On 21st August, 30,000 kilos of bread, 5000 kilos of smoked meat, 17,000 kilos live-stock, 10,000 kilos of rice, 1400 kilos of coffee, 1700 kilos of sugar, 700 kilos of cacao, 1700 kilos of salt, 120,000 kilos of oats, 170 kilos of tea, 10,000 litres of wine.
On 22nd August, the same amount, save that the bread was reduced to 20,000 kilos, with an addition of 20,000 kilos of flour.
On 23rd August, everything in like quantities was again yielded at the army’s command, with the exception of bread, which 30,000 kilos of flour replaced.
As this severe drainage threatened to reduce to famine the 800,000 inhabitants of Brussels, Monsieur Max informed the German authorities he could not vouch for the people’s submission if such exactions continued. The occupying Government thereupon agreed, over the Governor’s signature, to make no more requisitions during a period of eight days. But the following day new demands were presented, and an attempt, resisted by Monsieur Max, was made to set aside a contract which the army chiefs declined to recognize as controlling their actions.
In regard to the war indemnity, Monsieur Max arranged with the Government to pay it off by instalments by the 30th of September. Payments were made regularly, and of the 50,000,000 there remained due but 4,400,000 to be paid when, on the 24th of September, von Luettwitz announced that no further reimbursement would be made by the army for food-stuffs requisitioned, as the war indemnity had not been paid within the time originally specified!
But my object is not to go into these details, or to depict, more than is necessary, the darker side of Belgium’s martyrdom under German dominion. The world knows enough of such matters and will probably know more before these recollections appear. Tragedy and sorrow, moreover, have been heard, seen, felt ad nauseam by every dweller in the occupied country. No account of those years can escape their dominating note of tragedy, but all such events herein given are limited to those not generally known, whose truth has been personally ascertained.
The invasion of a capital by enemy troops had always seemed to me the culminating tragedy of war, and one likely to be rife with stirring incidents. How little like my preconceived idea was this silent and awesome mastery—this slowly-moving stream of concentrated force, passing between those walls of ashen-white faces, whence thousands of wide eyes spoke the voiceless misery and amazement of a people betrayed! The warrior’s pride was not lacking, but a pride less admirable even than that of the criminal forces led by Napoleon into capitals which he had overwhelmed.
But why connect with this ignoble victory the supremely evil Corsican’s name? Napoleon, like Alexander and Hannibal, was superb almost to the end. But William II., devoid of magnetism, devoid of the human understanding and tact so essential to a great leader, sought to follow in his steps with no finer attribute than long-nourished brute force and meanly-developed craftiness. He utterly failed to recognize that no number of cannon, no number, however stupendous, of enslaved legions, could replace Napoleon’s understanding.