Part 5

October 30th: A decree dated September 30th makes the measures for the requisition of metals still more severe. All the steel material--in whatever shape it may be (including tools)--must be declared to the Abteilung für Handel und Gewerbe in Brussels, under a penalty of five years of imprisonment (25,000 marks).

October 31st: The commune of Anderlecht has voted a credit of 40,000 francs for the purchase of wooden shoes as the shortage of leather prevents most of the people from buying boots.

November 1st: A decree dated October 14th prepares for the seizure of all textile materials, ribbons, hosiery, etc. No more than one-tenth of the stocks can be manufactured, under a penalty of 10,000 marks. A decree dated October 17th makes the declaration of poplars all over Belgium compulsory.

It was scarcely necessary to underline some passages of this report. However bad may be the impression it causes, it would be twenty-six times worse if we had the leisure to follow step by step the progress of German economic policy in Belgium. It is evident that the German administration, in spite of its former declarations, is resolved to ruin Belgian industry and to throw out of work the greatest number of men possible. All raw material must go to Germany in order to be worked there. As it has become evident that the Belgian workers will not submit to war work so long as they remain in their surroundings, they must be torn away from their country and compelled to follow the materials and machines over the frontier. Labour has become an inanimated object necessary to the prosecution of the German war. It is as indispensable to Germany as cotton, nickel and copper. It will be treated as such. If the men resist, they will be crushed. If the soul of Belgium will not yield to persuasion, it will be taken away from her, like her cattle, her corn, her iron and her steel. And so Belgium will become a weapon in Germany's hands, a weapon which will strike at Belgium. And the only thought of the deported worker turning a shell in a German factory will be, as is suggested by Louis Raemaekers' cartoon, "Perhaps this one will kill my own son?"

THE MODERN SLAVE.

I. THE CREEPING TIDE.

We must now deal with the second factor which makes the conditions worse in Belgium than in Germany. While German peace-factories, ruined by the blockade, have been turned into war-factories, the majority of Belgian industries have remained idle. In spite of the high wages offered by the Germans--some skilled workmen were offered as much as £2 and £2 10s. per day--the workers resisted the constant pressure exerted upon them and preferred to live miserably on half-wages or with the help given them by the "Comité National" rather than accept any work which might directly or indirectly help the occupying power. If a few thousands, compelled by hunger or unable to resist their conquerors' threats, passed the frontier, all the rest of the working population kept up, under the most depressing conditions, a great patriotic strike, the "strike of folded arms." If they could not, as the 20,000 young heroes who crossed the Dutch frontier, join the Belgian army on the Yser; they could at least wage war at home and oppose to the enemy the impenetrable rampart of their naked breasts. It should not be said, when King Albert should return to Brussels at the head of his troops, that his subjects had not shared the sufferings of his soldiers. They should also have their wounds to show, they should also have their dead to honour.

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When, at the beginning of November last, the protests of the Belgian Government and the "Signal of Distress" of the Belgian bishops made known the slave raids which had taken place, most of the outside world was shocked and surprised. It had lived, for months, under the impression that "things were not so bad" in the conquered provinces. After the outcry caused by the atrocities of August, 1914, there came a natural reaction, a sort of anti-climax. Fines, requisitions, petty persecutions do not strike the imagination in the same way as the burning of towns and the wholesale massacre of peaceful citizens. It had become necessary to follow things closely in order to understand that, instead of suffering less, the Belgian population was suffering more and more every day. Besides, news was scarce and difficult to check. When alarming reports came from the Dutch frontier, it was usual to think that the newspaper correspondents spread them without much discrimination.

But to those who were familiar with the policy pursued by the German administration since the spring of 1915, the bad news which they received lately only confirmed the fears which they had entertained for a long time. As the war went on, it became more and more evident that Germany, whose man-power was steadily decreasing, would no longer tolerate the resistance of the Belgian workers, and would even attempt to enrol in her army of labour all the able-bodied men of the conquered provinces. The slave-raids coincide with the "levée en masse" in the Empire and with the organisation of the new "Polish Army": "If every German is made to fight or to work, ought not every Belgian, every Pole, to be compelled to do the same? The fact that they should turn their arms or their tools against their own country is not worthy of consideration, as it is supposed already to enjoy the blessings of German rule and has become an integral part of the Fatherland."

There is a great deal to be said for the slavery of ancient times. It was at least free from cunning and hypocrisy. The conqueror ill-treated the vanquished, but he spared him his calumnies. The only law was the law of the stronger, but the stronger did not pretend to be also the better. The tyrant was always right, of course, but he did not pretend to show that the victim was always wrong.

Now the worst aspect of the German policy is that it associates the subtlest dialectics with the most insane brutality. When the time comes, they act with the blind fury of the bull, but they have already thought it all over with the wisdom of the serpent. That is why the popular appellation of "Huns" is so misleading. It suggests merely the brutality of primitive men, which is not always so dangerous and so depraved as the brutality of civilised men. Brutality does not exclude honesty and pity. Attila listened to the prayers of the Pope and spared Rome. The Kaiser's lieutenant does not listen to Cardinal Mercier's protests. The Huns, as most strong men, made a point of keeping their word. The Germans seem to make a point of breaking theirs. When I compared the fight of Belgium and Germany to the unequal fight of Jack and the Giant, of David and Goliath, I was forgetting that David and Jack were cleverer than their antagonists. Folklore and fairy-tales always equalize the chances by granting more wit to the small people than to the big ones. It is a healthy inspiration. But we are confronted to-day with a new monster, a wise giant, a cunning dragon, a subtle beast.

We must therefore not imagine that Governor von Bissing got up one fine morning, called for pen and ink, like King Cole for his bowl, and wrote a proclamation to the effect that all Belgians of military age would be reduced to slavery and obliged, under the penalty of physical torture and under the whip of German sentries, to dig trenches behind the Western front or to turn shells in a German factory. Any fool--any Goliath--might have done that.

Every German crime is preceded by a series of false promises and followed by a series of calumnies. Between such a prelude and such a finale, you may perform a symphony of frightfulness with Dr. Strauss' orchestration--it will sound as innocent and artless as the three notes of a shepherd's pipe. The violation of Belgian neutrality is bad enough, but if you begin to lull Belgium to slumber by repeating, on every occasion, that she has nothing to fear, and if you end by declaring to the civilised world that Belgium was plotting with England and France a traitorous attack against Germany, then it becomes quite plausible. To massacre 6,000 civilians and burn 20,000 houses in cold blood looks rather harsh, but if you begin by giving "a solemn guarantee to the people that they will not have to suffer from the war" (General von Emmich's first proclamation) and end by saying that women have emptied buckets of boiling water on the heads of your soldiers and that children have put out the eyes of your wounded, it becomes almost a kind proceeding. In the same way, to seize and deport hundreds of thousands of men and compel them to work in exile against their country seems the act of Barbarians, but if you accumulate assurances that "normal conditions will be maintained" and that nobody need fear deportation, and if you end by declaring that the Belgian working classes are exclusively composed of loafers and drunkards, it becomes a measure of providence and wisdom for which your victims in particular, and the whole civilised world in general, ought to be deeply grateful.

The promise testifies to your good intentions and the calumny explains how you were regretfully obliged not to fulfill them. The promise keeps your victims within reach, the calumnies shift to them the responsibility for your crime. Who doubts that every town visited by a Zeppelin is fortified, that every ship sunk by a U boat carries troops or guns? The old Hun killed everything which stood in his way; the modern Hun does the same and then declares that he is the victim. The old Hun left the dead bodies of his enemies to the crows; the modern Hun throws mud at them. The old Hun tried to kill the body; the modern Hun tries to ruin the soul.

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For this last and most monstrous of all Germany's crimes we have to register not one promise only, but a series of promises, an accumulation of solemn pledges. It seemed worth while apparently to keep the Belgian workmen at home. Let us record them here, in chronological order:

1st. September 2nd, 1914. Proclamation of Governor von der Goltz posted in Brussels: "I ask no one to renounce his patriotic sentiments..."

2nd. October 18th, 1914. Letter of Baron von Huene, Military Governor of Antwerp, to Cardinal Mercier, read in every church of the province in order to reassure the people after the fall of Antwerp and to stop the emigration: "Young men need have no fear of being deported to Germany, either to be enrolled in the army or to be subjected to forced labour."

3rd. On the same day, a written declaration of the military authorities of Antwerp to General von Terwisga, commanding the Dutch army in the field, declaring without foundation "the rumour that the young men will be sent to Germany."

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. Assurances 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: Assurances given to the neutral powers after the Lille raids that such deportations would not be renewed.

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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 document to another German document and let them settle their differences as best they can.

The first trouble began in April and May, 1915, in Luttre, at the Malines arsenal, 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-à-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.)