CHAPTER XXV.

DEEDS OF SHAME AND HORROR.

I could fill a whole book with the stories which have been told of the dreadful cruelty shown by the Germans to the Belgians as the days went by and they discovered that they could not advance as rapidly as they had hoped to do. In order to delay the Germans the Belgians not only fought bravely, but wrecked their railways and bridges and blew up their roads. All this angered the Germans, for it was a matter of life and death to them to strike a blow at France as quickly as possible. We are told of babies slaughtered, of old men hanged and burnt alive, of mothers with little children hanging to their skirts shot down, and young women and girls tortured in the most horrible manner. Perhaps all these terrible stories are not true; but no one can deny the gross cruelty of the Germans in Belgium.

In the year 1900, when the Emperor William sent his troops to China, he addressed them in the following words: "Whoever falls into your hands is a forfeit to you, just as a thousand years ago the Huns under King Attila[206] made a name for themselves in tradition and story." What sort of man was this Attila whom the Kaiser thus set up as his model? He was a ruthless, obstinate savage, who never felt the "dint of pity." Wherever he passed he left his mark in wasted lands, blazing cities, ruined homesteads, and heaps of slain. He was called the "Scourge of God," and at the very mention of his name men trembled. The modern Huns, urged on by their pitiless War Lord, have beaten even the shameful record of Attila.

The Germans try to excuse themselves by declaring that the townsfolk brought this harsh punishment on themselves. According to the laws which civilized nations observe in war, civilians are only free from violence if they remain quiet and peaceful. What are called "lawful combatants" are men under the command of an officer, wearing some fixed badge or uniform, carrying arms openly, and fighting according to the rules and customs of warfare. All others who attack the enemy are unlawful combatants, and are liable to be put to death if they are caught.

Now there is no doubt that some Belgian civilians, maddened by the destruction of their homes, did actually fire on the enemy; but this is no excuse for the awful vengeance which the Germans took upon men, women, and children who were innocent of any such offence. Even in war it cannot be right to punish innocent and guilty alike, nor is it lawful to burn down whole cities because some of the inhabitants have offended. We know, however, from the War Book which the Germans issued to their officers, that they were encouraged to be pitiless, and to do all sorts of deeds of "frightfulness." According to this book, any deed may be done, however black or shameful, if it helps to defeat the enemy.

You now begin to see what the victory of Germany would mean. Not only would the conquered lands lose their independence and be treated as provinces of Germany, but there would be a return to the days of savagery in warfare. Men would thereafter fight like wild beasts in the jungle. A soldier would no longer be a knight but a fiend. We should bid farewell to that noble ideal which Tennyson set before the warrior in his "Idylls of the King":--[207]

"To break the heathen, and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own word as if his God's."

* * * * *

I must now tell you how the Germans behaved in some of the Belgian cities. You already know that even in the Middle Ages Belgium was a rich and flourishing land. The wealthy merchants of Flanders built themselves stately houses, and filled them with costly and beautiful things. They also gave their money freely to build glorious churches, quaint belfries, and noble town halls. Artists were encouraged to paint pictures for their adornment, and craftsmen vied with each other in beautifying them with lovely designs in wood and metal. Before the war there was hardly a village in the whole land which could not show some beautiful building or some priceless work of art.

Let me tell you what happened at Aerschot when the Germans marched into the town. The men broke into the houses, stole everything of value, and destroyed the furniture. In the cellars they found stores of wine, and large numbers of them were soon mad with drink. They stabled their horses in the beautiful church, broke down the carved woodwork, and showed the utmost contempt for the sacred place. While the German commander was standing on the balcony of the mayor's house he was shot dead, it is said, by the mayor's fourteen-year-old son, though probably it was the act of a drunken German soldier firing his rifle in sport. At once one hundred and fifty of the men of the town were seized, and in their presence the mayor, his son, and brother were shot. Then the males of the town were forced to run towards the river while the Germans fired at them. More than forty of these poor fellows were killed.

There is an old monkish rhyme which tells us that Brussels rejoices in noble men, Antwerp in money, Ghent in halters, Bruges in pretty girls, Louvain in learned men, and Malines in fools. The monks were not very complimentary to Ghent and Malines, but you will notice that they gave praise to the other cities. I will now tell you the fate of the city that was famed for learned men--Louvain. You will find it on the map, by the side of the river Dyle, about eighteen miles east of Brussels.

If you had visited Louvain in July 1914, you would probably have called it a dull town, and said that its inhabitants were either priests or students or landladies. But if you had been interested in history, you would have found Louvain anything but dull. Its university, which is one of the oldest and most famous in the world, has been called the Oxford of Belgium. It was founded in the days when Chaucer was writing his "Canterbury Tales," and amongst its students were many who have made a great mark in history. For hundreds of years English scholars flocked to it, and amongst them was our own Sir Thomas More,[208] who wrote an account of his visit. You perhaps know that his greatest work is "Utopia,"[209] a fanciful picture of a land in which everybody had a chance of being healthy, happy, wise, and good. More tells us at the beginning of his book that his friend Peter Gillies, who lived at Louvain, introduced him to a sunburnt sailor with a black beard, and that this man gave him that account of Utopia which he set down in his book. When the book was written More had it printed at Louvain, for the city was famous for its printers and booksellers. Some people think that More built his house at Chelsea on the model of a friend's house in the old city.

Another famous scholar who was very fond of visiting Louvain was Erasmus.[210] You can read his very interesting story in Charles Reade's novel "The Cloister and the Hearth." Erasmus loved Louvain, and was charmed with its delicious skies and its studious quiet. Indeed, scholars in all ages have loved the city. One of them wrote: "Hail, our Athens, the Athens of Belgium! O faithful, fruitful seat of the arts, shedding far and wide thy light and thy name!" Every year up to the time of the war thousands of people from all parts of the world used to visit this "Athens of Belgium."

Since 1432 the university has been housed in a handsome hall which was first built as a warehouse for the Clothmakers' Guild. Its library, which was founded in 1724, was one of the most valuable in Belgium. It contained 150,000 volumes, in addition to many priceless manuscripts.

There are several other beautiful buildings in Louvain. There is the town hall, the finest building of its kind in Belgium; and the Church of St. Peter, which was finished in the early part of the sixteenth century, and stands on the site of a much earlier church. Before the war St. Peter's was full of art treasures, the wood-carving and the metal work being specially fine. The carved rood screen and the cross were said to be without equal in Europe, and a bronze font was specially prized because it was the work of Quentin Matsys,[211] who was born in Louvain, and began life as a blacksmith. As a young man he fell in love with an artist's daughter, and asked her hand in marriage. Her father, however, refused it, and said she should only marry an artist. Quentin loved the girl very much, so he threw down his hammer and took up the paint-brush. Soon he was a better painter than his future father-in-law, and the marriage took place. In the cathedral at Antwerp there is a tablet to his memory, setting forth that it was love that taught the smith to paint.

The Germans have always told us that they are great lovers of art and learning, and they constantly boast of their culture. You would have thought that when they entered this glorious old city of Louvain they would have done everything in their power to preserve it from harm. What they actually did was to burn down a large part of it, and in a few hours reduce several of its glorious old buildings to charred and blackened ruins. Mr. Asquith, our Prime Minister, described their work at Louvain as "the greatest crime against civilization and culture since the Thirty Years' War."[212]

You know that the Germans have laid the blame for some of their crimes on the townsfolk, whom they accuse of firing on them. They had no such excuse in the case of Louvain, for _all the arms had been handed in by the people some days before the Germans arrived_. The mayor had posted placards warning the people that if they attacked the enemy in any way they would bring down vengeance upon themselves and their city.

When the Germans in overwhelming force had beaten back the Belgians who were trying to defend Louvain, and had placed their guns in position to bombard it, they sent an officer to the mayor offering to spare the place if the townsfolk would find food and lodgings for their soldiers. They promised that if this was done the soldiers would not molest the townsfolk, and that those of them who were not billeted in private houses would pay cash for all the goods which they needed. To this the mayor agreed, and the Germans marched in. Soon, however, they broke all their promises. The German soldiers rushed into private houses and took what they fancied, without any payment but worthless paper. They broke open the cellars and drank the wine in them as though it were beer. Their officers ordered the city treasurer to give them 100,000 francs, and grumbled greatly when he could only find part of the money. Meanwhile, though the city was full of drunken Germans, the people remained very quiet and orderly.

On Tuesday evening, 25th August, the foul deed was done. That day the Belgians had made an attack on a body of Germans outside the town, and had driven them helter-skelter into it. The drunken Germans in Louvain thought that the fugitives were Belgians, and began firing on them. This was a bad mistake, which would be certain to bring down blame on the officer in command. In order to cover up the mistake, he pretended that the townsfolk had attacked his soldiers, and proceeded to punish them for a crime which they had not committed. A number of the male inhabitants were shot, and then he ordered his men to burn the city down.

An eye-witness, who was threatened with death, tells us the terrible story. "At six o'clock," he says, "when everything was ready for dinner, alarm signals sounded, and the soldiers rushed into the streets; shots whistled through the air; cries and groans arose on all sides; but we did not dare leave our houses, and took refuge in the cellars, where we stayed through long and fearful hours.

"At break of day I crawled from the cellar to the street door, and saw nothing but a raging sea of fire. At nine o'clock there was a lull in the shooting, and we resolved to make a dash for the station. Leaving our home and all our goods except what we could carry, and taking all the money we had, we rushed out. No pen can describe what we saw on our way to the station. Everything was burning; the streets were covered with bodies, shot dead and half burnt...

"The station was crowded with people, and I was just trying to show an officer my papers when the soldiers separated me from my wife and children. All protests were useless, and a lot of us were marched off to a big shed in the goods yard, from which we could see the finest buildings in the city burning fiercely.

"Shortly afterwards German soldiers drove before them 300 men and lads to the corner of a street, where they were shot. The sight filled us with horror. The Burgomaster,[213] two magistrates, the rector of the university, and all police officials had been shot already.

"With our hands bound behind our backs we were then marched off by the soldiers, still without having seen our wives and children. We were taken out of the town to a neighbouring hill, from which we had a full view of the burning town. St. Peter's was in flames, and the guns were firing shot after shot into the unhappy place."

* * * * *

Louvain was not burned down by accident. The soldiers worked on a plan. They began in the heart of the city and set the place on fire house by house and street by street. For thirty-six hours or more they continued to fire the houses. A student of Oxford, who was in the town on 29th August, tells us that "burning houses were every moment falling into the roads; shooting was still going on. The dead and dying, burnt and burning, lay on all sides. Over some of them the Germans had placed sacks. I saw the bodies of half a dozen women and children. In one street I saw two little children walking hand in hand over the bodies of dead men. I have no words to describe these things.

"The town hall was standing on Friday morning last, and, as we plainly saw, every effort was being made to save it from the flames. We were told by German officers that it was not to be destroyed. I have no doubt that it is still standing. The German officers dashing about the streets in fine motor cars made a wonderful sight. They were well dressed, shaven, and contented looking; they might have been attending a fashionable race-meeting. The soldiers were looting everywhere; champagne, wines, boots, cigars--everything was being carried off."

Until the Germans are driven out of the city we shall not know the full extent of the ruin which they have wrought. The Church of St. Peter has been terribly damaged, but not, perhaps, beyond repair; but the buildings of the university have been almost wiped out. The great library has been given to the flames. I think you can imagine the anguish of a professor who watched the burning from his garden, and saw the charred leaves of priceless manuscripts floating past him. About the time that the English were winning England a Saracen chief named 'Amr burned the great library at Alexandria, and the world has never forgotten his infamous deed. What will it say of the burning of the Louvain library, more than twelve and a half centuries later, by men of a race which boasts of its culture?

* * * * *

Let me tell you something of the heroism of a famous citizen of Louvain--Dr. Noyons, head of the medical school of the university. When the Germans marched in he was in charge of the hospital, which was filled to overflowing with wounded, both Germans and Belgians. The Red Cross flag flew above the building, and according to all the rules of civilized warfare the hospital should have been spared. Nevertheless the Germans set it on fire. While some of his helpers were trying to put out the flames, the doctor and his wife calmly went on attending to the wounded. Next morning the hospital staff was ordered to leave the town, as it was to be bombarded; but Dr. Noyons and his wife decided to disobey the order and remain. They could not bear the thought of leaving their poor wounded to perish, so they and their assistants carried them into the cellars of the hospital, and for two days ministered to them underground. When, however, all danger of bombardment was past they brought the men up to their wards again, and continued to attend them as before.

* * * * *

Now we must turn to the story of Malines, the city which, according to the old monkish rhyme, rejoices in fools. I have spent some time in this city, and have seen something of its people, and I can assure you that they are very far from being fools. Malines is renowned through Belgium for its love of education and for the large number of its citizens who are eager to make life better and happier for toiling men and women. Before the war, the heart and centre of the town was the Grand'-Place. On the right as you enter it stood a sixteenth-century Cloth Hall; to the left was the town hall; behind it the huge tower of the cathedral. All round were quaint gabled houses. During the day the Grand'-Place was almost deserted, but at night, when the lights began to glow in the little cafés, the people gathered at the tables outside them in little family groups to drink "Bock" and listen to the band. I remember wandering through the old-world streets, peeping into little narrow byways, stopping to examine painted shrines at the street corners, crossing the Dyle with its many bridges, and admiring the quaint riverside houses and the gaudy, broad-beamed barges that lay at the quays. Everywhere I saw the little milk-carts drawn by dogs. One Sunday afternoon the school children gathered in the Grand'-Place for a festival. I shall never forget the heartiness with which they sang the Belgian National Anthem, while the townsfolk, bareheaded, swelled the strain:--

"Again, O Belgium, still our Mother, We pledge thee in blood and in song; Surely to thee and to no other Our swords, our hearts, our lives belong! While thy deeds live in history's pages, Deathless thy fame shall ever be; And the cry still ring through the ages: 'For King and Law and Liberty.'"

On that bright September day the Malinoise had no thought of war and bloodshed. They could not possibly foresee that, before many months had passed, Belgians would be called upon to give their swords and hearts to their Mother, and that in their heroic strife they would add such a glorious page to their history that thenceforward throughout the ages they would win deathless fame.

Before the war, the glory of Malines was its cathedral. Its huge tower, which soared above the city, was 318 feet high, and was intended to be the highest tower in Christendom, but was never finished. No one could be within the bounds of the city for more than a few minutes without hearing the wonderful chimes that floated out from this tower. The dials of its clock were 44 feet in diameter, and the carillon was famous all over the world. Every Monday evening in summer it performed a programme of music, and every quarter of an hour, day and night, it played a tune. Robert Browning, in his poem "How they brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent," refers to the bells of Malines Cathedral in the following line:--

"And from Mecheln church steeple we heard the half-chime."

Mechlin is the Flemish name of Malines. All the girls who read this book have heard of Mechlin lace, which was formerly made in the city. Now its chief manufactures are woollen goods and "Gobelin"[214] tapestry.

The cathedral was built with money collected from pilgrims who flocked to the city in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Within it were more treasures than in any other Belgian cathedral, except in the most famous church of Brussels and in the cathedral at Antwerp. The pulpit was a miracle of wood-carving, and the altar-piece was a picture of the Crucifixion, by Van Dyck,[215] who was a pupil of the great Rubens,[216] and court painter to Charles I. of England, by whom he was knighted. The stained-glass windows were of wonderful richness. There were three or four other churches in Malines of great interest and beauty, and several public buildings with historic memories.

Now I must tell you how the Germans treated this interesting old city. Four separate times they bombarded it; yet there does not appear to be any good reason why they should have turned their guns upon it at all. It was not fortified, and it offered no resistance. The first bombardment was on 27th August, when the town hall was battered down, and the roof, walls, and stained glass of the cathedral suffered greatly. The people deserted the city, and when the guns were silent it was as quiet as the grave. A second time it was bombarded, and still more damage was done. Happily the Malinoise had removed some of their treasures, including Van Dyck's altar-piece, to the safety of bomb-proof cellars.

On 2nd September the third bombardment took place. Over a hundred shells were burst over the place: great gaping holes were blown through the tower of the cathedral, and its superb gateway was battered into a heap of ruins. The bells of the carillon were knocked to pieces, and never again will the ancient chimes of Malines be heard.

Though the Germans had worked such havoc on the unoffending town, they could not forbear to assault it a fourth time. On 26th September Belgian troops attacked a German detachment not far from the city and drove it back in disorder. In revenge for this reverse, the Germans next morning shelled the place again. It was on a Sunday morning that the deadly rain began to fall. Many of the people had returned to the city, and were leaving the ruined cathedral after Mass, when a shell fell amongst them and killed some of them. Shortly afterwards another shell exploded in a café, and wounded some of the people who had taken refuge in it. The railway station, the barracks, several public buildings, factories, and many private houses were utterly destroyed, either by the guns or by the fires which afterwards broke out.

On page 272 you will see a picture of the little town of Termonde as it appeared when the Germans had wreaked their vengeance upon it. A Scottish member of Parliament, who visited it a few weeks after the bombardment, tells us that he went through street after street and square after square, and found every house entirely destroyed with all its contents. In the early days of August it was a beautiful little town of 16,000 inhabitants; now it was utterly destroyed and completely deserted, save for a blind old woman and her daughter who groped amongst the ruins.

When we look at this sad picture we can realize in some degree the sufferings of the poor Belgians. Their houses have been destroyed, their cherished belongings have been given to the flames; tens of thousands of their bravest and best have been slain, in some cases with the foulest cruelty, and hundreds of thousands of those who survive are homeless and ruined. All over the land ancient monuments of art and learning are in shapeless ruin. The love and labour and pride of centuries have been swept away, and a prosperous land has been reduced to beggary. And what have the Belgians done to deserve this hideous treatment? They have dared to defend their own country; they have dared to stand in the way of a ruthless nation that had sworn not to trespass on their soil; they have refused to sell that which was dearer to them than life itself--the independence of their land; and for this they have suffered martyrdom. Let us never forget that the Belgians have fought and suffered for us. Had they given the Germans free passage through their country, or had they feebly resisted them, a great and sudden swoop would have been made upon France at the very moment when she was unprepared to meet it. Not only might France have gone down, and the work of the Allies in overcoming the enemy been made doubly difficult, but the Germans might have established themselves on the north coast of France, from which they could have seriously threatened our shores. By her splendid courage and staunchness Belgium has saved Europe, and the civilization of the world is her debtor.

"They gave their homes for the Huns to tread, Their homes for the Huns to burn; For our very lives they gave their dead, _And what shall we give in turn?_"

[Footnote 206: Ruled over Hungary, with his capital at Budapest. Became King of the Huns, 434 A.D.; died of intemperance, 453.]

[Footnote 207: An idyll is a story poem. The king is Arthur, who "in twelve great battles overcame the heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned."]

[Footnote 208: Born 1478, died 1535; became Lord Chancellor of England. Was beheaded by Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 209: Means "Nowhere" (written 1516).]

[Footnote 210: Born 1466, died 1536; a native of Antwerp, and the greatest scholar and critic of his age.]

[Footnote 211: Born 1466, died 1530. His best pictures are in Antwerp.]

[Footnote 212: Fought in Germany between 1618 and 1648.]

[Footnote 213: The chief officer of a Dutch or Belgian town; the mayor.]

[Footnote 214: _Go-b'lan´_, so called from Gilles Gobelin, a famous tapestry maker of Paris in the fifteenth century.]

[Footnote 215: Sir Anthony Van Dyck, born 1599, died 1641. Many of his best portraits are to be found in private galleries in England.]

[Footnote 216: Peter Paul Rubens, born 1577, died 1640; the greatest painter of the Flemish school.]