Part 12

However, there were also dark, familiar stains to mar this dawning of a new Germany whose sun, by a strange irony of Fate, arose in Belgium! The yesterday of trickery and terrorism in certain members of that vast host still survived the night of defeat. Soldiers, by force of arms, committed daring thefts throughout the country, mostly to obtain money, of which the troops seemed in great need—must indeed have been, since some sold their weapons, bed-covers, and even their clothing. One day I heard a young under-officer bartering his boots with a café _garçon_ for fifty francs, when shoes of any sort, at the time, could not be had for less than a hundred, or even more. Another evidence of this need, and one of enlightening significance, was the reckless sale of goods which they held in outlying districts of Brussels. At Forest and other suburban parts of the city, great car-loads of material, looted from shops and private houses probably months or years ago,—for the dry-goods shops of Brussels had been cleaned out quite two years before,—were offered at absurdly trivial prices. Silk-velvet, which could not be had in Brussels for less than two hundred francs, went at a mark a yard; warm woollen stuffs, which the shivering population, thinly clad in dyed cotton, could not obtain at any price in the shops, were sold—to such as deigned to buy—for an equally small sum. All these goods, taken on pretence of clothing the army—or _Belgian prisoners_!—were brought to light again, and not only stuffs, but all manner of other things, as if from some pirates’ cave, were bartered back to those who had been robbed of them.

But now thieving became more bold; not by officers, but by soldiers, who did not attempt to disguise it with transparent lies.

In some cases, nevertheless, that old trick was still tried, as in that of a prominent banker, who was robbed of one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs by six soldiers. Evidently familiar with banking affairs, they presented themselves at his office after business hours, and, finding him alone with one employé, coolly demanded the sum desired. The characteristic Teuton excuse was not wanting—characteristic in its absurdity: Belgians _might_ rob the army _en route_!—unarmed Belgians might loot the German vans, under guard of many hundreds of armed soldiers!—therefore large sums were demanded from all banks as guarantee!

The banker stated that he was unable to grant their demand, as there was no money available in the bank. But even as he spoke two _encaisseurs_ entered; their satchels, containing the amount mentioned, were seized, the contents quietly appropriated, and the soldiers, revolver in hand, retired. The banker appealed to the revolutionary chiefs, who refused to credit his story, stating proudly that “Germans were not thieves.” But by dint of perseverance, and many visits, he at last convinced them, and the money was returned to him, from army funds, just one hour before these high-minded leaders were, for some reason unknown to us, thrown out of power.

Another instance of the justice which these unfortunately displaced chiefs endeavoured to exercise, was the punishment of a German soldier, who, convicted of having murderously assaulted the woman cashier of a restaurant and stolen the contents of her _caisse_, was placed against a wall and shot—or so we were told.

The shocking original methods of German troops, in regard to places they inhabited, were also revived in these days. At one private hotel with whose proprietor we were well acquainted, their behaviour was almost beyond belief. The hotel had been requisitioned, and occupied during the war by German women, who left it in good condition. But the troops, who afterwards took possession for a few days only on their way out, reduced it to a state of uncivilized filth and wanton destruction, committing unmentionable acts whereby the up-to-date and valuable kitchen utensils, the flower-pots, and even the drawers of bureaus were rendered unfit for future service. Bombs were found under some of the beds, and the whole place had to be taken over by the State to be cleansed and examined.

Brussels, during that time, echoed day and night to spasmodic reports of firearms, sometimes of considerable duration, and consequently terrifying; at others merely an inexplicable exchange of shots.

But on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of November, the entire city trembled to blast after blast of cannon, and the shuddering shock of car-loads of ammunition set off in merciless proximity to inhabited quarters. The numerous mines buried in and about the city were also exploded—those treacherous death-traps awaiting the Allied armies, on which the occupying government had founded its boast that Brussels would be the “bouquet of the whole war,” a prediction constantly repeated.

While public attention was more or less centred on these continued explosions, fires broke out in all the railway stations, one of which was almost entirely destroyed. Many explanations were set afloat in the familiar German fashion, the most persistent being that rue Haute thieves had done it in order to pillage certain cars—an absurd suggestion, since thieves do not usually light a beacon to attract attention to their deeds. One damning fact, moreover—the simultaneity of the conflagrations—suggested some inexplicable Teuton object, perhaps mere vengeance.

The theory of vengeance was given weight by an account given us by the mayor of Charleroi. Just before the Germans withdrew, some officers visited him and, without giving a hint of their intentions, asked him to call together all the former Belgian railroad employés and send them to work at the station. The mayor, considering this a reasonable request, willingly agreed, got the men together, and set them to work. Scarcely were they all gathered in and about the station than terrific explosions took place in the yard and on near-by tracks. Fifty-eight of the unsuspecting Belgians were killed, and many others, living in the vicinity, either slain or wounded, while every window in the entire town was shattered, doors also and many objects of value. Hundreds of cars containing ammunition had been secretly attached by a fuse wire, which the Germans lighted and left to do its deadly work, while they fled into safety and were never again seen.

Some intrepid Belgians, fortunately, discovered the fuse, cut it, and thus saved two hundred and twenty car-loads of high-power explosives, some of which stood in the centre of the town and would have caused its entire wreckage.

The mayor also told us a shocking story in regard to a hospital in his town which the Germans had occupied during the war. At their departure they removed their wounded, and announced that the hospital was at his disposal. On going to visit it, he found a number of French and English wounded lying on the floor, who stated they had never had a bed, and were in a deplorable condition. Outside, in the ambulance garage, the door of which was locked, he found seventeen dead bodies of soldiers, entirely devoid of clothing and therefore impossible to identify as to nationality. In a corner of this place were heaped a ghastly collection of amputated human limbs. These and the bodies were in a state of decomposition that rendered their removal both dangerous and horrible.

A school-house that had been used to shelter troops up to the last day before the Germans left, he found in a condition quite as incredibly revolting. There were no beds; the floors, covered with a sort of mossy turf, were in a state of indescribable filth, whereon the soldiers slept and which they subjected to animal-like treatment. The stench, he said, was frightful, and the entire place so infected with vermin that the charwomen engaged to clean it were not allowed to leave the premises before being thoroughly fumigated and cleansed.

After such disclosures, could one wonder at the brutalized, unhuman appearance of those men who dragged their weary way through Brussels—men once hardy, self-respecting tillers of the soil, or workers in other useful pursuits? Such treatment as they had endured could leave no spark of military pride in them, no consciousness of shame at defeat, no desire even for the triumph of victory.

On Sunday, the 17th of November, when Germans were seen openly in the capital for the last time, the street scenes were something at which to marvel. Everyone was abroad. Among the throng surging to and fro, through those wide avenues and boulevards so long ruled by the enemy, the familiar grey-green Teuton uniforms were relieved by the khaki of the English and Belgians, and the pale blue of the French. Many Italians and Russians were there, and one or two American airmen who had descended from a cloudless sky to see how the armistice was affecting us. Although no organized part of the Allied armies had yet entered save certain Belgians on leave to visit their families, hundreds of liberated prisoners had come to the city from German camps where they had been forced to labour for the enemy. All of these save the French, who could speak the language, were a sorry-looking lot, wandering about, unable to express themselves. So numerous were they that it was impossible for the Belgians to collect them at once and give them the assistance and comfort which they so greatly needed. The British prisoners especially were pitiable to behold in their starved condition and wretched rags—poor helpless youths, that for many months had endured such moral and physical anguish under their cruel jailers that some stated they had looked back with regret to their life in the trenches.

Most of these had found kind hearts to look after them, before that amazing Sunday when foe and friend mingled in the streets of Brussels, presenting a sight so fantastic, so unforeseen, that it seemed to lend a strange element of travesty to all that had gone before.

On the crowded platforms of trams an occasional German might be seen, pressed close to a haggard-looking Britisher worn to emaciation after months of harsh treatment by the former’s compatriots; or shoulder to shoulder with a jubilant Belgian officer, hearing his response to the triumphant greeting of friends—hearing the wild applause given to units of all the Allied nations! Strange and incredible sight, in those streets where the _casque à pointe_ had reigned supreme but a few days before, where—it seemed but yesterday—the hope of seeing a Belgian, English, or French uniform had been almost extinguished!

And now the spiked helmet was ignored. No voice was raised to acclaim it; the once-dreaded uniform passed unnoticed.

So far as I know, however, there was no serious outbreak or obvious resentment of conditions doubtless sorely trying to those men of defeated Germany, denied even the prospect of joyous welcome in their own country, already seething with civil strife. German soldiers—even German officers, whose rank could no longer be discerned, came face to face with surly, dark-browed Russians, and exchanged curious glances, as though furtively trying to read one another’s minds; with Italians, whose eyes twinkled with the satisfaction their impulsive natures were less able to conceal; with French, beginning to forget, in the joy of victory, the wrongs of their prison camps; and with British, into whose haggard faces they dared not look!

Even the knowledge of having discarded the Imperial yoke could not have lessened the pangs these men must have suffered, or blinded even the dullest of them to the evidence afforded by those units of wronged nations of a punishment too awful and complete to be attributed to mortal power alone.

Especially galling to them must have been the intense enthusiasm shown by the population for every Britisher. These, at the time, only wretched-looking prisoners, were the first Allies who appeared, and the sight of them sent the people into a frenzy of pride, excitement, and sympathy. Here and there, in the newly enlivened streets, would be seen a black swarm of Belgians gathered about one pitiably emaciated English lad, trying, without knowing a word of the language, to find some place of refuge to which he had been directed by the Belgian committee who looked after the prisoners. There was nothing, as a rule, to denote his nationality, save his speech, and a ragged khaki jacket, with his prison number painted on the back. In his poor, dazed face—made more haggard by several weeks’ growth of beard—in the filthiness of his whole appearance, there was little to denote the bath-loving Englishman. Some told me they had not changed their shirts during eight months of imprisonment; had been forced to do hard labour, with nothing to eat but turnip soup, and one loaf of bread a day shared by four men.

The Belgians, however, quickly took them in hand, fitted them out with clean clothes, and at times carried them on their shoulders through the streets, shouting, “_Vive l’Angleterre!_” right under the noses of the Germans.

All of those to whom I spoke had been captured at a certain point near Armentières, where, owing to the collapse of an adjacent Portuguese trench, the Germans had got behind them and so cut them off. They were rather bitter regarding the “Pork and Beans,” as they called the Portuguese, and stated with contempt that they had seen some of the latter, after their capitulation, pass into the German lines with hand-satchels, containing their belongings already packed!

On Monday, the 18th of November, scarcely two weeks after the first definite gleam of approaching deliverance penetrated the prison city, we realized with a strange, half-incredulous amazement that we were free! The grey uniform had disappeared; those of our deliverers were in view, and the outer world was once more a living reality! It seemed impossible—or rather like awaking abruptly from a hideous dream! No more roaring of cannon beyond the patient, proudly soaring trees of the Bois—where sad gaps bear witness of the vandal’s hand; no more racking thunder of mitrailleuse from the military exercise-field, or droning of German aeroplanes over our heads; no more dread of armed soldiers intruding upon our privacy, or of tyrannical _affiches_ imposing penalties and checking liberty! We could go forth into the free streets without fear of the _polizei_. We could walk by lamplight at night, instead of inky darkness, and take from our windows the ugly blue paper or dark curtains by which the dim light of our houses was hooded. The door-bell could ring without causing panic, without forcing me, and others who plied the pen in secret, to rush off and conceal perilous manuscripts even before knowing who might be at the door. Buried treasures could be unearthed—newspapers read—letters written—we could breathe normally once more! Over four years of persecution, isolation, and association with misery, had led in a few days, as it seemed, to this intoxicating hour of triumph, when not only the victory we craved was attained, but the malignant world-menacing monster, vanquished by the sword of Justice, had, like a wounded scorpion, writhing in its pain, stung itself to death!

XVI

On Friday, the 22nd of November, Brussels fulfilled the German prophecy in a manner little expected by those who made it, for the city really appeared the “bouquet of the war,” a radiant, triumphant, glorious bouquet! Victories have been, and victories may be again, but never in all history has a capital rebounded from long suppression under such brilliant, unexampled, and ravishing conditions. As though the Power ruling heaven were in sympathy with her deliverance, a sky of Italian-like beauty canopied the day—the first really blue and cloudless sky we had seen for months—the air was crisp and transparent, the sun glorious. From every window, every balcony, floated the colours of the Allies: Belgian, English, French, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and the “stars and stripes.” Many of these flags were home-made; sheets dyed and put together with feverish haste, for materials of all sorts were long since exhausted in Belgium, and the flags available were sold at a price beyond the means of most people. A German merchant of Bonn, with the opportunist cleverness of his race, had prepared a vast number of Allied flags, in time to meet, more or less, the eager demand all through Belgium. But (a fact which suggests the enterprising Teuton must have formed his scheme before America came in) there was a great dearth of American flags. These, consequently, being mostly home-made, were sometimes rather woeful imitations of the great banner, for their colours ran together lamentably during later days of rain.

Mention of the flag-making German recalls a significant incident which occurred in the first year of war, when quantities of toys, all made to appeal strongly to Belgian sentiments, and said to have come from Nuremberg, appeared for sale in Brussels at Christmas-time. Among these expensive playthings were regiments of lead German soldiers in the act of surrender to their enemies, with hands uplifted as depicted in the Allied reports after the Marne! These drew many buyers, but the crowds that gathered about them finally attracted official attention, whereupon the toys were confiscated, while the shop which sold them was forced to close and subjected to a heavy fine.

But to return to the flags; on this glad day even the poorest had their banners prepared in time to welcome their heroic King, and multitudes gathered to acclaim his glorious return. All work ceased; even the tramway employés, important as were their services on such a day, refused large bribes rather than forgo a personal view of the wondrous scene—and no one could blame them! As there were no horses nor vehicles to be had, the stoppage of trams made matters difficult for those living at a distance. But they walked, some nearly all night, in order to secure points of view in those localities through which the King was to pass with his cortège of troops. Such crowds I have never seen; they were as impassable as a stone wall in the streets; packed close on church steps, on the cornices of buildings, on trees, at windows, on the roofs. It was a day never before known, a day never likely to return.

It must be owned that the vocal enthusiasm was considerably less than one, an American especially, could have expected. The cries at first were rather brief and spasmodic, the waving of handkerchiefs and so forth more the exception than the rule. There was none of that mad acclamation which would have welcomed, or rather will welcome, returning troops in America, none of the frenzied excitement with which we had seen French troops applauded when departing from Paris.

The reason of this, no doubt, was the people’s inability to grasp an event in such tremendous contrast to the four years’ sorrow which had eaten into their very souls. They had, so to speak, forgotten the meaning of joy—were too much dazed and overwhelmed by indefinable emotion to express themselves adequately.

However, when King Albert appeared, riding, and beside him his young wife—who looked rather worn after her hospital labours—tremendous acclamations arose from the massed crowds. These were repeated for Mayor Max, just returned from imprisonment, and for General Leman, the hero of Liège. Then, after a brief pause, the acclamations rose again to salute the American troops,—which were honoured with first place behind the royal cortège,—the British, French, and Belgians. Over these last brave legions enthusiasm was shown rather than uttered; emotion seemed to check the cries, as though the vast throngs were holding their breath. Then, after a moment of extraordinary silence, there was a universal electric movement, as though that mighty crowd longed to embrace them as one man.

The people could scarcely be held back from breaking the lines of troops. Old women, with scranny, bare arms uplifted, ran forward to touch them lovingly; men white with emotion, sweethearts and wives, reckless of danger, almost threw the procession into confusion by their eagerness to be recognized, or exchange a word with the brave heroes returning from a hell such as they probably never expected to survive.

That night the city was in delirium; the streets were a throbbing mass of joy-drunken beings such as was never seen before. No madness of carnival could approach the hysterical excitement of the people in streets illuminated for the first time in two years; in the cafés, where the almost forgotten sparkle of champagne gleamed in glasses raised to the cries “_Vive la Belgique! Vive le Roi! Vivent les Alliés!_” All through the main boulevards, shouting, singing, and laughing groups were to be seen dancing in large circles, hand-in-hand, about an English, French, or other Allied prisoner who had drunk so many glasses of triumph he was generally seated on the ground, or standing unsteadily, his hollow eyes staring in a dazed but contented fashion from a face somewhat pale and thin.

In these groups all the Allied nations were blended with merry girls and boys giving vent to long-suppressed spirits. The Scotch lads, with their bare legs, flying cap-ribbons, and kilts, gave a delightfully comic touch, and added to the magic dream-effect of the whole. They were the cynosure of all eyes, the _pièce de résistance_ of the foreign element. When their troops passed during the royal procession, with bag-pipes in full voice, there was a lull of astonished wonder and interest, followed by a simultaneous outburst of acclamation. And that interest and admiration did not wane in the evening; crowds thronged about them, girls clung to them,—and at times the latter exhibited rather improper curiosity with regard to their “skirts.”

Now and again automobiles, once so rare a sight in Brussels, forced the dancers apart for a moment, as a swift skiff might separate bright-coloured dragon-flies dancing above the still surface of a lake, only that they may unite with more vim after its passing. In one of these cars, most of which were military, a party of young American officers with their friends were making a tour of the city after a gay supper, during which some twelve of them had sung in full, clear voices all the beautiful and original songs of their nation, much to the hearers’ delight. At the head of the car floated a large American flag, borrowed from the café where they had regaled themselves. That flag was greeted with continual outbursts of applause, especially as one of the party, a man with the voice of a ship’s siren, startled even the reigning hubbub with shouts of “_Vive la Belgique! Vive le Roi! Vive la Liberté!_” Hundreds of voices at once responded, screaming almost hysterically, “_Vive l’Amérique!_” “_Vive Wilson!_”—and, as though the two English-speaking nations were indissolubly united in the public mind, almost every response was accompanied by “_Vive l’Angleterre!_”

_Allemande_ and the _casque à pointe_ were forgotten. The Kaiser’s black shadow had fled before the glorious angel of a liberty crowned with the fairest laurels ever gathered from the bloody fields of battle—laurels flowering with noble loyalty and jewelled with imperishable fame.

And, but a little way beyond the borders of joyous Belgium—hiding from the rage not only of those whom he had made his foes, but from that of his own people and his own allies, lurked the man who had boasted that he would subjugate an advanced and prosperous world with his “iron fist”!

William the Second, original promoter, if not sole author, of history’s most appalling crime, cowered in Holland, bereft of sceptre and throne, muttering perhaps what Milton put into the mouth of that other great Enemy of earth: “Which way I fly is Hell—myself am Hell!”

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