Through the Iron Bars Part 1

Through the Iron Bars.

by Emile Cammaerts.

I.

THE PRISON GATES.

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 Liege, 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 cla.s.sical 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.

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 a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.ses, 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 compa.s.sionate 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 att.i.tude 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 ma.s.sacred 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.

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 Liege, 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 m.u.f.fled 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.

II.

THE LOWERED FLAG.

The contrast which I have endeavoured to indicate, in the first chapter, between the att.i.tude of the German administration before the fall of Antwerp and its behaviour afterwards is nowhere so well marked as in the measures taken for the purpose of repressing all Belgian manifestations of patriotism.

During the two first months of occupation, the Germans made at least a show of respecting the loyal feelings of the population. In his first proclamation, dated September 2nd, in which he announced his appointment as General Governor of Belgium, Baron von der Goltz declared that "he asked no one to renounce his patriotic feelings." And when, a few days later, the Governor of Brussels, Baron von Luttwitz, issued a poster "advising" the citizens to take their flags from their windows, he did this in conciliatory words, giving the pretext that these manifestations might provoke reprisals from the German troops pa.s.sing through the town: "The Military Governor does not intend in the least to hurt, by such a measure, the feelings and self-respect of the inhabitants. His only aim is to protect them against all harm." (September 16th.) Every Belgian was still wearing the national colours, pictures of the King and Queen were sold in the streets, and the Brabanconne was hummed, whistled, and sung all over the country. The people had lost every right but one: they could still show the enemy, in spite of the declarations of the German Press, that they were not yet ready to accept his rule.

This apparent tolerance is easy to explain. After the ma.s.sacres of August, the German authorities were anxious not to exasperate public opinion, and not to spoil by uselessly vexatious measures the effect which had been produced. During the Marne and the three sorties of the Belgian army, they had only a very small number of men at their disposal to garrison the largest towns. The slightest progress of the Belgian army might have endangered their line of communications. We know now that the withdrawal of the seat of the government from Brussels to Liege was at one moment seriously contemplated, and that the same troops were made to pa.s.s again and again through the streets of the capital in order to give the illusion that the garrison was stronger than it really was (_Frankfurter Zeitung_, August 22nd, 1916). Besides, Germany had not yet given up all hopes of coming to terms with King Albert, since a third attempt was to be made at Antwerp to separate the Belgian Government from the Allies. In these circ.u.mstances it seemed wiser to let the Belgian folk indulge in their harmless manifestations of loyalty, so long as they did not cause any disturbance and did not complicate the task of the military.

Let us look now at the next phase. As soon as the Belgian army has achieved its junction with the Allies on the Yser and all communications are cut between the Government and the people, the Germans cease to consider Belgium as an occupied territory, and seize upon every pretext to treat her as a conquered country, which will, sooner or later, become part of the Empire. They no longer take the trouble to explain or justify their oppressive measures, or to reconcile them with their former promises. They simply ignore them. First in Namur (November the 15th, 1914), then in Brussels (June the 30th, 1915), it becomes a crime to wear the tricolour c.o.c.kade. The Te Deum, which is celebrated every year, on November 15th, in honour of King Albert's Saint's day, is forbidden. From the month of March, 1915, it is practically a forbidden thing to sing the Brabanconne, even in the schools. All patriotic manifestations, on the occasion of the King's Birthday (April 8th) and of the anniversary of Belgian Independence day (July 21st) are severely prosecuted.

In some of the orders issued there is still a weak attempt at "respecting," in a German way, "the people's patriotic feelings." The Governor of Namur, for instance, discriminates with the acutest subtlety between wearing the national colours in private and in public, and the Brabanconne can for a time be sung, so long as it is not rendered "in a provoking manner." In fact, the Belgians are free to manifest their patriotism so long as they are neither seen nor heard. They are generously allowed to line their cupboards with tricolour paper and to hum their national tunes in the depth of their cellars. But, in most of the orders made under Governor von Bissing's rule (his reign began on December 3rd, 1914), this last pretence of consideration and respect disappears entirely. "I warn the public," declares the Governor of Brussels on July the 18th, 1914, "that any demonstration whatsoever is forbidden on July 21st next."

More than that, the German Administration frequently goes out of its way to hurt the people's feelings. The fact of helping a patriot to join the Army is not merely punished as a crime against the Germans, it is delicately called "a crime of treason," and when people are condemned because they are suspected of belonging to the Belgian intelligence service, the public posters announcing their condemnation speak of them as supplying information "to the enemy."

The sham tolerance of the first days has given way to a restless repression, and even, during the last year, to deliberate persecution.

Schools may be inspected at any time by the authorities and every "anti-German manifestation" (that is to say, any pro-Belgian teaching) is severely punished. Shops are raided so that every patriotic picture post-card (especially the portraits of the Royal Family) may be seized, and even the intimacy of the private home is not respected. To begin with, the Belgians have been allowed to show their loyalty--with discretion; next, every patriotic manifestation is excluded from public life; and last, the Germans, through their spies, penetrate the homes of every citizen, and endeavour to extirpate by a reign of terror these same feelings which they so emphatically promised to respect.

People who are leading a quiet life and who enjoy the blessings of an autonomous Government will perhaps not appreciate the importance which the Belgians attach, at the present moment, to these patriotic manifestations. They may imagine that, so long as national life is a.s.sured and citizens are otherwise left alone by their conquerors, public affirmation of loyalty to King and country is of secondary importance.

G.o.d knows that the economic situation of occupied Belgium is bad enough, and the endless and tragic lists of condemnations and deportations are there to prove that her people are living under the most barbarous regime of modern times. But, even if this was not the case, anybody with the slightest knowledge of their national character would understand the extraordinary value which the Belgians attached to their last privilege and the deep indignation roused by this German betrayal.

Von Bissing shrugs his shoulders and calls them "big children." So they are. And his son, with a scornful smile, declares in the _Suddeutsche Monatschrift_ (April 15th, 1915) that it is in "the people's blood to demonstrate and to wear c.o.c.kades." So it is. The love of processions and public pageants of all kinds is deeply rooted in Belgian traditions.

But what does it prove? Simply that the people have preserved enough freshness and joy of life to care for these things, enough courage and independence to feel most need of them when they are most afflicted.

This is how they think of it: "Our bands used to pa.s.s through the streets, shaking our window-panes with the crashing of their trombones, our flags used to wave in the breeze--in the happy days of peace. Should we now remain, silent and withdrawn, in the selfish privacy of our houses, now that the country needs us most, now that we want, more than ever, to feel that we are one people and that we will remain independent and united whatever happens in the future?" Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing sneers at the Belgians because on any and every pretext they display the American colours. If they do, it is because they are not allowed to display their own, and because they feel somehow that the best way to show that they have still a flag is to adopt the colours of the great country which has so generously come to their help. It may well be, as the Baron informs us, that most of the "small and big children" who wear the Stars and Stripes do not know a word of English.

What does it mean again? Simply that heart may call to heart and that it is not necessary to talk in his own language to understand a brother's mind. It is true that only children--children small and big--know how to do it.

If the Germans had had the least touch of generous feeling for the unfortunate country upon which they thrust war in spite of the most solemn treaties, they would not have obliged the Belgian citizens to lower the flags which they had put up during the defence of Liege, they would not have torn their tricolour c.o.c.kades from their b.u.t.tonholes, they would not have silenced their national songs, they would not have added these deep humiliations to the bitter cup of defeat. One wonders even why they did it if it was not for the mere pleasure which the bully is supposed to feel when he makes his strength felt by his victim. They might have gone on gaily plundering the country, shooting patriots, deporting young men, doing whatever seemed useful in their eyes. But the petty tyranny of these measures pa.s.ses understanding. Governor von Bissing is certainly too clever to believe that the satisfaction of making a few cowards uneasy by such regulations can at all outweigh the danger inherent in the resentment and the deep hatred which the bullying has aroused against Germany. You may take the children's bread, you may take their freedom, but you might at least leave them a few toys to play with, and you would be wise to do so.

Such narrow-minded tyranny always defeats its own objects. Burgomaster Max's proud answer to General von Luttwitz's "advice" to remove the flags became the pa.s.sword of the patriots. Every Bruxellois henceforth "waited for the hour of reparation." A great number of women went to prison rather than remove the emblems of Belgium which they wore.

Stories pa.s.sed from lip to lip. Their accuracy I would not guarantee, but they belong to the epic of the war and are true to the spirit of the people. A young lady, who was jeered at by a German officer because she was wearing King Albert's portrait, is said to have answered his "Lackland" with, "I would rather have a King who has lost his country than an Emperor who has lost his honour." Another lady, sitting in a tram-car opposite a German officer, was ordered by him to remove her tricolour rosette. She refused to do so, and, as he threatened her, defied him to do it himself. The Boche seized the rosette and pulled ..

and pulled .. and pulled. The lady had concealed twenty yards of ribbon in her corsage.

When the tricolour was forbidden altogether, it was replaced by the ivyleaf, ivy being the emblem of faithfulness; later, the ivyleaf was followed by a green ribbon, green being the colour of hope. The Brabanconne being excluded from the street and from the school took refuge in the Churches, where it is played and often sung by the congregation at the end of the service. There are many ways of getting round the law. The Belgians were forbidden to celebrate in any ordinary way the anniversary of their independence. Thanks to a sort of tacit arrangement they succeeded in marking the occasion in spite of all regulations. On July 21st, 1915, the Bruxellois kept the shutters of their houses and shops closed and went out in the streets dressed in their best clothes, most of them in mourning. The next year, as the closing of shops was this time foreseen by the administration, they remained open. But a great number of tradespeople managed ingeniously to display the national colours in their windows--by the juxtaposition, for instance, of yellow lemons, red tomatoes and black grapes. Others emptied their windows altogether.

These jokes may seem childish, at first sight, but when we think that those who dared perform them paid for it with several months'

imprisonment or several thousand marks, and paid cheerily, we understand that there is more in them than a schoolboy's pranks. It seems as if the Belgian spirit would break if it ceased to be able to react. One of the shop-managers who was most heavily fined on the occasion of our last "Independence Day" declared that he had not lost his money: "It is rather expensive, but it is worth it."

If patriotism has become a religion in Belgium, this religion has found a priest whose authority is recognised by the last unbeliever. If every church has become the "_Temple de la Patrie_," if the Brabanconne resounds under the Gothic arches of every nave, Cardinal Mercier has become the good shepherd who has taken charge of the flock during the King's absence. The great Brotherhood, for which so many Christian souls are yearning, in which there are no more cla.s.ses, parties, and sects, seems well nigh achieved beyond the electrified barbed wire of the Belgian frontier. Are not all Belgians threatened with the same danger, are they not close-knit by the same hope, the same love, the same hatred?

When the bells rang from the towers of Brussels Cathedral on July 21st last, when, in his red robes, Cardinal Mercier blessed the people a.s.sembled to celebrate the day of Belgium's Independence, it seemed that the soul of the martyred nation hovered in the Church. After the national anthem, people lifted their eyes towards the great crucifix in the choir, and could no longer distinguish, through their tears, the image of the Crucified from that of their bleeding country.