside their weapons and ran to the help of the brave Belgian soldiers. Of the five hundred men who formed the garrison of Fort Loncin three hundred and fifty were killed and more than a hundred were seriously wounded.

Meanwhile General Leman had recovered consciousness. He had sworn never to be taken alive, but Fate had proved too strong for him! He was accordingly brought before General von Emmich, the Commander of the German forces. Sadly the Defender of Liège tendered his sword; but the German general handed it back to him, and, bowing courteously, congratulated General Leman very warmly on the splendid way in which he had conducted the defence.

This example of German magnanimity recalls a French incident of the kind which happened rather more than a hundred years ago. Lord Cochrane, commanding his little British brig, the Speedy, was captured by the huge Desaix. Admiral Linois, who lives in history as the best of Napoleon’s naval commanders, refused, when Cochrane had to surrender, to take his sword. “I cannot,” he cried, “take the sword of a man so brave that he has been doing the impossible for twelve hours!” This was an allusion to the fact that though three huge French battleships had all attacked the Speedy together, her commander, by brilliant seamanship, had actually managed to elude capture for a whole day.

General Leman, on being made prisoner, sent a very touching letter to the King of the Belgians:

“Your Majesty will learn with grief that Fort Loncin was blown up yesterday at 5.20 P.M., the greater part of the garrison being buried under the ruins.

“That I did not lose my life in that catastrophe is due to my escort, who drew me from a stronghold whilst I was being suffocated by gas from the exploded powder. I was conveyed to a trench, where I fell. A German captain gave me drink, and I was made prisoner and taken to Liège.

“In honour of our arms I have surrendered neither the fortress nor the forts.

“Deign pardon, Sire. In Germany, where I am proceeding, my thoughts will be, as they always have been, of Belgium and the King. I would willingly have given my life the better to serve them, but death was not granted to me.

“Lieutenant-General Leman.”

It was a happy and a graceful act on the part of the French Government to bestow the Legion of Honour on the town of Liège, which, as was well said in the decree setting forth the honour, “was called upon to bear the first brunt of the German troops, and kept the invading army in check in a struggle which was as unequal as it was heroic.”

Every soldier worthy of the name not only respects, but heartily admires, a gallant, magnanimous foe. Had there been even a few German commanders like General von Emmich, there would not now rest, as there will do till the Day of Judgment, an indelible stain on Germany’s name.

It is awful to have to put on record that after the fall of Liège the enemy, maddened by the unexpected resistance, took a fearful vengeance on poor little Belgium.

As they marched through the lovely, peaceful villages, and charming, storied towns, which all other invaders had spared even in the so-called dark ages, the Germans burnt, blew up, and destroyed far and wide, killing even women and children in their ruthlessness. Yet even so, these unarmed Belgians performed wonderful deeds of valour.

When the enemy approached Heristal, the Belgian Woolwich, where is the National Arms Factory, the town was defended against the German attack by the women, for all the men were already away fighting.

These wives and mothers swore that the enemy should never take the factory. They armed themselves with revolvers and other weapons, and actually repulsed several charges of the Uhlans. When their ammunition was exhausted, they barricaded themselves in various houses and poured boiling water on the Germans. Children and old men shared in the defence, and for two days the Belgian colours still floated over the factory buildings.

There is scarcely a village, and there is no town, in Belgium which has not some glorious page of history to its credit, and some precious survival of the Middle Ages in the shape of a noble old church or town hall. Only the glorious pages of history now remain. But these have been added to, for as a brave Frenchwoman once finely phrased it, “Le plomb ne tue pas l’idée,” which may be freely translated, “Bullets can only kill the body.”

The storied monuments alas! which belonged not only to generous little Belgium, but to the whole world, are gone. Battered, shattered, in many cases razed to the ground, by German lead, which, though powerless to kill the mind, has been able to destroy the sanctified beauty which the genius of artists and of saints had created with such happy labour and prayers.

It is a pathetic and even an awesome thing to have to say of any place—even of a tiny village—“it was, and is no longer.” That, unhappily, is what we now have to say of the venerable and beautiful town of Louvain—the Oxford of Belgium. Spared by innumerable armies, by the fighting men of a thousand years, it fell victim to one stupid barbarian, who, I suppose, still imagines himself to be an officer and a gentleman. His name is given as Manteuffel, and it is a curious irony of fate that the destroyer of one of the oldest homes of learning in Europe should bear a name honoured by all classical scholars.

This German commander, angered by a report, which seems to have been quite false, that some of the inhabitants of the town had fired when they saw their dread enemy approaching, ordered his soldiers to set fire, deliberately and systematically, to the houses and public buildings of a town which, to all lovers of the beautiful and to every scholar in the old and the new world, had become a shrine, a place of joyful pilgrimage.

Till this summer there actually remained at Louvain a fragment of what had once been Cæsar’s Castle, and this survival of Roman days was of special interest to English people, for Edward III and his queen lived in the Castle for a winter. That great Emperor, Charles V, and his sister also, were scholars at Louvain, their teacher there being a priest who afterwards became Pope Adrian VI.

Heroic deeds were performed by some of the citizens of Louvain. Take the case of Dr. Noyons, who happened at the time to be Principal of the Medical Faculty of the University. On the very day the German Army approached the town, he suddenly learned that a hundred wounded were to be brought in. Beds were hurriedly got ready, and Dr. Noyons and his wife, as well as a large staff, were in attendance. This was at mid-day, and the wounded kept arriving all the afternoon.

At seven o’clock the firing of the town began! By eight o’clock the famous library was in flames!

Dr. Noyons’ own house, though it contained a number of wounded and had the Red Cross flag on the door, was now set on fire. But all night long the professor and his wife went on attending on the wounded, and when, the next morning, they were informed they must leave the town, in order that it might be razed to the ground by big guns, this noble-hearted couple at once decided to remain with those of the wounded (many of them Germans) who were too much injured to be moved.

Helped by a few trusted assistants, they carried their unhappy patients into the cellars of the hospital, and then they remained waiting for two days for a bombardment which fortunately never came. At the end of that time, this brave steadfast pair—a hero and heroine of a rare and splendid type—brought the wounded up again to the wards, and calmly continued to look after them.

Quite as awful as the fate of Louvain was that of the pretty town of Termonde. But there also splendid deeds of heroism were performed by quite simple folk.

Four times early in the War was unhappy Termonde bombarded, and twice it was deliberately set ablaze. But there were wounded there all through, and the Burgomaster and his two daughters never left the town. The two girls—the elder seventeen, and her sister a year younger—stayed at their posts as voluntary nurses, brave and fearless, thinking of nothing but their duty to the wounded.

The name of Termonde will now be for ever associated with the wicked and brutal conduct of the German Army. But before this last invasion of Belgium, Termonde was famed as having been the scene of all sorts of romantic incidents. Louis XIV, the stateliest of the great French kings, was very nearly drowned there, for the country round the town, like that of Holland, can be flooded at will. When the Sun King (as Louis XIV was nicknamed) was told that Marlborough was about to besiege Termonde, he observed: “He will have to bring an army of ducks to take it!” But Marlborough had the good luck to be there at a time of terrible drought, and so the brave garrison had to surrender.

Malines, or Mechlin as we ought to call it, was also the scene of one of the fiercest fights, and suffered greatly from the enemy. The beautiful little town was splendidly defended by the brave Belgians, but after two days’ battle they had to retire. Mechlin is famous, not only for its exquisite lace, but also for its peal of bells, and this, grievous to say, was destroyed by a German shell. Robert Browning, in a poem which I expect many of you know by heart, “How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix,” wrote:

“And from Mechlin church steeple we heard the half chime.”

But, tragic as was the fate of Mechlin, its most treasured relic was saved! This, amusing to relate, is a curious doll which bears the odd name of Op-Signoorke. This doll is said to have been modelled from a dwarf who was the official jester of a famous Antwerp club in the sixteenth century. In those days, every king and many a great noble had his dwarf, a kind of human toy who often played a considerable part in the life of his master.

The story goes that at a time when there was a great deal of friendly rivalry between the Flemish towns, Mechlin boasted of a wonderful dwarf jester who could out-talk and outwit any of his rivals. One of the Antwerp Guilds was much annoyed at this, and when the next meeting took place, it suddenly produced a new dwarf jester named Klaasken, who beat the Mechlin dwarf at his own game!

Soon afterwards Klaasken died, and when the next contest was held the good folk of Antwerp produced a wonderful model of him, beautifully carved and splendidly dressed. The Mechlin people, incensed at this insult to their live dwarf, carried him off one dark night, when the doll was left unguarded. Op-Signoorke, as he was then re-christened, remained at Mechlin, and ever since, on the occasion of the annual Kermesse, he is hung out for all to see from a window of the town hall. Now when it was known that the Germans were close to the town, a wise alderman put Op-Signoorke in a bomb-proof shelter, where he will repose till poor Belgium comes into her own again.

Shakespeare’s line in Julius Cæsar, “Let slip the dogs of war,” has a practical meaning in this war. Both the French and the German armies are accompanied to the front by war dogs; les chiens militaires and die Kriegshunde, as they are respectively called, are trained to act as scouts, carry despatches, and they even help, as we shall see later on, to succour the wounded. In Belgium dogs do much of the work performed in other countries by horses, and during some of the more recent fights the smaller pieces of artillery were actually harnessed to dog teams.

And now we must leave brave Belgium for a while, though later in this book you will hear of many gallant deeds and romantic happenings, as well as much that is piteous and terrible, concerning that country which for hundreds of years has been called “The Cockpit of Europe.”

But there is much, even as I write, that goes to show that Belgium’s day of ordeal is drawing to a close, and to her we may say that as long as Britain, France, and Russia endure:

“There’s not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee: thou hast great allies:

Thy friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”

CHAPTER II
THE WHITE ENSIGN

I saw fierce Prussia’s chargers stand,

Her children’s sharp swords out;

Proud Austria’s bright spurs streaming red

When rose the closing shout;

But soon the steeds rushed masterless,

By tower and town and wood;

For lordly France her fiery youth

Poured o’er them like a flood.

Go, hew the gold spurs from your heels,

And let your steeds run free;

Then come to our unconquered decks,

And learn to reign at sea.

Allan Cunningham.

After the War broke out, a wise man declared that every British child ought to say this grace before meat:

“Thank God for my good dinner and for the British Navy.”

Perhaps you will wonder why he put the dinner and the Navy together in this way. It is because British children during the war owed their dinners, and all their other meals also, to the Navy. This may sound strange, but it is perfectly true. The Navy guarded the thousands of merchant ships which bring us food and other things from abroad.

We do not grow nearly enough corn at home to feed everybody, so we have to buy from Canada, America, and other countries. The German Navy would have liked to capture the ships which brought us this corn, but owing to the British Navy it could not do so.

But that is not all that the British Navy did.

I have told you how the Germans invaded Belgium and there were terrible fighting and ravaging, in which not only soldiers but also women and children were killed. Well, the Germans were even more angry with Britain than with Belgium. They would have dearly liked to send over hundreds of thousands of soldiers in big ships to land on the east coast of England, perhaps at Cromer, or Hunstanton, or Felixstowe, or other places where children often go for their summer holidays.

In our next chapter you will hear of how Napoleon waited impatiently at Boulogne in the hope of swooping down on England. There is a tradition in Dorsetshire that he did come secretly just to see what stretch of shore on that lonely coast would be most suitable for a landing of troops. This tradition or old belief is embodied in a wonderful short story by Mr. Thomas Hardy.

What would the German soldiers have done to us if they had landed? I am afraid they would have treated us even worse than they treated Belgium. The whole countryside would have been laid waste with fire and sword, and thousands of innocent people might have been killed.

Be thankful that England was not invaded like that. Be thankful that, while the poor Belgians were being bullied and beaten down, we could all sleep safely in our beds.

You know why that was. We owed our safety entirely to the strong arm of our Navy. All round our shores, day and night, our gallant tars were watching, watching. And the ships full of German soldiers could not think of coming. Our Navy would have blown them to pieces if they had tried.

Still, it was a terribly anxious time for Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the brave officers and men under him. Many accidents can happen at sea which could not happen on land, and the whole Fleet knew well that the Germans might make a dash for it, and perhaps land a small force of men after all.

The portraits of Sir John Jellicoe show him as a man with a very strong face and a determined mouth and chin, but the expression of his eyes is full of kindness.

He earned his great position by sheer hard work. When he was a naval cadet, he took three firsts, and won a prize of £80 as well at the Royal Naval College. Afterwards, he studied naval guns and the art of firing them.

Admiral Jellicoe is one of the officers of the Royal Navy who have received the Board of Trade medal for gallantry in saving life at sea. He himself, too, has been saved from drowning at sea, for he was in command of the Victoria which was rammed by the Camperdown twenty-one years ago; in fact, he was one of the very few who were saved in that terrible disaster.

Quite early in the war, a bluejacket of H.M.S. Zealandia, the fine battleship which was given to the Mother Country by the great Dominion of New Zealand, wrote a poem called “The Walls of Jellicoe.”

He sent it to his aunt, and she, aunt-like, was so pleased with it that she sent it to a paper! There I read it, and I thought it so good and so true that I cut it out. Here are the verses I like best. But I like them all.

“On the flagship’s bridge a man

Takes a long and quiet scan

Of a certain bit of coastline lying east,

Vaterland.

And it’s him who has to think

How to get your food and drink

And likewise how to save you from

‘The Beast.’

· · · · ·

There’s no one by to say

‘Can I lend a hand, J. J.?’

There’s no one near to treat him

Like a friend.

He’s the loneliest man at sea,

And thank God it isn’t me;

But you are safe while he is

Keeping up his end.

He’s Admiralissimo,

Which is Johnny Jellicoe,

And I hope you’ll breathe his name in all your prayers,

And don’t forget.

For he’s you and me and all,

And if his old walls fall,

Earth would close for alterations and repairs,

Burn the map!”

This sailor poet expresses in his homely way the exact truth. Admiral Jellicoe had indeed a good many things to think about; and while he was keeping his ceaseless watch in the North Sea he had the grief of hearing that his old father, a seaman like himself, had died in the Isle of Wight. He could not be at his father’s death-bed; he could not follow his father’s coffin to the burial. His place was at the post of duty and of danger.

I have said that in the first months of the war the German Fleet would not come out from under the shelter of the German fortress guns. But you must not think that its commander, Admiral von Ingemohl, a very gallant seaman, was content to do nothing. He counted on taking some of our ships by surprise, and so making matters more equal before having a regular big battle. But as we shall see, he found that Admiral Jellicoe could play at that game too.