A short history of Belgium

by Léon van der Essen

Except for that little slip of country including Dixmude, Nieuport, and Ypres, Belgium was now under German occupation. Then began the “war of the civilians.” Already during the invasion, in that fateful month of August, many civilians had been killed by the invading troops. Under pretext that there were francs tireurs—which should be categorically denied, there never being an organized “franc-tireur” war in Belgium—the invaders committed horrible atrocities in the region of Liège, at Aerschot, Louvain, Tamines, Andennes, Namur, Termonde, and in the south of Luxemburg, burning a large number of houses, pillaging, and killing over 6,000 people, among them old men, women, and children. Terrorization seemed the immediate aim of this peculiar system of warfare.

When these troops had disappeared in the direction of Paris, General von der Goltz was intrusted with the task of organizing the administration of occupied Belgium. He arrived at Brussels on September 1, 1914, with some 25 military and civilian officials. Belgium was now divided into two parts: the “General Government,” including the whole of the occupied territory, except both East and West Flanders, and the “Etappengebiet” or “army zone,” including these last two provinces. The “General Government” was subject to the authority of the Governor General, residing at Brussels; the “Etappengebiet” was responsible to the army commanders. Along the coast was established the “Marine-gebiet” or coast defense, under the command of Admiral von Schroeder, residing at Bruges. At the head of each province was put a military governor, and in every district a Kreischef. Every town had a local “Kommandantur.” Besides these military officials were the civilian officials of the “Zivilverwaltung.”

Between these two elements, the military and the civilians, there did not always exist great cordiality, and, when they did not agree, the military always had the last word. Also, at Brussels, the authority of the Governor General was sometimes handicapped by the intervention of the Quartermaster General, von Sauberzweig, representative of the German General Staff, and it seems beyond doubt that the excesses and crimes committed by the German government at Brussels were frequently imposed by the military party. The murder of Edith Cavell and the deportation of civilians to Germany and to the firing-line were certainly acts of the military.

The situation of the Belgian civilian population became now very peculiar. The Belgian government, which had left Antwerp together with the King, had accepted the hospitality of the French government at Havre; the King and Queen were with the troops on the Yser. There remained in Belgium, as representatives of the national power, the burgomasters or mayors of the various towns, the parish priests, and the bishops. They were to be the leaders of the oppressed population. Cardinal Mercier took up the fight against the crimes, the excesses, and the illegalities of the occupying power, and the mayor of the capital, Max, stirred the people by his patriotic and gallant attitude. The Germans sent him to Germany for having been too outspoken in his feelings; he remained there in confinement till the end of the war. They did not dare to arrest Cardinal Mercier, but they tried by all means to silence him and to prevent his encouraging, in his pastorals and letters addressed to his flock, the sense of patriotism and the endurance of the people. The Cardinal never missed any occasion to tell the Belgians what was their duty in the face of the invader, or to protest against atrocities committed, or to try to prevent brutalities as, for instance, at the time of the awful deportations. The bishops of Liège and Namur also took up the same energetic attitude. In many towns and villages the burgomasters did their duty as calmly as the priests.

Thanks to the attitude of their civilian and ecclesiastical leaders, the Belgians found the necessary patience to endure the harshness, the persecutions, and the privations of the new régime. It may be said that, generally speaking, they offered, on “the interior front,” as good a resistance as the soldiers on the Yser front.

Their cities were occupied by German garrisons; their houses sometimes filled with German officers or requisitioned in order to serve as a German Casino or Soldatenheim. Every month, at the local Kommandantur, the young men of age to bear arms, the former civic guards, etc., must present themselves. A very severe control was established in order to prevent the young men from escaping to Holland and rejoining the Belgian army. In order to prevent this, the Belgian frontier to the north was provided with three lines of electrified wire and soldiers were constantly patrolling, ready to fire on those who should succeed in cutting the wires and passing. These terrible threats did not prevent thousands of young Belgians from facing the ordeal and from getting through these wires, on their way to the Belgian army on the Yser. From Holland, they went to England, then reached France where they were received in Belgian instruction camps and prepared for “doing their bit” in the Yser trenches.

The parents or relatives of these young Belgians were held responsible for the escape of their sons and heavily fined or imprisoned. The German administration applied, indeed, the principle of collective responsibility. For the fault of one individual, the whole community was punished. So, for instance, cutting of a telephone wire, singing a patriotic song, distributing secret newspapers, all this was punished by heavy fines imposed on a whole town or village.

Everywhere the German criminal or secret police, organized by Governor General von Bissing, was at work, trying to get as many Belgians as possible into prison. The German military penal code was applied to Belgium for offenses termed as endangering the security of the German army. These crimes were punished by military tribunals, where no Belgian barrister was admitted, and where people were condemned to death or to heavy penalties without appeal. In one year alone, 1915-16, 103,092 Belgians were thus condemned by these military tribunals, and 100 death penalties were pronounced, many of them being immediately executed. The best-known cases were those of Edith Cavell, Gabrielle Petit, Franck, Baekelmans, etc. This régime of terror did not curb the courage of the people.

The Germans tried to create despair and dissension by spreading false news, by announcing loudly and daily their victories, by creating German or Germanized papers, such as Le Bruxellois, by exciting the animosity against the Allies, especially against England, by boasting that the Belgians had been left in the lurch by their influential friends.

To counteract this poison propaganda, a secret press was created at Brussels and in many other towns. The “Libre Belgique,” organized by the editor of the former Belgian paper Le Patriote, Mr. Jourdain, is the most celebrated of them. The Germans never succeeded in discovering the writers or the printers, but many people, suspected of taking part in the enterprise, were fined or imprisoned or deported.