CHAPTER IV

Life at Brussels--French Advance--Capital removed to Antwerp

A striking description of life in and around Brussels at this time is given by Dr. Dillon:

Brussels is herself again. The delirious excitement which during the first days of mobilisation displayed itself in acts of frenzy has subsided. The inhabitants have adjusted themselves to the wearisome suspense and unpleasant surprises of a state of war. Shops that were shuttered a few days ago are open and doing a brisk business once more. The cafés are thronged inside and out. The boulevards are bright with streams of many-coloured humanity. The newspapers which dish up the same stories day after day are grabbed at by citizens eager to obtain the first news of the military movements.

The only striking differences one discerns between this and normal times affect the lives of the well-to-do classes. All the theatres, cinematographs, and other places of amusement are closed. Some of the principal hotels are turned into temporary hospitals. Public conveyances, whether cabs or taxis, can hardly be said to exist. Certain sorts of food which were formerly exported, such as peaches, grapes, and chickens, have hardly any market and are being sold at half prices. Flowers are withering on their stalks for lack of buyers. Artisans, such as electricians and plumbers, have vanished.

Notwithstanding these changes, added Dr. Dillon, the links with the cheerful life of a month ago had not yet been severed. The people of Brussels were still blithesome and self-confident, buoyed up by the sense of security imparted by the heroic conduct of their defenders and the consciousness of a right cause. As yet the unquiet temper of war had nowhere manifested itself, yet maimed warriors, homeless families, destitute women, orphaned children, claimed and received attention, and reminded the observer all too suggestively of the harvest of misery yet to be garnered in.

A couple of hours' drive out of the town took one to a world of grim realities and sinister contrasts. Over the country between Tirlemont and Saint Trond, but yesterday full of tame beauty, rich in cornfields and carefully tended gardens, the withering breath of the ruthless Moloch had already fitfully passed. As the traveller moved along the dusty road, catching a glimpse of an occasional farmhouse quivering in the distance through the heat of the August day, he might well feel beset by the vague dangers that might at any moment have started into concrete shape and ended his hopes and cares for all time.

As one approached the village of Orsmael at this time unmistakable tokens of desolation thrust themselves on the view. At first shattered panes of glass, then domestic utensils flung among the cabbages of the gardens or before the wrenched doors, greybeards with shrivelled faces moaning under the trees, women trembling and wailing plaintively, and still beholding as a mirage the scenes of horror which upset their mental balance. Here a couple of children prattling in subdued tones, there a mother leading three orphaned little girls from the still smoking ruins of their house into the wide world, and everywhere the loathsome soilure and squalor of war.

Inhuman hate appeared to possess those Prussian invaders, whom terror drove and terror alone could curb. Belgians who dealt with them at close quarters, as at Dormael, declared that these Uhlans fought with the bitterness of personal fury, and, not content with killing those who manfully resisted them in fight, assassinated numbers who had laid down their weapons and held their hands up. Many of the corpses have their hands raised and their elbows on a level with the shoulders. The wounds of these brave defenders are horrible, having been inflicted with weapons fired at a distance of a couple of inches from the mouth or breast.

Some Uhlans met a Belgian chemist who was riding a bicycle near Jodoigne. Arresting him they inquired their way to the town hall, placing the muzzles of revolvers to his head while they listened. He gave them the required information and was allowed to pass on, but before he had gone ten yards they sent three bullets into his back.

On Friday afternoon, August 14th, the Press Bureau issued the following statement, summing up the position in Northern Belgium:

(1) After a successful resistance of five days at the passes of Sainte Marie aux Mines and Le Bonhomme, the French troops have occupied the region of the Saale Pass, which commands the valley of the Burche, an affluent of the Rhine.

(2) At Saale numerous desertions from the German troops are notified. The French have taken many prisoners, and have captured some machine-guns.

(3) It is now confirmed that in Belgium the Belgians were successful in an engagement which took place on August 12th between their troops and six regiments of German cavalry, supported by 2,500 infantry, machine-guns and artillery. The enemy was completely disorganised; the six cavalry regiments suffered great losses, and the Belgians pursued the infantry which gave way.

(4) This (Friday) morning, towards Eghezée, sixteen kilomètres to the north of Namur, a mixed detachment from the garrison surprised some German cavalry regiments in camp, threw them into confusion and forced them back towards the east, after taking numerous prisoners and capturing cannon and machine-guns. To the south of the Meuse the German cavalry avoids contact with the French.

(5) The news of fighting about Haelen yesterday is confirmed. The Germans were driven back eastwards, and there is now no German cavalry between Hasselt and Ramillies.

(6) Liège forts are reported to be still holding out, and to have plenty of supplies.

(7) German cavalry patrols are now reported north of Montmedy.

(8) General Joffre, by virtue of the powers conferred on him by the Ministry of War (decision of August 8th, 1914), has made Lieutenant Bruyant, of the Dragoons, a Knight of the Legion of Honour. "This officer," it is stated in the text of his appointment, "accompanied by seven horsemen, did not hesitate to charge a platoon of some thirty Uhlans: he killed the officer in charge of them with his own hand, and routed the German platoon, inflicting severe losses upon it."

(9) The Commander-in-Chief has conferred the first war medal of the campaign on Escoffier, Corporal of Dragoons, for having charged with the greatest courage and received several wounds.

(10) Belgian cyclists and cavalry from Namur surprised yesterday a force of German cavalry, accompanied by artillery and machine-guns, and compelled them to retire. The Germans lost a field gun and several machine-guns.

The French army was meanwhile making good progress, and on the night of the 14th it was officially announced by the War Ministry in Paris that the French were entering Belgium through Charleroi and were proceeding in the direction of Gembloux, some thirty miles to the north-east.

Reports were current on Friday evening that the German attack had been renewed, but these were afterwards seen to be baseless. The German forces around Liège were content to remain on the defensive for a time; and even towards the south, in the Vosges, the French troops were slowly driving the invaders before them. At Liège itself several bodies of the enemy had taken up their position in the town, but the forts were still intact. An observer of the scene at this juncture commented on the changed physiognomy of that once gay capital of the Walloon country. Some 30,000 of the inhabitants had fled from the place in terror when the enemy's guns began to shower shells upon the forts from Fléron. The remainder buried themselves in cellars and underground passages, scores huddling together without food, drink, or other of life's necessaries. The city bore marks of havoc everywhere. Gaping bridges, half-demolished houses, many without doors, which had been taken off their hinges and cast into the courtyard or the roadside, fallen roofs, smouldering ruins, told their dismal tale.

There was not a street in which shells had not fallen. The very asphalt was ploughed up in places like a cornfield at sowing time. Hurriedly-made graves with their soft mounds protruded in unexpected places. During the day the Germans were everywhere in evidence: they patrolled the principal thoroughfares, stood at the barricades which they had raised at all the approaches to the town, or crept up towards the forts with remarkable recklessness. Nine of them on bicycles rode to within 300 mètres of the forts one morning; eight returned unharmed, only one paying for the pleasant sense of daring adventure with his life. The inhabitants were cowed by recent deterrent examples and by the terrors hanging over them.

At nightfall the city assumed the aspect of a churchyard. The silence was soul-curdling, yet the hearts of the inhabitants beat quicker and louder when that silence was broken by the heavy tread of the Prussian patrols or the rending thunder of heavy guns. All the doors still extant had to be kept wide open. Early in the morning when the bakers removed their bread from the ovens, German guards, posted wherever victuals are to be had, were in the habit of pouncing down on the entire output of the bakeries, for which they sometimes paid; but the ill-starred inhabitants had no share. The soldiers made their own coffee and soup in great motor cauldrons, from which it was poured into metal porringers that they carry with them. They now wore reformed field uniforms, rendering them hardly distinguishable from a distance, just as their airships were so re-painted as to resemble the grey of cloudland.

At Haelen and Diest, the scene of Wednesday's engagement, one drew nearer to the ghastly realities of war. The struggle waxed desperate, man meeting man, striking, thrusting, and wrestling in the final fight for life or death. Here the once peaceful country-side was utterly transformed. In the background heaps of ruins that so lately were farmhouses still emitted pungent smoke. Between the leafy trees one saw the charred rents in the dwellings still erect, animals erring hither and thither, barricades hastily erected of dead horses, their horrible wounds gaping and spreading the mephitic reek of death, and along the carriage-road on either side freshly-made ridges which hid the German dead.

The serious attention of the civilised world was at this juncture once again directed to the inhuman methods of warfare practised by the German soldiery in Belgium, else, it was declared, the campaign would assume a character of fiendish savagery unmatched in the annals of war. "Unless some real respect be shown to the usages received by civilised nations," said one observer, "both sides will end by making no prisoners. If even a tithe of the narratives now passing from mouth to mouth about the atrocities committed by the invaders be well founded--and they are vouched for by credible and level-headed clergymen, mayors, and foreigners who feel no personal animus against the Germans--the soldiery of the Fatherland have outrun the Hercules pillars of inhumanity."

Another report stated that the Germans in Liège were trying to fraternise with the Belgians, and that German military bands played daily in the two Belgian cafés.

About the middle of August a Belgian who had a relative at Port Talbot, Cardiff, wrote:

Every day brings to light new acts of heroism displayed by the plucky little Belgians, whilst several more no doubt have been accomplished, of which we shall never hear. Their heroes are either too silent or for ever silent. Lupin, a boy of eighteen, a corporal in the regiment of Major Jeanne, who himself was nearly killed during the battle of Liège, has died, a great hero in the eyes of his whole regiment.

One of his comrades who has known Lupin for years tells this pathetic story, which Major Jeanne has himself brought to light. "We were on the right bank of the river Meuse at Bellaire, which is not far above Jupille, and we were in close touch with a German battery. The musketry on both sides was terrible. I was stretched out flat, continuously loading and shooting, and could feel my gun getting hot. Bullets were flattening their noses in front of me, raising clouds of sand and dust. My mouth, eyes, and ears were full of powder. Corpses were heaped round me, their faces black with powder, and stamped with the horrible grimace of death; their hands, with swollen veins, gripping their deadly Mausers. Yes, war is magnificently terrible.

"All at once the Germans adopted new tactics, and I must give them credit for being a cute lot. They seemed to withdraw from their position, and we could distinctly notice their ranks splitting as if in great confusion, but it was only to bring to the front some more artillery which had been rushing from behind. The move was smartly executed, the ranks closed again, and for a time they seemed as if they were going to have the advantage over us.

"But now young Lupin had seen his chance looming, and what he did altogether changed the face of things. 'Leave them to me now,' was what someone heard him say, and like a flash the boy dashed off under cover of a ditch on the left. Only a few of us had seen it, but Major Jeanne knew his corporal of eighteen, and knew he was up to something grand. Watching him, he shouted, 'Go for them! Get at those square-heads with your bullets. Fire!'

"In the meantime Lupin had managed to get to the left of the German battery, and at 300 mètres distance he sheltered behind a wall. He took aim at the battery in enfilade, and under the fire of his Mauser brought down in quick succession the chief officer, the under-officers, and the artillerymen. This time real confusion took place at the German battery, which was nearly silenced, the Germans, thinking that a whole platoon was now attacking them from behind the wall, directed their last piece of artillery on the wall, and with a terrific crash the wall came down, burying the brave Corporal Lupin. The boy's bravery had weakened the German position, and it did not take us long to scatter them, and put another victory on our list."

On Saturday and Sunday, August 15th and 16th, there was little definite news from any part of the theatre of war. There was some fighting in the south undoubtedly, and a French force defeated a strong body of Bavarians, capturing 500 prisoners. At Dinant, in Belgium, there was another stiff engagement, but no details of it came to hand for a few days. An authoritative report was given out at Brussels to the effect that the Germans had lost more than 25,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners at Liège--more than half an army corps. These losses, of course, would have been reckoned as trivial if the Germans had succeeded in their original design of executing a "military promenade" through Belgian territory. Apart from the scarcity of food, already referred to, the besieging forces at Liège suffered from lack of horses, and cavalry reconnaissances were gradually becoming impossible.

On Monday, August 17th, it was officially announced that the British Expeditionary Force had been safely landed on French soil; and it was at the same time stated that the French army had scored some successes in Upper Alsace. The movement of this wing of General Joffre's army appeared to extend from the Swiss frontier at Altkirch, near Mülhausen, as far away as Château Salins, a distance of eighty miles. Its object, which was afterwards frustrated by a strong German advance, was to isolate and "contain" the great fortresses of Metz and Strassburg. The two official notices issued by the War Ministry in Paris describe these operations:

Sunday Midnight [_i.e._, August 16th].

The forward movement has been developed along the whole front from Réchicourt to Sainte Marie-aux-Mines. In the Vosges we have carried Sainte Marie-aux-Mines and made progress towards Sainte Blaise.

The French troops which occupied the Donon yesterday have advanced. In the valley of Schirmeck especially their progress has been extremely rapid. We have taken 1,000 prisoners, in addition to the 500 captured yesterday. Large quantities of equipment have been abandoned by the enemy.

In this district, as at Sainte Marie, we have captured guns of large calibre, field-guns, and ammunition.

In the region Blamont--Cirey we have gained the heights of Lorquin, and in doing so have taken the convoy of a division of German cavalry, consisting of nineteen motor wagons.

In the attack on Dinant the enemy's forces consisted of the Cavalry Division of the Guard and the First Division of Cavalry, supported by infantry from several battalions and some companies with maxims. When these forces appeared on the left bank the French troops attacked them. This attack, delivered with magnificent dash, soon drove the enemy back, and they recrossed the Meuse in great disorder. Many were unable to regain the bridge, and fell into the river, which at this point has steep banks and flows swiftly. Numbers of the enemy were drowned.

Taking advantage of this disorder, one of our Chasseur cavalry regiments crossed the river after the Germans and pursued them for several kilomètres. Several hundred horses belonging to the Uhlans were captured and subsequently passed to the rear for remount purposes. In this pursuit the French regiment put to flight forces of the enemy considerably superior to itself in numbers.

Monday (11 a.m.) [_i.e._, August 17th].

Our advance continues to develop. Our troops have carried the heights to the north of the frontier, and their lines pass Breschwiller, Lorquin, Azaudange, Marsal.

In the Donon region we occupy Schirmeck, 7-1/2 miles beyond Saales.

The number of field-guns taken by us at this point is not four, as was stated yesterday, but twelve, as well as twelve limbers and eight maxims. Our cavalry has pushed forward as far as Lutzelhausen and Muhlbach.

Further to the south we have occupied Ville, to the east of the Pass of Urbans, on the road to Schlestadt. Thann, Cernay, and Dannemarie are occupied.

At Blamont, a village from which the Germans have just been driven by our troops, they had, without reason or provocation, put to death three persons, of whom one was a young girl and another an old man of eighty-six, whose name was M. Barthélemy, and who was an ex-Mayor of the village.

On Monday, August 17th, the Queen of the Belgians and the Ministers for War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs retired from Brussels to Antwerp with the Ministers of France and Russia, who left French interests in the hands of the Spanish Legation.

It was officially stated that this was according to long pre-arranged and Constitutional arrangements, and not because the military situation was disquieting. The families of the withdrawing Ministers remained in Brussels, which was protected by over 20,000 Civic Guards, entrenched behind barbed-wire fences, making the capital quite safe against surprise attack.

This move was really made because the Germans had managed to bring up heavy siege guns; and, although the forts were still holding out, arrangements were gradually being made to "contain" them and to advance on the capital with the main army. The Belgian Government afterwards decided not to attempt to defend Brussels, and the barricades which had been erected were dismantled and the barbed-wire fences taken down.