A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium

The Minister was out when this news came, but I sallied forth and tried to locate the Monseigneur. He was not to be found anywhere. When I got back to the Legation, both the Min...

I was out by seven this morning and looked about for news before coming to the Legation. I found that the Germans were steadily advancing and that the vanguard was about seven k...

Last night our cipher telegrams to Washington were sent back from the telegraph office with word that under the latest instructions from the Government they could not be forward...

In a field of turnips a couple of hundred yards away from the headquarters were the howitzers. There were three of them in a row with three ammunition wagons. They had been sent...

And there was not an incident. Here and there a prowling cab driver hooted, but there was not a stone thrown or any other violence. Before the last of the procession got into th...

_October 24th._--Yesterday was another busy day. I did not know that the entire population of Belgium could make such a crowd as I have had in the waiting-room of the chancery....

Most of the town repaired to the cellars for the night, but we decided that if it really came, we saw no choice between going down with the house into the cellar and having the...

When we got down we found everybody else stirring, and it took us several minutes to get it through our heads that we had been through more excitement than we wotted of. Those d...

This morning a Dutchman came in to see me, and after showing me a lot of papers, to establish that he was somebody entirely different, told me that he was a British spy. He then...

Jack Scranton decided to come back to Brussels with me, to give me a hand in Legation work, and spent the morning packing enough plunder to see him through a siege of three or f...

All I can remember now of the 23d is that it was a Sunday, and that we could hear cannonading all day long from the east. It was hard to tell just where it came from, but it was...

This afternoon I went over and made inquiry as to the well-being of those who are cooped up in the German Legation. They are getting along perfectly well, but are consumed with...

My day's work began with a visit to the German Legation. The Government asked me to secure and return the number for the automobile of von Stumm, the German Counselor. I had his...

Just at the edge of Malines we were startled by a tremendous report near-by, and on getting out to reconnoitre I discovered a Belgian battery, which had been established near th...

Presently, with a good deal of noise, a fairly large force of troops came marching down the boulevard, and took up positions around the station. Our officer returned, waving a s...

By this time the wild-goose chasing was getting a little bit monotonous, and when we got back to the headquarters, I announced with some emphasis to the first aide-de-camp that...

Diest is an old town which figures a good deal in the combats of the middle ages. It has a fine old church, quite large, a good Hôtel de Ville, and clean, Dutch-looking streets,...

The way the German army cleaned out the wine of the country was a revelation to everybody. They would not take what they needed for the day's drinking but would clear out whole...

The Germans have been hounding the British Legation and Consulate, and we have had to get excited about it. Then they announced to the Dutch Chargé that our courier could no lon...

I have no trouble with the higher officers at headquarters, but I never go there that I do not want to murder the large brutes of non-commissioned officers who guard the door. T...

_Sunday Morning._--We were all up working until two o'clock this morning. Monsieur Max was spirited away to Namur, and everybody is standing by for trouble. The people are great...

All the regular troops have been withdrawn from this part of the country and dispatched to the front, leaving the protection of the capital to the Garde Civique, who are patroll...

In Andenne and Seilles (a little village across the Meuse) the Germans did a thorough job. They killed about three hundred people and burned about the same number of houses. Mos...

To-day I went up to Antwerp to bring back our old motor. Left a little before noon, after tidying up my desk, and took my two Spanish colleagues, San Esteban and Molina, along f...

This volume is not a carefully prepared treatise on the war. It does not set out to prove anything. It is merely what its title indicates--a private journal jotted down hastily...

De Leval had seen the Minister, who was ill in bed, and brought me his instructions to find von der Lancken, present the appeal for clemency, and press for a favourable decision...