One evening, immediately after the fall of Reims, when the Belgian spirit was more depressed than ever before, a dinner was held in the public dining-room by a number of high-grade officers. They were seated at a long table close to ours, all in gala attire, and evidently jubilant over some new disaster to the Belgian forces—a satisfaction which they appeared particularly anxious should be noted by the Belgians present. But the latter, who hid their aching hearts under lowered eyelids, appeared not to heed them. Outside, however, there were many interested watchers. As the evening was warm, windows had been left open, and at them gathered the idle street crowds, with nothing, night or day, to divert their thoughts—no business, no theatres, no cafés—and too anxious to remain in their homes.
No slight consideration for their helpless and ruined victims, looking in on the joyous party, stayed the gay laughter and toasts of those at that table! Triumph, which common decency should have impelled them to indulge privately, was flagrantly flourished in the wan faces of men who knew not how they were to feed their families in a week’s time, of youths cast out of employment and unable to give their country the aid they longed to give.
Soldiers bearing dispatches constantly entered the room, trod heavily, with clatter of spurs, to within a few paces of the table, drew up, brought their heels together, and stood at salute until given permission to approach. Officers of lower rank paused, on seeing the august and radiant gathering, saluted, and continued to bow and salute while passing the table to find a smaller one in another part of the room. Judging by their servility and that of the soldiers, the two in general’s attire at the dinner must have been of high rank, but their identities were not known in the hotel. To my eyes each looked as important as the other, puffed up with pride, betraying, in every glance and movement, confident conviction that the present satisfaction was but a fore-runner of greater triumphs.
Again and again when a dispatch was read, evidently containing satisfactory news from the front, the joyous cry, “Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!” rang out to that pathetically wistful audience, who knew it was in celebration of a fresh wound dealt to the country they loved. And yet in their pale, troubled faces no sign of hatred or rage could be detected, only the same childlike curiosity expressed on the first day, and a sort of puzzled wonder, as though they found it difficult to believe that atrocities such as were committed in their land had been ordered by men of such good appearance, and apparently so civilized. Even to us it seemed incredible, while watching that gathering of smart-looking, intelligent beings, who might have won the respect, possibly even the admiration, of a people accustomed throughout their history to the wrongdoings of mightier nations; who, as a whole, would have appreciated a generous recognition of their noble and courageous stand for honour. But those men, whose close-cropped, sabre-scarred heads were held so high above a uniform they gradually made odious to the entire world, were blinded by vanity, delirious with success. The long-awaited hour of opportunity had arrived, as pregnant with great promise as those that bred the first Roman and the first French empires; an hour when Europe, lulled by the harmony of peace, might be shocked to submission before Germany’s secretly-created Frankenstein!
It was amazing to see, during the first week or so of the occupation, with what naïve interest the Belgians clustered about even minor units of the army that had so ruthlessly afflicted them. They would pause to stare at a common soldier with something of the awed perplexity the Indians of America evinced on their first introduction to firearms; or gather, silent and gaping, about the great automobiles to watch imposing officers alight. This unconscious flattery, evidently relished, disappeared, however, in a short time, not only because Prussians became so prevalent that they no longer attracted attention, but because the more intelligent citizens took a stand against it, and reproved those who thus gratified the vanity of their enemies. And the people were not slow to realize an error due more to their lack of occupation than to tolerant interest in the intruders. Disaster, in fact, had come so suddenly upon them; their lives had been so abruptly changed from the even tenor of prosperity to want and misery, that they were too stunned at once to realize the cause. Some among the lower classes, indeed, appeared incapable of seeing the situation as other than a temporary, inexplicable calamity, not likely to endure more than a week or two. For this reason, no doubt, there was very little resentment in speech or action. The general attitude was one of patient endurance of incomprehensible ills, a fact which made the lying German excuses for their atrocities ring false to all who had witnessed the inoffensive bearing of the inhabitants at the time of their bitterest hour, when the enemy entered Brussels.
Better-class Belgians, who understood the situation, were bitter enough in private speech, and in their determined and unflinching efforts to hamper the invaders by every possible means which their unarmed and imprisoned condition permitted. That they accomplished much secretly, and despite the severe and ever-increasing espionage, was acknowledged by the Germans themselves, when information of their every movement was proved to have reached the Allied forces within an hour. Every effort was made by the Government to solve the mystery, and discover the secret means by which the exact locality of a Zeppelin garage or ammunition depot, army movements, etc., was at once conveyed to their adversaries. Many suffered death or long imprisonment on mere suspicion of connection with these secret societies, and spies in civil dress were set to watch even such as were not suspected, whose intelligence or standing made it possible they might be in the secret. Another mystery especially galling to the Prussians was the inexplicable publication and distribution of the Libre Belgique, a small truth-telling journal, which spared neither the Kaiser nor his army in its caustic and often insulting criticism, and served as a tonic to the oppressed people; an antidote to poison injected with malignant persistency by the occupying Powers. No amount of persecution, investigation, or bribery led to the discovery of where this brave little sheet was published, or who managed it; but several entire families were arrested and subjected to the torture of military inquisition, to fines and long terms of imprisonment, on very slight grounds of suspicion.
Although the Libre Belgique seldom contained any definite news from outside, its free voice, speaking openly what everyone longed to utter but dared not, was a delight to us all. Persons of the very highest social standing undertook its circulation, carrying copies in hollowed-out walking-sticks, lining of hats, and so forth, in order to distribute them as widely as possible. Some day the story of its origin, its compositors, and indiscoverable place of publication will be known and welcomed with intense interest by all who drew from its single page almost the only ray of encouragement and hope those dark years offered for jaded spirits.
On the evening of the military dinner above referred to, which was in the early part of September, an incident occurred serving, in an impressive manner, to relieve the fretting recollection of that callously gay party, which had forced us and, I think, many others to leave the hotel immediately afterwards.
In the midst of that discordant levity, when the Prussians’ laughter and noisy toasts were ringing through the room, there suddenly sounded from without a wild and excited cry that swelled to a very thunder of voices as it was taken up by the throngs in the street. Naturally, we all sprang from table and hurried to the entrance door, anticipating we knew not what, for the cries were too glad in tone to suggest any fresh blast of all-too-familiar calamity.