Part 33

Thursday morning I got up as late as I decently could and went down to the Embassy to find Shaler and Couchman waiting for me. They had been in London since Monday, but had not made much progress with their mission of getting food for Brussels. This was due to no lack of energy on their part, but to the general difficulty of getting attention for any matter at this time. I went with them to the Belgian Legation, and after a talk with the Belgian Minister, we got things started.

As the food was intended for the civil population of Brussels, it was necessary to get the Belgian Minister to secure from the Foreign Office permission to ship it through the blockade. He felt that he must have some instructions from the Government at Antwerp for his guidance in the matter, so I telegraphed at some length, with the result that he had ample instructions before the sun went down. The next day he made three or four calls at the Foreign Office and matters were got under way.

Shaler is buying the food and getting it ready for shipment, and now all that is holding things up is the actual permission to go ahead and ship. Shaler has had some talk on the general problems that confront us with Herbert Hoover, an American mining engineer, who has given some very helpful ideas and may do more still.

Shaler and Couchman had an experience at Liege they did not particularly relish. They were pulled up by a Landsturm guard somewhere in Liege, taken to the Kommandantur, where it was discovered that they were carrying a number of messages of the "We-are-well-and-hope-you-are-the-same" variety. Without discussion they were pushed into cells and treated to talk that gave them little comfort. They spent the night in jail, but by some means contrived to get word to the Consul, who arrived and delivered them before breakfast. It evidently grieved the Germans that they could not take these two out and shoot them, but they yielded with a bad grace and turned them loose to hasten to the Consul's breakfast table.

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Brussels, October 11, 1914.--On Saturday afternoon late I went with Harold Fowler to call on Sir Claude MacDonald, who had been to the Embassy twice to see me about the English Red Cross nurses in Brussels. I tried to reassure him as to their safety, but he went to see the Ambassador later in the day and asked him to send Harold Fowler back to Brussels with me to bring the nurses out. This suited me perfectly, so we made preparations to get off together.

On Sunday evening we left Fenchurch Street at six, with a little group of friends to see us off. About the only other people on the train were a King's Messenger, a bankrupt Peer and his Man Friday, and a young staff officer. Each set of us had a separate compartment and travelled in lonely state to Tilbury, where the boat was waiting.

As we got aboard the Brussels, her sister ship, the Dresden, just in from Antwerp, pulled up alongside, and Mrs. Sherman, wife of the Vice-Consul, called me to the rail to give me the latest news. She said that everything was going to pieces, that some of the forts had fallen, and that Antwerp might be under bombardment before we got there. Then she went ashore in peace, and we went below to seek the seclusion that the cabin grants, and fortify ourselves for the bombardment.

We got under way during the night and dropped down to the mouth of the Thames, where we lay to until daylight, before starting across. The first sound I heard was a hail from a torpedo-boat destroyer, which sent an officer aboard to lay our course for us through the British mine fields. We made our zigzag course across the North Sea and fetched up at Flushing, where we picked up a pilot to take us through Dutch waters. When darkness overtook us we were just about on the Belgian frontier line and had to lie to for the night, getting to Antwerp Tuesday morning about nine.

We found the place in a great hubbub--everybody packed and ready to leave. They had been on the point of departure since Friday, and the uncertainty had got on everybody's nerves--and no wonder.

Several thousand British Marines had arrived and were doing good work, holding back the Germans, while the exhausted Belgians pulled themselves together for the evacuation. The Belgian forces had been fighting with little rest and no sleep until they were physically incapable of further resistance. How human strength held out so long is the great marvel. Winston Churchill was in the Legation when I arrived, with General Rawlinson and Colonel Seeley.

After a call at the Foreign Office, most of which had been installed on a boat in the river, I went to the Palace to see General Jungbluth. He was not there, but Countess de Caraman-Chimay said that the King wanted to see me.

I was taken straight up to him in his Council Chamber, where I found him seated at a great table covered with maps and papers. He pushed them aside wearily as I came in, and rose to greet me. He talked at some length on the war and the ordeal of Belgium, but was chiefly interested in how the people were being treated. His interest was not only for his own friends, but he showed particular interest in learning how the poorer people were being treated--whether the poorer quarters of the town were keeping calm and avoiding trouble with the Germans. He was most anxious that they should avoid doing anything that would arouse the Germans against them. He spoke simply and touchingly of his confidence in the loyalty and patriotism of all his people, and his certainty that they would come through the war with an even greater love of country.

The rest of the Palace was in confusion, with servants packing and orderlies coming and going. But the King's room was in perfect calm. The King sat quite still in his armchair and talked quietly, without haste. He was very serious, and it was clearly to be seen that he felt his responsibility and the suffering of his army. But his determination was just as evident. He realised that the evacuation was inevitable, and having made up his mind to that, he devoted his whole energies and thoughts to seeing that it was carried out effectively and quickly. He has a very patent faculty of concentration and of eliminating his own personality and feelings. I have seldom felt so sorry for anyone, partly perhaps because all of his sympathy was for others.

When the King finally rose to dismiss me, he said:

"The Queen wants to see you. Will you come back at half-past two?"

I had planned to leave for Brussels immediately after luncheon, but, of course, this was a command to which I gladly yielded.

The St. Antoine was all hurry and confusion, and the dining room was buzzing with conjecture as to whether the bombardment of the city would begin before the exodus was accomplished. The Military Governor had posted a proclamation to warn the population that it might begin at any time. There was a certain amount of unconscious humour in his proclamation. He advised people to retire into their cellars with bedding, food, water and other necessaries; to disconnect the water, gas and electricity; to stuff the staircases with mattresses, as a matter of protection; to take with them picks and shovels, so that they could dig themselves out in case their houses fell in; and after a few more hints of this sort, the Governor genially remarks:

"Having taken these precautions, the population can await the bombardment in calm."

The German authorities have offered to spare the historic monuments of Antwerp in their bombardment, if the Belgian General Staff will send them maps of the city with such monuments and hospitals clearly; marked. I found that it had been arranged in Brussels that I should collect the plans on my way through Antwerp and deliver them to the German authorities in Brussels, and, of course, agreed to do so.

After luncheon I went back to the Palace, where I was immediately received by the Queen in her sitting room. Her Majesty seemed quite oblivious of the confusion in the Palace, and, like the King, she was chiefly concerned as to the welfare of the people left under German domination. I was able to give her comforting news as to the treatment of the people of Brussels. While we were talking, the roar of the German guns seemed to increase and made the windows rattle. There was an outcry in the street, and we went to the window to see a German aeroplane pursued by a British machine. We watched them out of sight, and then went back to our talk. The members of the Court had tried to prevail upon the Queen to leave Antwerp, but when it became evident that the place must be surrendered, she refused to move and told me she would stay until the King left. And she did.

When I got back to the hotel, I found Eugene with news that the differential of my car had broken, so that we could not start. It was important that we lose no time in getting the plans of the town to the German authorities, so I got Baron van der Elst to go with me to the General Staff and explain the situation. General de Guise promptly wrote out an order that I should be given the best car to be found in the city. Armed with this, Eugene set forth and gathered in a very pretty little limousine to bring us back to Brussels. It was evidently a lady's car and almost too pretty, but we were not exacting and took it thankfully. However, it was too late to start out through the lines, so we gave up the idea of leaving before morning. We had thought of taking the route of the army and getting to Brussels by way of Ghent, but the people at the General Staff said the road was so crowded with transport that we would make little progress, and that the better course would be to take exactly the opposite direction and go by way of Tournhout.

PROCLAMATION

A l'avenir les localites situees pres de l'endroit ou a eu lieu la destruction des chemins de fer et lignes telegraphiques seront punies sans pitie (il n'importe qu'elles soient coupables ou non de ces actes.) Dans ce but des otages ont ete pris dans toutes les localites situees pres des chemins de fer qui sont menaces de pareilles attaques; et au premier attentat a la destruction des lignes de chemins de fer, de lignes telegraphiques ou lignes telephoniques, ils seront immediatement fusilles.

Bruxelles, le 5 Octobre 1914 Le Gouverneur, VON DER GOLTZ

Translation:

In future, villages in the vicinity of places where railway and telegraph lines are destroyed will be punished without pity (whether they are guilty or not of the acts in question). With this in view hostages have been taken in all villages near the railway lines which are threatened by such attacks. Upon the first attempt to destroy lines of railway, telegraph, or telephone, they will be immediately shot.

The Governor, VON DER GOLTZ]