CHAPTER XX
AFTER THE ARMISTICE
The Bruxellois felt very disheartened in the closing months of 1917. The Russian revolution had brought about the collapse of Russia as an enemy of Germany; and the Germans were enabled to transport most of their troops on the Russian frontier to the west and to the Italian frontier. Italy had lost half Venetia and enormous quantities of guns in the breach of her defences at Caporetto. It seemed indeed at any moment, when the ice and snow of that dreadful winter of 1917-18 melted, as though Italy would share the fate of Rumania. Though the British army had had a grand success with their Tanks, they had, ere 1917 ended, lost nearly all the ground gained round Cambrai. Besides, the submarine menace was imperilling the British food supplies and connections with America. As to the United States: was their intervention going to be more than money loans and supplies of material? Would they really supply the fighting men, the one thing at this crisis necessary to defeat Germany?
Belgium had been divided administratively into two distinct portions, north and south of the Meuse. North of the Meuse she was to be a Dutch-speaking country either part of Germany eventually, or given to Holland to compensate her for her very benevolent neutrality towards Germany during the War. A handful of Flemish adventurers appeared at Brussels to form the Council of Flanders, and sickened the Bruxellois by their lavish praise of the German administration and servile concurrence with all German measures.
The events of the spring of 1918 accentuated the despair in the Belgian capital. When the Germans broke through the defences of the new lines which ran through Picardy and Champagne, reached the vicinity of Amiens, retook Soissons, and recrossed the Marne, it seemed as though Belgian independence had been lost; the utmost she could hope for would be the self-government of a German province.
But Vivie was not among the pessimists. She discerned a smouldering discontent among the German soldiers, even when Germany seemed near to a sweeping victory over France and Britain.
The brutality of the soldiers, their deliberate, nasty dirtiness during the first two years of the War seemed due rather to their officers' orders than to an anti-human disposition of their own. Many of the soldiers in Belgium, in Brussels, turned round—so to speak—and conceived a horror of what they had done, of what they had been told to do. Men who on the instigation of their officers—and these last, especially the Prussians, seemed fiends incarnate—had offered violence to young Belgian women, ended by offering to marry them, even showed themselves kind husbands, only too willing to become domesticated, groaning at having to leave their temporary homes and return to the terrible fighting on the Yser or in France.
There were, for example, the soldiers stationed at the Villa Beau-séjour and at the Oudekens' farm. Vivie had a growing desire to find out what had happened to her mother's property. One day, late in February, 1918, when there was a premature breath and feeling of Spring in the air, she called on her friend—as he had become—the Directeur of the Prison of Saint-Gilles, and asked him—since she herself could not deign to ask any favour or concession of the German authorities—to obtain for her a permit to proceed to Tervueren, the railway service between Brussels and that place having been reopened. She walked over—with what reminiscences the roads and paths were filled—to the Villa, and showing her pass was received, not uncivilly, by the sergeant-major in charge. Fortunately the officers had all gone, voting it very dull, with Brussels so near and yet so far. After their departure the sergeant-major and his reduced guard of men had begun to make the place more homelike. The usual German thrift had shown itself. They had reassembled the remains of Mrs. Warren's herd of cows. These had calves and were giving milk. There were once more the beginnings of a poultry yard. The rooms had been cleaned at any rate of their unspeakable filth, though the dilapidations and the ruined furniture made tears of vexation stand in Vivie's eyes. However she kept her temper and told the sergeant that it was her property now; that she intended to reclaim it at the end of the War, and that if he saw to it that the place was handed back to her with no further damage, she would take care that he was duly rewarded; and as an instalment she gave him a good tip. He replied with a laugh and a shrug "That may well come about." ("Das könnte wohl geschehen.")
He had already heard of the Engländerin whom the Kommandantur was afraid to touch, and opened his heart to her; even offering to prepare her a little meal in her own salle à manger. With what strange sensations she sat down to it. The sergeant as he brought in the œufs au plat said the soldiers were already sick of the War. Most wanted to go back to Germany, but a few were so much in love with Belgium that they hoped they might be allowed to settle down there; especially those who spoke Platt-deutsch, to whom Flemish came so easy.
From Villa Beau-séjour, Vivien Warren passed on to the Oudekens' farm, wondering what she would see—Some fresh horror? But on the contrary, Mme. Oudekens looked years younger; indeed when Vivien first stood outside the house door, she had heard really hearty laughter coming from the orchard where the farmer's widow was pinning up clothes to dry. Yet it was here that the woman's husband had been shot and buried, as the result of a field-court's sentence.