Through the Iron Bars Part 3

4th. A few weeks later, this promise was confirmed verbally to Cardinal Mercier _and extended to the other provinces_ under German rule by Governor von der Goltz, two aide-de-camps and the Cardinal's private secretary being present. (See letter from Cardinal Mercier to Baron von Bissing, October 19th, 1916).

5th. November, 1914. a.s.surances given by the German authorities to the Dutch Legation in Brussels in order to persuade the refugees to come back: "_Normal conditions will be restored and the refugees will be allowed to go back to Holland to look after their families_." (See also the letter of the Dutch Consul in Antwerp urging the refugees to come back to their homes.)

6th. July 25th, 1915. Placard of Governor von Bissing posted in Brussels: "_The people shall never be compelled to do anything against their country_."

7th. April, 1916: a.s.surances given to the neutral powers after the Lille raids that _such deportations would not be renewed_.

Now, let us confront these texts, not even with the facts which come to us from the most trustworthy sources, but with the German decrees and proclamations preparing and ordering the recent deportations. We are not opposing a Belgian testimony to a German one, neither are we, for the present, propounding even our own interpretation of what occurred. We will merely oppose a German doc.u.ment to another German doc.u.ment and let them settle their differences as best they can.

The first trouble began in April and May, 1915, in Luttre, at the Malines a.r.s.enal, and in several other Flemish towns, when the German authorities exerted every possible pressure to compel the Belgian workmen to resume work. They were brought, under military escort, to their workshops, imprisoned, starved, and about two hundred of them were deported to Germany, where they were submitted to the most cruel tortures. (See the _Nineteenth Report of the Belgian Commission of Enquiry_.) The threats and persecutions are sufficiently established by three placards issued by the German authorities.

The first one, posted on the walls of Pont-a-Celles, near Luttre, says, among other things: "If the workmen accept the above conditions (that is to say, resume work with handsome wages) _the prisoners will be released_...." The "prisoners" being several hundred workers who had been imprisoned in their shops and deprived of food. (April, 1915.)

The second, _signed von Bissing_ (so that n.o.body could imagine that these measures were taken by some too zealous subaltern) and posted in Malines, on the 30th of May, tells us that "_the town of Malines must be punished as long as the required number of workmen have not resumed work_." These workmen were employed by the Belgian State--which owns the country's railway--for the repair of the rolling stock. When they had refused to resume work, at the beginning of the occupation, a few hundred German workmen had filled their posts. These had been sent back to their military depots. The patriotic duty of these Belgians was evident enough: by resuming their work, they released German soldiers for the front and increased the number of coaches and engines, of which the enemy was in great need for the transport of troops. If you will compare this poster with the one printed above and dated July 25th, you will be confronted with one of the neatest examples of German duplicity.

Other people have broken their promises after making them. It was left to Governor von Bissing to make them after breaking them.

The third doc.u.ment is still more conclusive. On June the 16th the citizens of Ghent could read on their walls that: "The att.i.tude of certain factories which refuse _to work for the German Army_ under the pretext of patriotism proves that a movement is afoot to create difficulties for the _German Army_. If such an att.i.tude is maintained I will hold the communal authorities responsible and the population will have only itself to blame if the great liberties granted to it until now are suspended." This clumsy declaration is signed by Lieutenant-General Graf von Westcarp. And to think that, even now, Governor von Bissing perseveres in maintaining that no military work has ever been asked or will ever be asked from the Belgian workers! As the French proverb says: "On n'est jamais trahi que par les siens." [4]

But, like the man who marries his mistress after the birth of the first child, the Governor General was thinking of "regularising the situation." He knew that his att.i.tude was illegal. He decided, therefore, to concoct a few decrees in order to legalize it in the eyes of the world. He had, you see, to save appearances. You cannot get on with no law at all. It might shock neutrals. So, if you break all the articles of the Hague Convention one by one, like so many sticks, the only thing to do is to manufacture some fresh regulations to replace them. And everything will again be for the best in the best of worlds.

That is where German subtlety comes in. You must not do things rashly, at once. Like a skilful dramatist, you must prepare the public to take in a situation. There is a true artistic touch in the way this General of Cavalry succeeds in gradually legalizing illegality.

In a first decree, dated August 10th, 1915, a fortnight after his last pledge, Governor von Bissing promises from fourteen days' to six months'

imprisonment to anyone dependent on public charity who refuses to undertake work "without a sufficient reason" and a fine of 500 or a year's imprisonment to anyone who encourages refusal to work by the granting of relief. Notice that the accomplice is punished more heavily than the princ.i.p.al culprit. The idea is clearly to deprive every striker of the help of his commune and of the "Comite National." However, as it is still left to Belgian tribunals to decide which reasons are "sufficient" and which are not, this decree is not very harmful.

On May 2nd, 1916, the rising tide creeps nearer to us. The power of deciding on the matter pa.s.ses from the Belgian tribunals to the military authority, and thereupon every striker becomes a culprit.

On May 13th, there is a new decree by which "the governors, military commanders, and chiefs of districts are allowed to order the unemployed _to be conducted by force_ to the spots where they have to work." This, no doubt, in order to avoid the crowding of prisons, which would have necessarily followed the last decree. It only remains to declare that the workers can be deported to complete the process and to legalise slavery.

This step was taken on October 3rd last, when an order, signed by Quartier-Meister Sauberzweig and issued by the General Headquarters of the German Army, was posted in all the communes of Flanders. This order warned all persons "_who are fit to work_ that they may be compelled to do so _even outside their places of residence,_" when "they should be compelled to have recourse to public help for their own subsistence or for the subsistence of the persons dependent on them."

[Footnote 4: Another poster dated from Menin (August, 1915) reads as follows: "From to-day the town is forbidden to give any support whatever even to the families, wives, or children of workmen who are not employed _regularly on military work_.."]

But there is more to come in the story. Three guarantees were left, which have been quoted again and again by the German Press and by Baron von Bissing in his various answers to Cardinal Mercier. It was first stated that the men seized would not be sent to Germany, then that only the unemployed were taken, and finally that these would not be used on military work. These last guarantees have been repeatedly broken.

Again, I will leave the Germans to condemn themselves.

In his decree published at Antwerp, on November the 2nd, General von Huene (the same man who had given Cardinal Mercier his formal written promise that no deportations should take place) declares that the men are to be concentrated at the Southern Station, "whence ... they will be conveyed in groups to _workshops in Germany_."

In a letter sent by General Hurt, Military Governor of Brussels and of the province of Brabant, to all burgomasters, it is said that "where the Communes will not furnish the lists (of unemployed) the German administration will itself designate the men to be deported to Germany.

If then ... errors are committed, the burgomasters will only have themselves to blame, for _the German administration has no time and no means for making an inquiry concerning the personal status of each person_."

Finally, an extraordinary proclamation of the "Major-Commandant d'Etapes" of Antoing, dated October 20th, announces that "_the population will never be compelled to work under continuous fire,"_ this population being composed, according to the same doc.u.ment, of _men and women_ between 17 and 46 years of age. If they refuse "they will be placed in a _battalion of civil workers, on reduced rations_." Here is the address of one of these militarised civilians dropped from a train leaving for the Western front and picked up by a friend: X., 3 Comp.

Ziv. Arb. Bat. 27.--Et. Indp.--Armee No.

This did not prevent Governor von Bissing from declaring, a week later (letter to Cardinal Mercier, October 26th), that: "No workman can be obliged to partic.i.p.ate in work connected with the war (_entreprises de guerre_)"! [5]

The last fatal step has been taken. From decree to decree, from proclamation to proclamation, the last threads of the curtain of legality which remained between the victim and the tyrant have been cut one by one. Between the acts of the German administration in Belgium and those of the African slave drivers, we are now unable to discover any difference whatever. The old plague which had been the shame of Europe for more than two centuries has risen again from its ashes. It appears before us with all its hideous characteristics. People are torn from their homes and sent away to foreign lands without any hope of returning. Any protest is crushed by the application of torture in the form of starvation, exposure, and their kindred ills ... There is, however, one new point about the modern slave: his face is as white as that of his master.

The nineteenth century stamped out black slavery. It was left to the twentieth century to reinstate white slavery. It is the purest glory of the English-speaking people to have succeeded in eradicating the old evil. It will be the eternal shame of the German-speaking people to have replaced it by something worse. Civilisation forbade any man, sixty years ago, to force another man to work for him. Civilisation to-day does not forbid a man--a conqueror--to force another man to work against himself. The old slave only lost his liberty. The new slave must lose his honour, his dignity, his self-respect. He has only one other alternative: death. And this, not the glorious death of a martyr which makes thousands of converts and shines all over the world, not the death of Nurse Cavell, but the anonymous death of X.Y.Z., the death of hundreds and hundreds of unknown heroes who will die under the whip or in the darkness of their cells in the German prison camps.

I had almost forgotten a last distinction between the old and the new forms of slavery: The average slave driver of past days was only a trader who sold human beings instead of selling oxen or sheep. When his trade was prohibited, he took heavy risks and ran great danger of losing his fortune and his life. But the German rulers of Belgium, whether they be in Brussels or in Berlin, whether we call them von Bissing or Helfferich, live in the comfort of their homes, surrounded by their families, and when a.s.sailed by protests, can still play hide and seek around the broken pillars of the Temple of Peace and wave arrogantly, like so many flags, the torn articles of international law: "I a.s.sert,"

said Dr. Helfferich in the Reichstag (December 2nd)--"I a.s.sert that setting the Belgian unemployed to work is thoroughly consonant with international law. We therefore _take our stand, formally and in practice, on international law, making use of our undoubted rights_."

Let Dr. Helfferich beware. He is not the only judge on international law. His stand may come crashing down.

[Footnote 5: I should ask the reader to confront this declaration with the statement made by the Belgian workmen in their appeal to the working cla.s.ses of the world. "On the Western Front they force them, by the most brutal means, _to dig trenches_, construct aviation grounds...."

In his letter sent to the Belgian Ministers to the Vatican and to Spain, Baron Beyens, the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, says: "The men are sent to occupied France _to construct sets of trenches and a strategic railway, Lille-Aulnaye-Givet."_

Among many trustworthy reports, we hear that the 5th Zivilisten-Bataillon, including some men of Ghent and Alost, has been forced to work, under threat of death, on the construction of a strategic railway between Laon and Soissons. Some of the men, exhausted by the bad treatment inflicted upon them, have been sent back to Belgium in a critical condition, and have written a full statement relating their experiences, signed by twenty of them. On the other hand, the Belgian General Headquarters report that Belgian civilians, obliged to dig trenches and dug-outs near Becelaere (West Flanders), were exposed to the fire of the English guns.]

II. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON ...

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."

What prophetic spirit inspired Cardinal Mercier when he chose this psalm for the text of his sermon, on the occasion of the second anniversary of their Independence (July 21st, 1916), which the Belgians celebrated in exile and captivity? It was in the great Gothic church, in Brussels, under the arches of Ste. Gudule, at the close of a service for the soldiers fallen during the war, the very last patriotic ceremony tolerated by the Germans. Socialists, Liberals, Catholics crowded the nave, forgetting their old quarrels, united in a common worship, the worship of their threatened country, of their oppressed liberties.

"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" His audience imagined that the preacher alluded only to a spiritual captivity, that he meant: "How shall we celebrate our freedom in this German prison?"

And they listened, like the first Christians in the catacombs, dreading to hear the tramp of the soldiers before the door. The Cardinal pursued his fearless address: "The psalm ends with curses and maledictions. We will not utter them against our enemies. We are not of the Old but of the New Testament. We do not follow the old law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but the new law of Love and Christian brotherhood.

But we do not forget that even above Love stands Justice. If our brother sins, how can we pretend to love him if we do not wish that his sins should be punished...."

Such was the tenor of the Cardinal's address, the greatest Christian address inspired by the war, uttered under the most tragic and moving circ.u.mstances. For the people knew by then the danger of speaking out their minds in conquered Belgium; they knew that some German spies were in the church taking note of every word, of every gesture. Still, they could not restrain their feelings, and, at the close of the sermon, when the organ struck up the _Brabanconne_, they cheered and cheered again, thankful to feel, for an instant, the dull weight of oppression lifted from their shoulders by the indomitable spirit of their old leader.

What strikes us now, when recalling this memorable ceremony, is not so much the address itself as the choice of its text: "For they that carried us away captive required of us a song."

Many of those who listened to Cardinal Mercier on July 21st, 1916, have no doubt been "carried away" by now, and they have sung. They have sung the Brabanconne and the "Lion de Flandres" as a last defiance to their oppressors whilst those long cattle trains, packed with human cattle, rolled in wind and rain towards the German frontier. And the echo of their song still haunts the sleep of every honest man.

For whatever Germany may do or say, the time is no longer when such crimes can be left unpunished. Notwithstanding the war and the triumphant power of the mailed fist, there still exists such a thing as public conscience and public opinion. Nothing can happen, in any part of the world, without awakening an echo in the hearts of men who apparently are not at all concerned in the matter. The Germans are too clever not to understand this, and the endless trouble which they take in order to monopolise the news in neutral countries and to encounter every accusation with some more or less insidious excuse is the best proof of this. When one of them declared that Raemaekers' cartoons had done more harm to Germany than an army corps, he knew perfectly well what he was talking about. Only they rely so blindly on their own intellectual power and they have such a poor opinion of the brains of other people that they believe in first doing whatever suits their plans and then justify their action afterwards. They divide the work between themselves: The soldier acts, the lawyer and the professor undertakes to explain what he has done. However black the first may become, there is plenty of whitewash ready to restore his innocence.

If the unexpected resistance of Belgium has infuriated the Germans to such an extent, it is not only because it wrecked their surprise attack on France, it is also because, even after the retreat of the army, they have been confronted by a series of men courageous enough and clever enough to stand their ground and to come between them and the uneducated ma.s.s of the population.

Since, for the sake of propaganda, they wanted to make a show of respecting international law, they were taken at their word; so that they were obliged either to give way or to put themselves openly in the wrong. When they tried to break their promise to the munic.i.p.ality of Brussels and to annihilate the liberties of the old Belgian communes, Mr. Max stood in their way, calm and smiling, with no other weapon than the law which they pretended to respect. Mr. Max was sent to a German fortress, but Germany had torn up another sc.r.a.p of paper--and the civilised world knew it. When they wanted to establish extraordinary tribunals for matters which belonged only to local tribunals, Mr.

Theodor and all the barristers of the country lodged protest after protest and fought their case step by step. Mr. Theodor was deported, but the German administration had blundered again--and the world knew it. When Baron von Bissing tried to infringe the privileges of the Church and to cow the Belgian priests into submission by forbidding them to read to their flock the patriotic letter of Cardinal Mercier, published on Christmas Day, 1914, he found himself opposed not only by a far cleverer man than himself, but by all the spiritual influence of one of the greatest priests in Europe. The letter was read, the Cardinal did not leave for Germany but for Rome, whence he came back to Malines, and, if anything, adopted a still firmer tone in his subsequent letters and speeches. Von Bissing was beaten--and the world knew it.

These are only a few striking examples among many. Since August, 1914, hundreds and hundreds of civilians have been imprisoned or deported; workmen, because they refused to work for the enemy; lawyers, because they refused to accept his law; bankers, because they would not let their money cross the frontier; professors, because they did not consent to propagate Kultur; journalists, because they objected to print Wolff's news; tradespeople, because they put their patriotism above their private interests; priests, because they did not worship the German G.o.d; women, because they did not admire German officers; children, because they did not play the German games. Meanwhile the firing parties did not remain idle. The world has heard with horror of the death of Miss Cavell; it has been shocked by the disproportion between her "crime" and her punishment, and by the hypocrisy displayed by the German administration during her trial. But, if England has lost one great martyr, Belgium has lost hundreds, who perished in the same way, sometimes for smaller offences, often for no offence at all. For the German judges are in a hurry, and they have no time to enquire too closely in such matters. The vengeance of a spy, the slightest suspicion of a policeman, sometimes even an anonymous letter, are enough to convince them of the guilt of the accused person. The healthy effect produced on the population by Dinant and Louvain must not be allowed to spend itself. Frightfulness must be kept up at any price. The reign of terror is the condition of the German regime.