Through the Iron Bars: Two Years of German Occupation in Belgium

The English-speaking public is generally well informed concerning the part played in the war by the Belgian troops. The resistance of our small field army at Liège, before Antwerp, and on the Yser has been praised and is still being praised wherever the tale runs. This is easy enough to understand.

The fact that those 100,000 men should have been able to hold so long in check the forces of the first military Empire in Europe, and that a great number of them, helped by new contingents of recruits and led by their young King, should still be fighting on their native soil, must appeal strongly to the imagination.

If it be told how the new Belgian army, reorganised and re-equipped after the terrible ordeal on the Yser, is at the present moment much stronger than at the beginning of the war, how it has been able lately to extend its front in Flanders, and how some of its units have rendered valuable help to the cause of the Allies in East Africa and even in Galicia, the story sounds like a fairy tale. There is, in the history of this unequal struggle, the true ring of legendary heroism; it seems an echo of the tale of David and Goliath, or of Jack the Giant Killer; it is full of the triumph of the spirit over the flesh, of independence and free will over fatalism and brute force, of Right over Might.

I feel confident that some day a poet will be able to sing this great epic in verses which shall answer to the swinging rhythm of battle and roll with the booming of a thousand guns. But, in the meantime, I should like to say a few words about a much humbler, a much simpler, a much more familiar subject. It awakes no classical remembrances of Leonidas or Marathon. My heroes risk their lives, but they are not soldiers, merely prosaic "bourgeois" and workmen. They have no weapon, they cannot fight. They have only to remain cheery in adversity and patient in the face of taunts. They cannot render blow for blow, they have no sword to flourish against an insolent conqueror. They can only oppose a stout heart, a loyal spirit, and an ironic smile to the persecutions to which they are subjected. They can do nothing-they must do nothing-only hope and wait. But there are as much heroism and beauty in their black frock-coats and their soiled workmen's smocks as in the gayest and most glittering uniforms.

It is the plain matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. Many more people will be tempted to praise the glory of our soldiers. But, if the incidents of conquered Belgium's life are not recorded in good time, they might escape notice. People might forget that, besides the 150,000 to 200,000 heroes who are now waging war for Belgium on the Western front, there are 7,500,000 heroes who are suffering for Belgium behind the German lines, in the close prison of guarded frontiers, cut off from the whole world, separated alike from those who are fighting for their deliverance and from those who have sought refuge abroad.

These are the people whom America, England, Spain, and many generous people in other allied and neutral countries have tried to save from material starvation. If I could only show to my readers how they are saving themselves from despair, from spiritual starvation, I should be well repaid for my trouble, for, among all the wonders of this war, which has displayed mankind as at once so much worse and so much better than we thought, there is perhaps nothing more surprising than the way in which the Belgian people have kept their spirits up.

One can, to a certain extent, understand the bright courage and the grim humour of the fighting soldier; he has the excitement of battle to sustain him through danger and suffering. But that an unarmed population, which, having witnessed the martyrdom of many peaceful towns, is threatened with utter destruction, which, ruined by war contributions and requisitions, is on the brink of starvation, which, persecuted by spies and subjected constantly to the most severe individual and collective punishments on the slightest pretext, is obliged to refrain from any manifestation of patriotic sentiments-that such a population, completely cut off from its Government and from most of its political leaders, and, moreover, poisoned every day by news concocted by the enemy, should remain unshakable in its courage and loyalty and should still be able to laugh at the efforts made by its masters to bring it into submission, is truly one of the most amazing spectacles which we have witnessed since the war broke out. General von Bissing has declared that the Belgians are an enigma to him. No wonder. They are an enigma to themselves. I am not going to explain the miracle. I will only attempt to show how inexplicable, how miraculous, it is.

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The German occupation of Belgium may be roughly divided into two periods: Before the fall of Antwerp, when the hope of prompt deliverance was still vivid in every heart, and when the German policy, in spite of its frightfulness, had not yet assumed its most ruthless and systematic character; and, after the fall of the great fortress, when the yoke of the conqueror weighed more heavily on the vanquished shoulders, and when the Belgian population, grim and resolute, began to struggle to preserve its honour and loyalty and to resist the ever increasing pressure of the enemy to bring it into complete submission and to use it as a tool against its own army and its own King.

I am only concerned here with the second period. The story of the German atrocities committed in some parts of the country at the beginning of the occupation is too well known to require any further comment. Every honest man, in Allied and neutral countries, has made up his mind on the subject. No unprejudiced person can hesitate between the evidence brought forward by the Belgian Commission of Enquiry and the vague denials, paltry excuses and insolent calumnies opposed to it by the German Government and the Pro-German Press. Besides, in a way, the atrocities committed during the last days of August, 1914, ought not to be considered as the culminating point of Belgium's martyrdom. They have, of course, appealed to the imagination of the masses, they have filled the world with horror and indignation, but they did not extend all over the country, as the present oppression does; they only affected a few thousand men and women, instead of involving hundreds of thousands. They were clean wounds wrought by iron and fire, sudden, brutal blows struck at the heart of the country, wounds and blows from which it is possible to recover quickly, from which reaction is possible, which do not affect the soul and honour of a people. The military executioners of 1914 were compassionate when compared to the civilian administrators who succeeded them. The pen may be more cruel than the sword. Considered in the light of the recent deportations, the first days of frightfulness seem almost merciful.

Observers have found no words strong enough to praise the attitude of the Belgian people when victory seemed close at hand, when news was still allowed to reach them. What should be said now after the twenty-seven months for which they have been completely isolated from the rest of the world? The ruthless methods of the German army of invasion which deliberately massacred 5,000 unarmed civilians and sacked six or seven towns and many more villages has been vehemently condemned. What is to be the verdict now that they have succeeded, after two years of efforts, in sacking the whole country, ruining her industry and commerce, throwing out of employment her best workmen and leading into slavery tens of thousands of her staunchest patriots? The horrors of Louvain and Dinant were compared, with some reason, to the excesses of the Thirty Years War, but modern history offers no other instance of forced labour and wholesale deportations. If, fifty years ago, the conscience of the world revolted against black slavery, what should its feelings be today when it is confronted with this new and most appalling form of white slavery? We should in vain ransack the chronicles of history to find, even in ancient times, crimes similar to this one. For the Jews were at war with Babylon, the Gauls were at war with Rome. Belgium did not wage war against Germany. She merely refused to betray her honour.

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Let us watch, then, the closing of the prison gates. Up to the beginning of October, the Belgians, and specially the people of Brussels, had been kept in a state of suspense by the three sorties of the Belgian army, which left the shelter of the Antwerp forts to advance towards Vilvorde and Louvain, a few miles from the capital. At the beginning of September, the sound of guns came so close that the people rejoiced openly, thinking that deliverance was at their gates. To sober their spirit-or to exasperate their patience?-the Governor General ordered that a few Belgian prisoners, some of them wounded, with their quickfiring gun drawn by a dog, should be marched through the crowded streets. The men were covered with dust, their heads wrapped in blood-stained bandages, and they kept their eyes on the ground as if ashamed. Some women sobbed on seeing them, others cursed their guards, others plundered a flower shop and showered flowers upon them. At last two stalwart workmen shouldered away the escort, and, helped by the crowd, which paralysed the movements of the Germans, succeeded in kidnapping the prisoners, and getting them away to the neighbouring streets. They could never be discovered, and it was the last display of the kind which the Governor gave to Brussels.

During the siege, people had learnt to recognize the voice of every fort of Antwerp. They said to each other: "That is Lizele, Wavre Ste. Catherine, Waelhem." One after the other the Belgian guns were silenced, first Wavre, then Waelhem ... and the vibrating boom of the German heavies was heard louder than ever. The listening Bruxellois grew paler, straining every nerve to catch the voice of Antwerp. It was as if their own life as a nation was slowly dying away, as if they were mourning their own agony. But still the valiant spirit of the first days prevailed. "They will be beaten for all that. What was Antwerp compared with the Marne? All forts must fall under 'their' artillery. After all, the nest is empty; the King and the army are safe."

Since those days a kind of reckless indifference has seized the Belgians. If we must lose everything to gain everything, let us lose it. The sooner the better. It is the spirit of a poor man burning his furniture in order to shelter his children from cold, or of a Saint suffering every physical privation in order to gain the Kingdom of Heaven. It is an uncanny spirit composed of wild energy and bitter-sweet irony. "First Liège, then Brussels, then Namur, now Antwerp. The King has gone, the Government has gone. If all Belgium has to go, let it go. It is the price we have to pay. The victory of our soul shall be all the greater if our body is shattered and tortured."

Henceforth, the voice of Belgium reaches us only from time to time. Its sound is muffled by the enemy's strangle-hold, which grows tighter and tighter. Before the fall of Antwerp, the German administration of General von der Goltz had merely a temporary character. We knew that most of the high officials were stopping in Brussels on their way to Paris. On the other hand, any skilful move of the Allies, any successful sortie from Antwerp, might have jeopardized all the conqueror's plans and necessitated an immediate retreat. The Yser-Ypres struggle barred the way to Brussels as well as to Calais. The Germans knew now that they were safe, at least for a good many months, and began systematically to "organize the country." All communications with the uninterrupted part of Belgium were interrupted. It became more and more difficult and dangerous to cross the Dutch frontier without a special permit. The economic and moral pressure increased steadily, and the conflict between conquerors and patriots began, a conflict unrelieved by dramatic interest or excitement from outside, which carried the country back to the worst days of Austrian and Spanish domination.