I was back at my desk by a little after eight and have not finished this day's work, although it is after midnight. I have averaged from three to five hours sleep since the trouble began and, strange to say, I thrive on it.
I have called several times to-day at the French and British Legations to get the latest news. They keep as well posted as is possible in the prevailing confusion, and are most generous and kind in giving us everything they properly can.
There seems to have been a serious engagement to-day at Liège, which the Germans are determined to reduce before proceeding toward France. The report is that the attack was well resisted and the Germans driven back with heavy loss. A number of prisoners have been taken and were being brought into Brussels this evening along with the wounded. In the course of the fighting there was a sort of charge of the Light Brigade; one squadron of Belgian Lancers was obliged to attack six times its number of Germans and was cut to pieces, only one officer escaping. The morale of the Belgians is splendid.
This afternoon as the Minister and I were going to call on the British Minister, we passed the King and his staff headed out the Rue de la Loi for the front. They looked like business.
Several times to-day I have talked over the telephone with the Embassy in London. They seem to be as strong on rumours as we are here. One rumour I was able to pass on to Bell was to the effect that the British flagship had been sunk by German mines with another big warship. Another to the effect that five German ships have been destroyed by the French fleet off the coast of Algeria, etc., etc.
The Red Cross is hard at work getting ready to handle the wounded, and everybody is doing something. Nearly everybody with a big house has fitted it in whole or in part as a hospital. Others are rolling bandages and preparing all sorts of supplies.
The military attachés are all going about in uniform now. Each Legation has a flag on its motor and the letters C.D.—which are supposed to stand for Corps Diplomatique, although nobody knows it. I have seized Mrs. Boyd's big car for my own use. D.L. Blount has put his car at the disposal of the Minister and is to drive it himself.
There is talk already of moving the Court and the Government to Antwerp, to take refuge behind the fortifications. When the Germans advance beyond Liège, the Government will, of course, have to go, and the diplomatic corps may follow. It would be a nuisance for us, and I hope we may be able to avoid it.
Germans are having an unhappy time, and I shall be happier when they are across the border. Nothing much seems to have happened to them beyond having a few shops wrecked in Antwerp and one or two people beaten up here. One case that came to my knowledge was an outraged man who had been roughly handled and could not understand why. All he had done was to stand in front of a café where the little tables are on the sidewalk and remark: "Talk all the French you can. You'll soon have to talk German." Of course there are a lot of Belgians, Swiss and Dutch who rejoice in good German names and they are not having a pleasant time. One restaurant called Chez Fritz, I saw when coming along the Boulevard this evening, had hung out a blackboard with the proud device: "Fritz est Luxembourgeois, mais sa Maison est Belge." He was taking no chances on having the place smashed.