Hour by hour shocking news reached us from the scene of struggle, such as the fall of one fort after another at Liège, followed by the enemies’ onward rush; while tales of their pitiless cruelty caused brief waves of apprehension to pass over the city—waves quickly calmed, however, by indomitable and astounding faith.
That the French and British would come in time was the prevailing argument; there was no danger nor cause for discouragement. Even though the forts had fallen, Belgium could hold the invaders in check until adequate assistance arrived; her forces might be driven back, step by step, for a short distance, but soon would have the upper hand and drive the foe back into Germany! Such was the reasoning of a public blinded by their heroic impulse to the situation’s real peril. No sign of discouragement could be detected even when the remorseless grey tide was sweeping through ruined and blood-soaked districts toward the heart of their land.
And it was not merely the uneducated who received the ill-tidings with this amazing confidence, but men of high standing and competent judgment. Never, at that time, did I hear a word indicative of fear; the enthusiastic faith of the first days still remained unshaken.
Although the Government had already withdrawn from Brussels, no one believed that the capital was in danger; at any rate, no word was uttered in my hearing that betrayed the least anxiety on that score.
“Have no fear,” the hotel proprietor remarked, as I passed through the lobby after breakfast on that fateful 20th of August 1914; “there is no danger of les Boches getting to Brussels. Our men are falling back only to gather force and attain better positions. Besides, the French and British are now at hand; we need only hold out a day or two longer, and then—nous verrons!” On every side the same confidence greeted me: “Les Boches are checked!... Ils sont fichus!... The British are in Antwerp!... In two weeks we shall be in Berlin!” and so forth; all spoken with a sort of delirious recklessness, suggesting determination not to recognize disquieting facts.
An hour or so after I left the hotel that morning, my way was blocked by a silent wall of people, lined on either side of the Boulevard d’Anvers, watching, in stupefied wonder, a seemingly interminable tide of grey-clad warriors—the Prussian Fourth Corps, under command of General von Armin—proudly taking possession of their fair city!
If that haughty and arrogant horde had dropped into our midst from a cloudless sky, I hardly think it could have caused more awed astonishment to the general public. So fantastically harrowing had been the tales of their uncivilized deeds in other quarters of Belgium, that the half-stunned people had come to think of the German army as something fabulous, something they were not likely ever to behold as a material reality. Stories of outrages, inconceivable in the present age, had been so mingled with encouraging reports of the monster’s repulse, that popular opinion was unable to decide what was true and what was not—was unable to picture the awful menace rushing upon them as other than a moral nightmare, which, they imagined, would disappear as abruptly and abnormally as it had come.
The dazed amazement in the faces of that watching throng might have moved a devil to tears, or awakened rage in the heart of an angel—so silent and helpless they appeared before the mighty and pitiless force advancing through the stunned city—so callously indifferent was that force to the shame of their deed! It was like seeing a child confounded by the blow of a strong man who strode by, smiling with triumph at sight of its helpless pain. It made one ashamed to be akin in species to a race capable of committing, and so arrogantly, a wrong never to be effaced from their history.
Unknown to us at the time, Monsieur Adolphe Max, the ever-to-be-honoured Bourgmestre of Brussels, had gone early that morning under a white flag to implore the officer in command for permission to telegraph a plea to the German Emperor that his army be forbidden to enter Brussels—the city where he, the Kaiser, had been welcomed and entertained, only a week or so earlier, by the Belgian King and people. The officer promised to communicate his request to the general-in-chief. But the only reply Monsieur Max received was, not only the entrance of the troops, but a demand for enormous quantities of food and a contribution de guerre from the city of Brussels of fifty million francs, to be paid in three days; and from the province of Brabant four hundred and fifty millions, to be paid before the 1st of September! This was William the Second’s response to a people whose faith he had betrayed, who had done him no other ill than refusing to aid his frantic impatience to overwhelm and crush a neighbour and friendly state.
The following quantities of food-stuffs were at once demanded from Brussels by the German army and delivered: