Went to see von Herwarth after dinner on behalf of a poor Belgian woman whose husband, a Major in the Grenadiers, is dangerously wounded and in the military hospital at Antwerp. The Germans are going to send her up to-morrow on a motor with some Belgian officers, who are being exchanged. I saw the aide-de-camp who is going through with the car and asked him to be nice to her. Then to her house, to shut up a lot of old women of both sexes who were trying to dissuade her from going, on the ground that the Germans would hold her as a hostage. I suppose she will be off.
Mrs. Bridges,[5] wife of the former British Military Attaché, was in this evening for help. A British prisoner told of seeing Colonel Bridges fall from his horse at Mons, mount again, ride a little way and fall. She cannot get to Mons, so we are getting her off to France via England, in the hope that she may find him on that side.
It is a pitiful business, and the worst of it is that they all think we have some miraculous power to do anything we like for them. I only wish we could.
Brussels, September 1, 1914.—- The first thing this morning I had a pow-wow with Hulse about how to handle the funds that are being gathered to relieve the enormous amount of distress that we shall have to meet here. There is a good deal of it even now. All the big factories are closed. Most of the shops have their shutters up, and the streets are filled with idle people. Importations of foodstuffs, even from the outlying districts, have stopped dead. Conditions are bad enough in all conscience, but they are nothing compared to what we have ahead, when cold weather comes on.
A lot of bankers and big business men have got together to wrestle with the financial problem. The Burgomaster has his people at work, trying to get their hands on foodstuffs and coördinate their work.
I went to the Foreign Office and talked things over with von Herwarth. He straightened out some of the tangles, and we were able to get things moving.
I have no trouble with the higher officers at headquarters, but I never go there that I do not want to murder the large brutes of non-commissioned officers who guard the door. They wear large brass plates on their chest and look like bock-beer signs. They have a free and careless way of booting everybody out the door and refusing to listen to anybody. I get fighting mad every time I go there and this morning got sufficiently roused to develop considerable fluency in German. I pictured to the large rough-neck some of the things that were going to happen to him if I was not let in; he was sufficiently impressed to permit me to stand on the sidewalk while my card was sent in. When I got in I made a few well-chosen remarks on the manners, if any, of the watch dogs of the Ministry.
From the Ministry I went to the Société Générale, where I was asked to attend a conference between the bankers of the city. There were ten of them in the big directors' room, and they worked to some purpose. M. Francqui, the director and leading spirit of the Société Générale, presided over the meeting. He explained the general situation simply and clearly, and stated what they had done and wanted to do. They had three points on which they wanted advice, and they were brought up and disposed of one at a time. By twelve o'clock I got away, and felt that the hour I had put in there had been well spent.
When I got back to the Legation, I found a nice Belgian who had no request to make of us, but wanted to tell his story to somebody, and a terrible story it was, too. He had fitted up his château near Mons as a Red Cross hospital. During the battle there a week ago, 102 British wounded had been brought in. The Germans found the château a hindrance in their operations, so got it out of the way by battering down the walls with artillery, and then throwing grenades into the building to set it on fire. There was great difficulty in getting the wounded out and hiding them in such shelter as was to be found. One man, at least, was burned alive in his bed. It seems incredible that Red Cross hospitals should be attacked, but stories come in from every side, tending to show that they are.