CHAPTER XXIV

THE CULT OF THE BRUTE

Repellant, unforgettable, was the spectacle of the Germans strutting and posing on the steps of the beautiful Palais de Justice.

So ill did they fit the beauty of their background, that all the artist in one writhed with pain. Like some horrible vandal attempt at decoration upon pure and flawless architecture these coarse, brutish figures stood with legs apart, their flat round caps upon their solemn yokel faces giving them the aspect of a body of convicts, while behind them reared those noble pillars, yellow and dreamlike, suffering in horror, but with chaste dignity, the polluting nearness of the Hun.

The more one studies Hun physiognomy and physique, the more predominant grow those first impressions of the Cult of the Brute. Brutish is the clear blue eye, with the burning excited brain revealing itself in flashes such as one might see in the eye of a rhinoceros on the attack. Brutish is the head, so round and close cropped, resembling no other animal save German. Brutish are the ears flapping out so redly. The thick necks and incredibly thick legs have the tenacious look of elephants.

And oh, their little ways, their little ways!

In the Salle Du Tribunal de Commerce they put up clothes-lines, and hung their shirts and handkerchiefs there, while a bucket stood in the middle of the beautiful tesselated floor. And then, in exquisite taste, to give the Belgians a treat, this interior has been photographed and forced into an extraordinary little newspaper published in Brussels, printed in French but secretly controlled by the Germans, who splatter it with their photographs in every conceivable (and inconceivable) style.

And so we see them in their kitchen installed at the foot of the Monument, wearing aprons over their middle-aged tummies, blucher boots, and round flat caps. A pretty picture that!

They posed themselves for it; alone they did it. And this is how. They tipped up a big basket, and let it lie in the foreground on its side. Two Germans seized a table, lifting it off the ground. One man seated himself on a wooden bench with a tin of kerosene. Half a dozen others leaned up against the portable stoves, with folded arms, looking as if they were going to burst into Moody and Sankey hymns. All food, all bottles, were hidden. The dustbin was brought forward instead. And then the photographer said "gut!" And there they were! It was the Hunnish idea of a superb photograph of Army Cooks. Contrast it with Tommy's! How do you see Tommy when a war photographer gets him? His first thought is for an effect of "Cheer-oh!" He doesn't hide bottles and glasses. He brings them out, and lets you look at them. He doesn't, in the act of being photographed, lift a table. He lifts a tea-pot or a bottle if he has one handy. Give us Tommy all the time. Yes. All the time!

Another photograph shews the Huns in the Auditoire of the Cour de Cassation! More funny effects! They've brought forward all their knap-sacks, and piled them on a desk for decoration. They themselves lie on the carpeted steps at full length. But they don't lounge. They can't. No man can lounge who doesn't know what to do with his hands. And Germans never know what to do with theirs.

When I saw that picture, showing the Hun idea of how a photograph should be taken, I felt a suffocation in my larynx. Then there was a gem called Un Coin de la Cour de Cassation. This shewed dried fish and sausages hanging on an easel! cheeses on the floor; and washing on the clothes-line.

And opposite this, on the other page was a photo of General Leman and his now famous letters to King Albert, the most touching human documents chat were ever written to a King.

SIRE,

Après des combats honorables livrés les 4, 5, et 6 août par la 3ème division d'armée renforcée, a partir du 5, par la 15ème brigade, j'ai estimé que les forts de Liège ne pouvaient plus jouer que le rôle de forts d'arrêt. J'ai néanmoins conservé le gouvernement militaire de la place afin d'en coordonner la défense autant qu'il m'était possible et afin d'exercer une action morale sur les garnisons des forts.

Le bien-fondé de ces résolutions à reçu par la suite des preuves sérieuses.

Votre Majesté n'ignore du reste pas que je m'étais installé au fort de Loncin, à partir du 6 août, vers midi.

SIRE,

Vous apprendrez avec douleur que ce fort a sauté bier à 17 h. 20 environ, ensevelissant sous ses ruines la majeure partie de la garnison, peut-être les huit-dixièmes.

Si je n'ai pas perdu la vie dans cette catastrophe, c'est parce que mon escorte, composée comme suit: captaine commandant Collard, un sous-officier d'infanterie, qui n'a sans doute pas survécu, le gendarme Thevénin et mes deux ordonnances (Ch. Vandenbossche et Jos. Lecocq) m'a tiré d'un endroit du fort ou j'allais être asphyxié par les gaz de la poudre. J'ai été porté dans le fossé où je suis tombé. Un captaine allemand, du nom de Gruson, m'a donné à boire, mais j'ai été fait prisonnier, puis emmené à Liège dans une ambulance.

Je suis certain d'avoir soutenu l'honneur de nos armes. Je n'ai rendu ni la forteresse, ni les forts.

Daignez me pardonner, Sire, la négligeance de cette lettre je suis physiquement très abimé par l'explosion de Loncin.

En Allemagne, où je vais être dirigé, mes pensées seront ce qu'elles ont toujours été: la Belgique et son Roi. J'aurais volontiers donné ma vie pour les mieux servir, mais la mort n'a pas voulu de moi.

G. LEMAN.