NINETEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN dawned with little suggestion of the brilliant and victorious events it had in store for us. Belgium was at the end of her strength, almost at the end of her courage. Everyone, even the wealthy, was cold for lack of fuel in the midst of an unusually severe winter; many were starving, and no one had enough to eat. There was, also, scarcely any gas to relieve the darkness of early dusk; in some quarters of Brussels no gas at all, and no candles to be had. The weather was abnormally bitter, and winter dragged on relentlessly into the month of March—the Black Month, when even the bravest hearts were ready to break under the harrowing news of that second German offensive, rushing forward again over all the hard-gained territory across which we had with such eagerness and confidence followed the Allies on the map!
Nothing can depict the moral anguish of those days in Brussels, when the German affiches were announcing victory after victory—when an increase of force, gathered from the Russian front, made their success appear inevitable. Trainloads of cannon, ammunition, and men rolled by during whole days and nights, troops reinforced by the desperate determination to win, by foul means or fair, which obsessed the Kaiser and his chiefs. It was a time of utter despair for the Belgians—for everyone, indeed, whose sympathies were with the Allies. And, to add to the pervading misery, every German victory was not only blazoned on the walls, but troops were marched through the city playing joyous and triumphant music from early morning until evening!
When, at last, the news reached us that their onrush was stemmed for the second time, the occupying powers concealed it from us as far as possible. We had looked for great things from America, but were told that their men could not get over, while our souls were sickened by eulogistic accounts of all that the under-sea boats were doing. Each edition of our miserable papers presented a long list of ships sent to the bottom by treacherous Germany.
But the Zeppelin was dead! That was some comfort; and, with a feeling that it was perhaps the sign of better times, we saw demolished the enormous iron-clad garage where one of these monsters used to be housed.
But few gleams of real promise reached us, and it was dread of a fifth winter, then appearing inevitable, that broke the spirit of those who went (only then) to work in Germany as a desperate act of self-preservation.
Even in days that were so much brighter for outsiders, in August and September, we were denied the satisfaction of knowing that our cause was progressing. The information allowed us did little to ease the pressure of mingled hope and anxiety. We longed to learn something definitely encouraging of what was going on where the cannon, ever louder, was continuously roaring. Day by day our papers were searched for some hopeful news, through long columns concocted only to destroy hope and breed despair. Every event suggesting menace to the Allied countries, culled from obscure journals in every part of the world (especially from the National Zeitung of Bâle), was set forth and embroidered. Often they bore no more reliable heading than “Le Bruit court,” but their effect on a people now morbidly prone to look on the dark side of things was none the less depressing. Irish troubles; strikes and discontent in India; political confusion in France and Italy; friction between the United States and Japan or Mexico; disastrous failure of the Allied venture in Russia—such items contrasted with the triumphant German communiqués, which, even when acknowledging retreat, depicted it as a victory, or a mere tactical movement to attain a stronger position for a decisive counter offensive.
Only later were we allowed to know when a position of importance was won by the Allies. Our first knowledge that Péronne had been retaken was the naïve announcement in the German report, “Péronne now finds itself immediately in front of our lines”!—as though the town had grown weary of being behind them, and had of its own will altered its position!
On Monday, 30th September, our principal source of news, La Belgique (entirely under German control), contained the following: “Between the Ailette and the Aisne there have been no more battles, but the Germans have withdrawn their line to the east of section Allemont-Jany, leaving Pirnon, Chavegnor, and the fort of La Malmaison in the hands of the French.” In regard to the retreat at Cambrai it was stated in the same paper, 30th September, that the withdrawal “plus en arrière” of German troops was executed at night unperceived by the enemy, who “for a long time the following morning still held the evacuated territory under fire”; and, in reference to the situation between the Ailette and the Aisne, “Without the least intervention of the enemy, we have drawn back our line behind the Canal de l’Oise,” etc. “Ce mouvement, préparé depuis de jours, s’est effectué méthodiquement et sans être entravé par l’ennemi.” This “official report,” in a tone of curt indifference, proceeds to show all British advances as negligible. Then came such an announcement as this: “Conflict between Suippes and the Aisne and also between Argonne and the Meuse; our forces have attained a complete success.”
The redemption of Cambrai, St. Quentin, etc., we only discovered after tracing on the map insignificant places appearing in the war-news allowed us as reached or passed by the Allied forces; usually farms or other trifling localities formerly unknown to fame. Delightful as these discoveries were, they could awake no thrill of confident enthusiasm because overshadowed by the contemptuous tone in which each slight advance and the appalling cost to French and English was presented. Moreover, every Allied success was attributed solely to the clever military strategy of the Germans. Above all was belittled any progress made by the British, whose abridged and doctored communiqués were always presented in weak and childlike terms that made them appear ridiculous. The English never knew, until several days after evacuation, that the Germans had withdrawn from any locality for which they were fighting. It was stated in an official announcement from Berlin, dated 8th September: “Le détachement du contact avec l’ennemi s’operait presque toujours à l’insu de l’ennemi.” Another official statement (13th August) was as follows: “The British offensive between the Ancre and the Avre has been checked, after the strong and vain attacks which have cost them such great losses, at the limit of the old battlefield of the Somme.... On the other hand, the French have once more placed in line many fresh divisions in order to attempt to pierce, in spite of all, our positions between the Avre and the Oise to which the Germans have retired in so able a manner (d’une manière si habile) after having inflicted such heavy losses on their adversaries.”
Niggardly as this information was, we were of course able to derive from it a certain amount of encouragement. But this was damped by the boastful German confidence, the constantly reiterated threat of another vast offensive which would bring the war to an end glorious for Germany; the awful descriptions of French towns reduced to heaps of ashes, and the incalculable losses of the Allies.