And although they also promised to do everything in their power to prevent lack of food in Belgium, they have bled to death the unfortunate country by continuous impositions and taxes, and thrown many into poverty and misery.
Yes, in the most scandalous manner they have violated the promises which the Germans gave Cardinal Mercier. But what signifies a word if treaties are only "scraps of paper?"
CHAPTER XV
THE ILL-TREATMENT OF BRITISH WOUNDED
I RETURNED from Louvain by military train. This one had had a most adventurous journey before it reached Louvain. It had left Cambrai in North France three days before, always going slowly and making long stops, to spare the seriously wounded at least a little. I estimated that in my train over 2,000 wounded had been loaded in a long, dismal procession of wagons. Most of them had not had their bandages renewed for a fortnight, and were still wearing the first emergency dressing; all came from the neighbourhood of Arras.
A little to the north of this town many had been lying wounded in the trenches for over eight days, without being able to get their wounds bandaged. They had to admit the success of the French field artillery, which produced a most serious effect.
The Germans all agreed that their right wing lacked artillery. The German soldiers who fell there were all killed in their trenches by the falling bombs, there was not sufficient field artillery to answer this murderous fire efficiently, and they could not do anything with their rifles against the invisible enemy. The artillery fire of the French was most serious from the 1st to the 4th of October, and during those days the German trenches must have been a real hell. On October 4th a general "sauve qui peut" began from the trenches.
But the shell-fire of the French overtook them then, as they were retreating, while many others were killed by bombs from French aeroplanes, which were in action in great numbers. The retreat had not stopped before the Germans arrived in Cambray, where the thousands of wounded could at last be put in long trains and sent to Aix-la-Chapelle. A great many bombs from aeroplanes also hit these trains and killed a great many; my own train was everywhere pierced by fragments of those bombs. Within the carriages it was unendurable; the wounded men and their malodorous bandages had occupied them such a long time that the atmosphere was simply insupportable. Happily there was a corridor, where I stood all the time, with the little girl, in the company of some German military men who were sent home, not on account of wounds, but because of internal complaints.
Very slowly the huge monster sauntered along, stopping and waiting everywhere to allow long trains with fresh troops to pass. These came straight from Germany, with the youngest levies and volunteers who had just finished their drill. These had decorated their trains all over with green boughs and outside painted all sorts of caricatures, from which especially King George had to suffer much. Then one read "To Paris, to England," and similar hopeful devices.