I insert a few extracts from letters written by reliable people about Belgium, or by Belgians during the war, in order to show the true state of affairs. Most of them were written in French and have been translated. With the exception of the Cardinal’s letter,[14] none of them have been published.
Extract from a letter from Brussels in August, 1914.
“We are living in suspense now, as the Germans are getting very strict and angry. Boys and young men leave daily to join the army, and the different ways of crossing the frontier are very amusing. The Germans have forbidden the letter by the Cardinal of Malines to be read in the churches, but needless to say, we all have it.”
Extract from the Pastoral Letter of His Eminence, Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium:
“My very dear brethren:
“It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings—stroke after stroke—of the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain, next of the burning of the library and of the scientific installations of our great university, and of the devastation of the city, and next of the wholesale shooting of the citizens and of tortures inflicted upon women and children and upon unarmed and undefended men.
“And, while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful metropolitan church, of the church of Notre Dame au delà Dyle, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear city of Malines....
“I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these; a disaster has visited the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation so faithful in the great mass of her population to God, so upright in her patriotism, so noble in her King and Government, is the first sufferer. She bleeds; her sons are stricken down within her fortresses and upon her fields, in defense of her rights and her territory.
CARDINAL MERCIER.
“Soon there will not be one Belgian family not in mourning. Why all this sorrow, my God? Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken us?...
“When, immediately upon my return from Rome, I went to Havre to greet our Belgian, French and English wounded; when, later, at Malines, at Louvain, at Antwerp, it was given to me to take the hand of those brave fellows who carried a bullet in their flesh, a wound on their forehead, because they had marched to the attack of the enemy or borne the shock of this onslaught, it was a word of gratitude that rose to my lips. ’O valiant friends,’ I said, ’it was for us, it was for each one of us, it was for me, that you risked your lives and are now in pain. I am moved to tell you of my respect, of my thankfulness, to assure you that the whole nation knows how much she is in debt to you.’
“For, in truth, our soldiers are all saviours. A first time, at Liège, they saved France; a second time, in Flanders, they arrested the advance of the enemy upon Calais. France and England know it, and Belgium stands before the entire world a nation of heroes.
“Never before in my life did I feel so proud to be a Belgian as when, on the platform of French stations, and halting awhile in Paris, and visiting London, I witnessed the enthusiastic admiration our Allies feel for the heroism of our army....
“I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated in my diocese, and the ruins I beheld and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined.
“Other parts of my diocese, which I have not had time to visit, have in a like manner, been laid waste. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents in great numbers are in ruins. Entire villages have all but disappeared. At Werchter Wackerzeel, for instance, out of three hundred and eighty homes one hundred and thirty remain. At Tremeloo, two-thirds of the village is overthrown. At Beuken, out of one hundred houses twenty are standing. At Schaffen, one hundred and eighty-nine houses out of two hundred are destroyed; eleven still stand. At Louvain, a third of the buildings are down, one thousand and seventy-four dwellings have disappeared. On the town land and in the suburbs, one thousand six hundred and twenty-three houses have been burned.
“In this dear city of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnificent church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendour. The ancient college of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of the University, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time of its foundation, which preserved for its masters and students alike a noble tradition, and was an incitement to their studies—all this accumulation of intellectual, of historic and artistic riches, the fruit of the labour of five centuries—all is in the dust....
“Thousands of Belgian citizens have been deported to the prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone, three thousand one hundred civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the physical and mental torments of their long martyrdom.
“Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but I know there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain of death, their fellow citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In the Louvain group of communes one hundred and seventy-six persons, men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned....
“We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure of our ruins. And what would it be if we turned our sad steps toward Liège, Namur, Audennes, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi, and elsewhere? Families hitherto living at ease, now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined, industry at a standstill; thousands upon thousands of working men without employment; working men, shop girls, humble servants, without means of earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever, crying, ’O Lord, how long, how long?’
“Thirteen ecclesiastics have been shot in the diocese of Malines. There were, to my own actual personal knowledge, more than thirty in the diocese of Namur, Tournai, and Liège....
“On the 19th of April, 1839, a treaty was signed in London by King Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one part, and by the Emperor of Austria, the King of France, the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia on the other; and its seventh article decreed that Belgium should form a separate and perpetually neutral state, and should be held to the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other states. The co-signers promised, for themselves and their successors, upon their oath, to fulfil and observe that treaty in every point and every article without contravention or tolerance of contravention. Belgium was thus bound in honour to defend her own independence. She kept her oath. The other Powers were bound to respect and to protect her neutrality. Germany violated her oath, England kept hers....
“Accept, my dearest brethren, my wishes and prayers for you and for the happiness of your families, and receive, I pray you, my paternal benediction.
“D. J. Cardinal Mercier,
“Archbishop of Malines.”
Here is a letter from a soldier at the front to his parents:
“Tirelemont, 8 August, 1914.
“My dear Parents:
“Here I am at Tirlemont, where we are occupied in reforming our scattered regiment! Many are killed and injured, some are taken, others lost. It is a terrible mix-up, and it will take a long time to get it straightened out, and I am profiting by this moment to write you and let you know what has happened in the last few days.
“We had been fighting all day Wednesday, and when evening came on we were told to dislodge a troop that occupied the space between the two forts. They gave us the message very simply: ’It is death, but it must be done.’ Nothing more. We were under fire all night. We kill without seeing any one. The bullets whistle, a shrapnel explodes five meters from us, we have several killed, and we stay under this rain of bullets and it is awful.
“I could not tell you my impressions. I recited about one hundred vows; I wondered what it felt like to be in heaven, because I was certain that every moment would be my last.
“The Germans advanced more and more, and we retreated, surrounded on all sides, and at four in the morning out of one hundred and sixty in our company only seventeen remained; all are not dead; there are injured and prisoners. We shall return under fire if this keeps up. I will take my part in it; I am ready and prepared, and know that if I die I shall do so with confidence. Do not think that it is with despair that I shall die; it is with the utmost resignation. Do not cry or be sad. I resign myself to my fate, and I ask you to take things in this way also. Adieu, with all my heart. It is perhaps only for a short while, and I shall wait for you above. Much love to the family. I am in good health but very tired. Thousands of affectionate kisses. I have had my photograph taken and they will send you the proof. For my part, I take care to keep your photographs on me, and every day, after looking at them, it gives me fresh courage. Adieu.”
I give next a letter from the Mother Superior of a convent at Liège, written the night after Liège had been attacked:
“In the morning the sound of cannon again shook the chapel.
“The sisters were told to go and get their bundles, and in five minutes to be at the gate, where they would each receive five francs and their papers, and then they were told to run to the station. They did, through the rain, and to the accompaniment of the whistle and whine of German bullets. The Germans were on the heights, and were approaching every minute. The younger sisters helped those who were ill or old. Arriving near the station two sick ones were obliged to go to bed in another convent, and the others installed themselves in the cellars and small hallways. An immense explosion occurred—it was only a bridge they were blowing up, but the garden was filled with broken pieces of iron and steel. Eighteen sisters got into a train filled with wounded and arrived at Brussels at midnight, nearly dead from fright.
“They went up the Boulevard Botanique, where they found an ambulance wagon, which took them to the Mother’s house. The General Superior came to open the door for them, with her white apron and her arm band of the Red Cross. They slept in beds prepared for the wounded, and the next day they were sent to different institutions.
“People knew nothing but false news, given out by the Germans. We had no news for three weeks, so I didn’t even know a new Pope had been elected.”[15]