Part 4

We have done a land-office business in passports, and shall probably continue to turn them out by the dozen.

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Sunday, August 2d.--Another hectic day with promise of more to come.

This morning I came down a little earlier than usual and found the Minister already hard at it. He had been routed out of bed and had not had time to bathe or shave. There was nothing to show that it was a Sunday--nearly twice as many callers as yesterday, and they were more exacting.

Mrs. A---- B---- C---- came in airily and announced that she had started from Paris yesterday on a motor tour through France and Belgium. Having got this far, some rude person had told her that her motor might be seized by the Government for military purposes and that an order had been promulgated forbidding any one to take cars out of the country. She came around confidently to have us assure her that this was a wicked lie--and needless to say was deeply disappointed in us when we failed to back her up. We had refrained from asking the Government to release our own servants from their military obligations and have refused to interfere for anybody else, but that was not enough for her. She left, a highly indignant lady.

The story is around town this afternoon that the Germans have already crossed the frontier without the formality of a declaration of war--but that remains to be seen. Brussels was put under martial law last night, and is now patrolled by grenadiers and lancers.

The money situation is bad. All small change has disappeared in the general panic, and none of it has dared show its head during the past few days. The next thing done by panicky people was to pass round word that the Government bank notes were no good and would not be honoured. Lots of shops are refusing to accept bank notes, and few places can make any change. The police are lined up outside the banks keeping people in line. People in general are frantic with fear, and are trampling each other in the rush to get money out of the banks before the crash that probably will not come. Travelers who came here with pockets bulging with express checks and bank notes are unable to get a cent of real money, and nobody shows any enthusiasm over American paper. I have a few bank notes left, and this evening when I went into a restaurant I have patronised ever since my arrival the head waiter refused to change a note for me, and I finally had to leave it and take credit against future meals to be eaten there. We may have our troubles when our small store is gone, but probably the situation will improve and I refuse to worry. And some of our compatriots don't understand why the Legation does not have a cellar full of hard money to finance them through their stay in Europe.

Communications, with such parts of the world as we still speak to, are getting very difficult on account of mobilisation, the military having right of way. This morning's Paris papers have not come in this evening, and there are no promises as to when we shall see them. The news in the local papers is scarce and doubtful, and I hope for a word from Paris.

Word has just come in that the Government has seized the supplies of bread, rice, and beans, and will fix prices for the present. That is a sensible and steadying thing, and should have a good effect.

Nobody seems to remember that a few days ago Serbia was playing a star role in this affair. She seems to have faded away behind the scenes. A few days ago, Mexico loomed large in the papers and now we have forgotten that she ever existed. Albania supplied a lot of table talk, and now we think about as much about her and her troubles as we do about Thibet.

This afternoon I went around to the Rue Ducale to take a look at the French Legation. The tricolor was flying in the fresh breeze, and there was a big crowd outside cheering itself hoarse. It was made up of men who were called to the colors and were waiting to enroll themselves and get instructions as to where they should report for duty. The air was electric, and every now and then the military band struck up the Marseillaise and the crowd instantly became happily delirious. Some of them had been standing in the sun for hours waiting to get in and get their orders, but they were just as keenly responsive to the music and the mood of the crowd as anybody. All the crowd in the Legation had been working day and night for days, and was dead with fatigue; but, some way, they kept going, and managed to be civil and friendly when I had business with them. How they do it I don't know. A Frenchman's politeness must be more deeply ingrained than even I had supposed.

On the way back from the Legation this evening, I saw von Below, the German Minister, driving home from the Foreign Office to his Legation. He passed close to me, and I saw that the perspiration was standing out on his forehead. He held his hat in his hand and puffed at a cigarette like a mechanical toy, blowing out jerky clouds of smoke. He looked neither to left nor right, and failed to give me his usual ceremonious bow. He is evidently not at ease about the situation, although he continues to figure in the newspapers as stating that all is well, that Germany has no intention of setting foot on Belgian soil, and that all Belgium has to do is to keep calm. In an interview given to Le Soir he sums up his reassuring remarks by saying: "Your neighbour's house may burn but yours will be safe."

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August 3, 1914.--No mail in to-day. All communications seem to be stopped for the time being at least. Mobilisation here and in France requires all the efforts of all hands, and little workaday things like mail and newspapers go by the board.

According to the news which was given me when I got out of bed this morning, the German Minister last night presented to the Belgian Government an ultimatum demanding the right to send German troops across Belgium to attack France. He was evidently returning from this pleasant duty when I saw him last night, for the ultimatum seems to have been presented at seven o'clock. The King presided over a Cabinet Council which sat all night; and when the twelve hours given by the ultimatum had expired, at seven this morning, a flat refusal was sent to the German Legation. Arrangements were got under way, as the Council sat, to defend the frontiers of the country against aggression. During the night the garrison left and the Garde Civique came on duty to police the town.

The influx of callers was greater to-day than at any time so far, and we were fairly swamped. Miss Larner came in and worked like a Trojan, taking passport applications and reassuring the women who wanted to be told that the Germans would not kill them even when they got to Brussels. She is a godsend to us.

Monsieur de Leval, the Belgian lawyer who for ten years has been the legal counselor of the Legation, came in and brought some good clerks with him. He also hung up his hat and went to work, making all sorts of calls at the Foreign Office, seeing callers, and going about to the different Legations. Granville Fortescue came in from Ostend, and I should have put him to work but that he had plans of his own and has decided to blossom forth as a war correspondent. He is all for getting to the "front" if any.

Just to see what would happen, I went to the telephone after lunch and asked to be put through to the Embassy at London. To my surprise, I got the connection in a few minutes and had a talk with Bell, the Second Secretary. The Cabinet had been sitting since eleven this morning, but had announced no decision. I telephoned him again this evening and got the same reply. Bell said that they had several hundred people in the chancery and were preparing for a heavy blow.

As nearly as we can make out the Germans have sent patrols into Belgian territory, but there have been no actual operations so far. All day long we have been getting stories to the effect that there has been a battle at Vise and that fifteen hundred Belgians had been killed; later it was stated that they had driven the Germans back with heavy losses. The net result is that at the end of the day we know little more than we did this morning.

Parliament is summoned to meet in special session to-morrow morning to hear what the King has to say about the German ultimatum. It will be an interesting sight. Parliament has long been rent with most bitter factional quarrels, but I hear that all these are to be forgotten and that all parties, Socialists included, are to rally round the throne in a great demonstration of loyalty.

All the regular troops have been withdrawn from this part of the country and dispatched to the front, leaving the protection of the capital to the Garde Civique, who are patrolling the streets, to examine the papers of everybody who moves about. This is a sort of local guard made up of people who have not been called for active military service, but who have volunteered for local defense. They are from every class--lawyers and butchers and bakers and dentists and university professors. They have, of course, had little training for this sort of work, and have had only elementary orders to guide them. These they carry out to the letter. There are detachments of them at all sorts of strategic points in the city where they hold up passing vehicles to see who is inside. I have been stopped by them goodness knows how many times this day. They hold up the car, look inside, apologise, and explain good-naturedly that they are obliged to bother me, asking who I am, and after I have satisfied them with papers that any well-equipped spy would be ashamed of, they let me go on with more apologies. They rejoice in a traditional uniform topped off by a derby hat with kangaroo feathers on it. This is anything but martial in appearance and seems to affect their funny bone as it does mine.

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August 5th.--Yesterday morning we got about early and made for the Chamber of Deputies to hear the King's speech. The Minister and I walked over together and met a few straggling colleagues headed in the same direction. Most of them had got there ahead of us, and the galleries were all jammed. The Rue Royale, from the Palace around the park to the Parliament building, was packed with people, held in check by the Garde Civique. There was a buzz as of a thousand bees and every face was ablaze--the look of a people who have been trampled on for hundreds of years and have not learned to submit. The Garde Civique had two bands in front of the Senate, and they tried to play the Brabanconne in unison. Neither of them could play the air in tune, and they were about a bar apart all the time. They played it through and then began to play it over again without a pause between. They blew and pounded steadily for nearly half an hour, and the more they played, the more enthusiastic the crowds became.

When I saw how crowded the galleries were I thought I would not push, so resigned myself to missing the speech and went out onto a balcony with Webber, of the British Legation, to see the arrival of the King and Queen. We had the balcony to ourselves, as everybody else was inside fighting for a place in the galleries to hear the speech.

When the King and Queen finally left the Palace we knew it from a roar of cheering that came surging across the Park. The little procession came along at a smart trot, and although it was hidden from us by the trees we could follow its progress by the steadily advancing roaring of the mob. When they turned from the Rue Royale into the Rue de la Loi, the crowd in front of the Parliament buildings took up the cheering in a way to make the windows rattle.

First came the staff of the King and members of his household. Then the Queen, accompanied by the royal children, in an open daumont. The cheering for the Queen was full-throated and with no sign of doubt, because of her Bavarian birth and upbringing--she is looked on as a Belgian Queen and nothing else.

After the Queen came a carriage or two with members of the royal family and the Court. Finally the King on horseback. He was in the field uniform of a lieutenant-general, with no decorations and none of the ceremonial trappings usual on such occasions as a speech from the Throne. He was followed by a few members of his staff who also looked as though they were meant more for business than for dress parade.

As the King drew rein and dismounted, the cheering burst forth with twice its former volume; and, in a frantic demonstration of loyalty, hats and sticks were thrown into the air. Two bands played on manfully, but we could hear only an occasional discord.