Some of the subordinate officers have since told us that von Jarotzky was a fighting general, and had no business staying in a post requiring administrative ability. The new man is cut out particularly for this sort of work, and is going to start a regular German administration. Functionaries are being brought from Berlin to take things over, and in a short time we shall, to all intents and purposes, be living in a German city. The first trains ran to-day in a halting fashion to Liège and the German frontier. Perhaps we shall have a newspaper.
Most distressing news has come through from Tamines. I had a long talk to-day with a trustworthy man from there, and his story was enough to make one's blood run cold. He says that on the evening of the twenty-first the Germans entered the village after a brush with French troops which were still in the neighbourhood. Infuriated by the resistance offered to their advance, they proceeded to vent their rage on the town. They shot down a lot of villagers, and arrested many more. A great many escaped to the country. A lot of houses were first sacked, and then burned. The orgy continued during the night, and through the next day. On the evening of the twenty-second, something over four hundred men were collected near the church and lined up to be shot. The work was done for a time by a firing squad which fired into the crowd with more or less system, but this was too slow, and finally a rapid-fire gun was brought out and turned loose. Of course, a great many were not killed outright and lay groaning among the dead. Now and then a German would put one out of his misery by a bayonet thrust. Others settled their own troubles by rolling themselves into the nearby river. Altogether over six hundred people were shot down, but it is hard to get any exact figures yet. After the shooting was over, other civilians were brought out and compelled to bury the dead. My informant says that some of the scenes attending this duty were quite as poignant as the shooting itself, for some buried their own fathers and brothers. One man about to be thrown into the trench was found to be still alive, but the German doctor, after a cursory examination, ordered him buried with the rest. The man had enough life left in him to raise his hand in appeal but the doctor shrugged his shoulder and repeated his order. There were many incidents, most of them horrible. The man who told the story seemed still dazed and spoke quietly, with few adjectives and little emphasis on anything he said. It was a bare recital of facts, and far more moving than if he had striven for effect.
Davis got back yesterday from his trip to the front, and we learned that he had been through a perfectly good experience that will look well when he comes to writing it up, but one that gave him little satisfaction while it was in progress. He started off to follow the German army in the hope of locating the English. After leaving Hal, some bright young German officer decided that he was a suspicious-looking character, and ought to be shot as an English spy. As a preliminary, they arrested him and locked him up. Then the war was called off while the jury sat on his case. One of the officers thought it would be a superfluous effort to go through the form of trying him, but that they should shoot him without further to do. They began considering his case at eleven in the morning, and kept it up until midnight. He was given pretty clearly to understand that his chances were slim, and that the usual fate of spies awaited him. He argued at length, and apparently his arguments had some effect, for at three o'clock in the morning he was routed out and told to hit the road toward Brussels. He was ordered to keep religiously to the main road all the way back, on pain of being shot on sight, and to report at headquarters here immediately on his arrival. By this time he was perfectly willing to do exactly what was demanded by those in authority, and made a bee-line back here on foot. He turned up at the Legation yesterday morning, footsore and weary, and looking like a tramp, and told his story to an admiring audience. I was still away on my little jaunt, and did not get it at first hand. The Minister took him down to call on the General, and got them to understand that Richard Harding Davis was not an English spy, but, on the contrary, probably the greatest writer that ever lived, not excepting Shakespeare or Milton. The General said he had read some of his short stories, and that he would not have him shot. Just the same, he was not keen about having him follow the operations. He is now ordered to remain in this immediate neighbourhood until further orders. To-day he had several interviews with the General in an attempt to get permission to leave the country, but had no luck. The last we saw of Davis, he came in late this afternoon to tell us that he did not know what to do next. He said that he had been through six wars, but that he had never been so scared as he was at that time. If he is allowed to get out of Belgium, I think that he will not darken the door of General von Lüttwitz for some time to come.
I was surprised to learn that Hans von Herwarth, who used to be military attaché in Washington, and whom I knew very well, is here as Adjutant to our new Governor. I have not yet had time to get over to see him, but shall try to do so to-morrow. I am glad to have somebody like that here to do business with. He is a real white man, and I anticipate a much better time with him than with any other officer they could send here in that capacity.
Baron Capelle came in late this afternoon to tell me that the Germans were bringing in a lot of priests on carts filled with cows and pigs, and were planning to hold them as hostages. One of them had called out and asked him to notify us that Monseigneur de Becker, Rector of the American College at Louvain, was among these prisoners. He is the priest I went to see when I was in Louvain ten days ago. I had told him he was perfectly safe, and scoffed at his fears.
The Minister was out when this news came, but I sallied forth and tried to locate the Monseigneur. He was not to be found anywhere. When I got back to the Legation, both the Minister and Villalobar were here and I told them all about what had happened. The people of the town were getting excited over the treatment that was being meted out to their priests, and it was in a fair way to result in serious trouble. Both Ministers made for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where the German Government is established, and before they left, had secured orders for the release of all the hostages. A lot of these terrible things are done by subordinate officers, and the people at the top seem only too anxious to learn of such affairs and do what they can to remedy them. The day has been dreadful with stories of suffering and murder and pillage.
Not only are we cut off from communication with the outside world, but a lot of the ordinary conveniences of life have already disappeared. We have no newspapers, no trams, no taxis, no telephones. Milk is no longer to be had, and within a day or two we shall have no butter or eggs. Then it will begin to look like a real siege. In a day or so I am to have a list of Jarotzky's demands for supplies, so that I can cheer myself with thoughts of what our life is to be like.
There is bad news from Louvain. The reports we have received agree that there was some sort of trouble in the square before the Hôtel de Ville a day or two ago. Beyond that, no two reports are alike. The Germans say that the son of the Burgomaster shot down some staff officers who were talking together at dusk before the Hôtel de Ville. The only flaw in that story is that the Burgomaster has no son. Some Belgians say that two bodies of Germans who were drunk met in the dusk; that one body mistook the other for French, and opened fire. Other reliable people tell with convincing detail that the trouble was planned and started by the Germans in cold blood. However that may be, the affair ended in the town being set on fire, and civilians shot down in the streets as they tried to escape. According to the Germans themselves, the town is being wiped out of existence. The Cathedral, the Library, the University, and other public buildings have either been destroyed or have suffered severely. People have been shot by hundreds, and those not killed are being driven from the town. They are coming to Brussels by thousands, and the end is not yet. This evening the wife of the Minister of Fine Arts came in with the news that her mother, a woman of eighty-four, had been driven from her home at the point of the bayonet and forced to walk with a stream of refugees all the way to Tervueren, a distance of about twelve miles, before she could be put on a tram to her daughter's house. Two old priests have staggered into the —— Legation more dead than alive after having been compelled to walk ahead of the German troops for miles as a sort of protecting screen. One of them is ill, and it is said that he may die as a result of what he has gone through.
August 28th.—After lunch Blount and I decided to go out to Louvain to learn for ourselves just how much truth there is in the stories we have heard, and see whether the American College is safe. We were going alone, but Pousette and Bulle, the Swedish and Mexican Chargés d'Affaires, were anxious to join us, so the four of us got away together and made good time as far as the first outpost this side of Louvain.