Our hearts seemed to grow cold and leaden within us as we sat there hoping, praying, fearing, yet instinctively feeling the doom so rapidly approaching.
One gloomy, rainy day, word came that over two thousand soldiers of the Civil Guard had lowered their weapons at the approach of the enemy and quietly surrendered the City of Brussels, Belgium’s beautiful capital. To have fought without fortifications against such superior forces as the Germans possessed would have been a useless sacrifice of life.
Strict, in the extreme, were the regulations enforced by the Germans in the different places which they entered. They also levied enormous war taxes. Bold and undaunted even to the verge of imprudence, as was then remarked by the Belgians, was the conduct of Burgomaster Max, of Brussels, in his conduct toward the enemy.
The work of strengthening and completing the fortification of Willebroeck, said to be amongst the strongest in the world, continued, while a large number of soldiers, as watch guards, were constantly on duty.
The electricity which supplied light to the village and kept many a motor propelling, was entirely cut off from the houses and public buildings and concentrated at the fort.
Two thousand workmen engaged in the paper factories of Mr. Louis De Naeyer were out of work. Charitable ladies, aided by Madame De Naeyer, of the Castle of Willebroeck, and assisted in the work by some of the Sisters, met daily at the Boys’ Public School and made ready a good, strong soup, which was dealt out in cans or pitchers to the destitute families of these poor workmen.
The paper factories, the Castle of Blaesvelt, belonging to a former Belgian Ambassador to Washington, whose wife was a native of that city, and the large and newly equipped breweries of the Erix families, were stripped of their machinery and made to serve as fortresses by boring holes through their walls for the reception of cannon and mettrailleusen (machine guns). The paper factory itself, commanding a good position near the bridge of the canal, was so arranged that it could be flooded at a moment’s warning; and this was actually done, as we were informed by the refugees in England, when the battle at the fortress took place prior to the fall of Antwerp.
During the progress of the campaign in the vicinity at that time, several occurrences affected, in a great measure, every aspect of daily life for the quiet residents of Willebroeck, and particularly for the Sisters, unaccustomed as they were to any participation in the affairs of the world, except such as were imperative for the direction and maintenance of their schools.
These were: First, the arrival of the Red Cross and wounded soldiers, some six weeks before our departure from Antwerp; second, the return of the army; third, the flight of the refugees; fourth, the daily increasing and ever nearer approaching roar of the cannonade.
One afternoon in the middle of August a large, heavy wagon was drawn into the yard. It bore the flag of the Red Cross on top, and on the side in great white letters the words “Military Hospital.”