I shall never forget the grief that swept through the city when the Belgian flag was put away. It was as though the prisoners’ last connection with their king and happy prosperous past were broken. Even the children felt it; one saw them, when no German was in sight, drag a faded bit of tricolour ribbon from their pockets and wave it in gleeful defiance of a government that had robbed their young days of all happiness, and later ground down so many of them through poverty to death.
Gradually the adamant walls of oppression closed more narrowly about us, and the pervading mood became subtly affected by crafty German efforts to kill hope. Prisoners we were, and prisoners likely to remain for indefinite time, with a monster for gaoler pitiless as he who guarded the “cellar of the dead” at the ill-famed Luxembourg. Indeed, the moral and physical misery to which the people of Brussels were soon reduced was probably not less, measured by duration, than the concentrated horror of those September days during the first French Revolution. Streets never actually flowed with blood, but many a life was extinguished on that crime-stained spot where Miss Cavell was placed before a wall and shot in secret; many a mind was crazed in futile efforts to save an innocent son, father, or brother. It was not for days the people of Belgium suffered, but for months that dragged on into years of ever-increasing oppression and tragedy.
But daring courage and heroism were not lacking. Many a man, still unknown to fame, risked his life for his country within the city walls; many a woman of high standing, secretly serving her nation, scorned peril and drained a cup of moral anguish no less repellent than that drunk by the Marquis de Sombreuil’s daughter—a cup, to speak figuratively, not seldom containing the life-blood of those dearest to her. It cannot be pretended that all whom the Germans suspected were innocent, but Prussian astuteness was usually more successful in trapping the guiltless than the guilty. Fretted by failure, the Germans vented their passion on these innocent victims, in order at least to obtain the advantage of a terrifying example.
Despotism waxed strong and incredibly barbaric, when every Teuton was swelled to bursting with pride and the Allies seemed helplessly retreating before the onrush of his mighty legions. Petty laws, senselessly fretting, were imposed on the people of occupied Belgium. Citizens were ordered indoors at seven p.m., all shops and other public places had to be closed and street lights extinguished, often without reason given; sometimes as punishment for the refractory act of some peasant whose very existence was unknown to those who paid the penalty. In Bruges and other towns, citizens were forbidden to walk on the pavement which a German officer happened to be traversing, and had to salute him deferentially from the centre of the street.
In time all liberty was extinguished, and efforts were made even to suppress the French language. Flemish, closely related to German, and consequently offering a means of facilitating future control of the country, was ordered to appear first on all public announcements and documents, legal or other; also tram conductors were obliged to announce the names of streets in Flemish. The privacy of homes was invaded with or without excuse, while of course all correspondence, even in the city, and any other writing, was subjected to the severest censure.
The English language was looked upon as an affront to the enemy. Even we neutrals were made to feel it objectionable to speak our native tongue in public because of the Teuton hatred of England, for an English word affected the invaders as a red rag does a bull. Had they dared then to offend America, which would have forced them to feed the Belgians themselves, they would no doubt have officially forbidden it.
VI
