Agent of Peace (10 page)

There was a great crowd of civilians at the station for it was Whitsun Eve and the crowd of workmen and the gala appearance of the women suggested that they were going away for a week-end holiday. Outwardly, they were bright and happy. My Baron drew back and aside as much as possible in his habitual way. It was late when we got home, tho' the endless daylight made me wholly forget the hours. The officer told me that the Belgians had greatly resented the change of time, as a German innovation – but it was enforced and those who stuck to their old time simply found that, for instance, school was well advanced before their children arrived.

We agreed to visit Charleroi next day and he left me at the door of the hotel lift. We had supped in Malines at a little station restaurant.

Whit Sunday, June 11th
This was a long day necessitating an early start. The day seemed drier. We took a tram to the station on the lower side of the town and just caught a less comfortable train, these being old Belgian rolling stock, ill-built and shaky. My Baron said the Belgians spent little on improving their railway carriages. We passed Waterloo and saw the pyramid marking the battlefield and surmounted quite safely by the metal lion, said to have been taken away by the ‘Huns'. The train crawled and we could see the whole field very clearly and the farm Houanmont etc. It was curiously under the cir
es to have the points explained to me by a countryman of Blucher – now an ‘Enemy'. Oh! the inconsistency and shifting policy of nations!

There was absolutely no destruction – that I could see, though I looked diligently for it – on both sides the line, in any of the villages or little towns that we passed in that three hours' trip. The country looked lovely, verdant and flowery and the country folk looked healthy and well-fed.

At last we reached
Charleroi
and a very ugly place it is, a coalmining straggling town with no fine buildings and no picturesque streets. It was Whit Sunday, cold and occasional showers. No cabs to be got. I found about twenty ruined houses in the street leading uphill to the left as you leave the station. Then one came to a street cutting across that along which the trams ran. We took it and in the Boulevard Rodin (I think it is called) found 2 or 300 yards where houses had been more or less wrecked. But some hours spent walking and tramming about the town revealed no more. All seemed just as ordinary. Here, as universally in Europe, children were selling false flowers for Red Cross or prisoners. At the very top of the town near the Industrial School for boys there is a ‘Place' from the surrounding wall of which one can see the town and the mines and almost the entire district. No ruin was visible. I was told but of course I could not verify that nearly 90 per cent of the normal output of coal was being produced, but whether this was or was not being used by the Germans for themselves or was going through ordinary business channels I cannot say.

There was a great to-do in the big hall of the Industrial School for an Exhibition was being held of the hand-work they had done and it was being sold also I think for the Red Cross. Sorely against his will I made my Baron come in. It was very full and he evidently feared in his uniform some insult. However I noticed no discourtesy, only he was uneasy till he had dragged me out again. There was metal work, wood-carving, pottery and all the usual ugly and useless handicrafts. A girl made me buy two metal pin trays of beaten iron like ivy leaves – (and later on my arrival in London I gave one of these to Henri Lambert the glass manufacturer of Charleroi). There was a deal of refreshments and a band. The people looked very cheerful and gay. I noticed the things I bought together with all the others were tied up with Belgian colours – at least my Baron pointed it out to me, remarking that it was against rules and ought not to be allowed. Afterwards we walked through the park and wound by another road back to the Centre where, as it grew late, we got some supper and then walked about again until the train was due. At this time the people poured into the streets for their Sunday outing and they looked I must own happy and cheerful. Doubtless the other side was not to be seen. Obviously it is a well-to-do town. We searched along the banks of the River Sambre for rumoured destruction but were unable to find any.

It was late when we reached Brussels – twilight – that is to say about 10.30 p.m. To me the day had been fairly interesting but my poor Baron was obviously bored to death. And if I had but been allowed to talk to the people how very interesting it would have been.

We travelled with many officers – handsome and singularly serious looking men. I had expected the ‘Junker', much abused man, to be very different and to be very repulsive to me personally – but on the contrary they were very calm cultivated serious dignified looking men, fully conscious of the awfulness of their destiny on the Western Front and of their work. I shall never forget one of them – a young dragoon, I called him Siegfried – and I have never certainly seen so perfect a human specimen. Naturally too, the grace and beauty of the dragoon's uniform, with its long pale blue cloak helped to increase the splendour of his appearance. Tall, slender, well-built, very fair with deep blue serious eyes that looked only at far away things – and perfectly moulded features he riveted my attention and I could not take my eyes off him. All German officers when they come into each other's company bow with dignity to each other when total strangers, and sometimes also introduce themselves by giving their surnames. Backwards and forwards officers were going daily from Berlin to Lille and Lille to Berlin, but mostly towards Lille. Four expresses every day were running from Lille to Berlin with restaurant cars and doing the journey in eighteen hours to the minute. The Germans are working breathlessly without pause or stay.

Whit Monday, June 12th
Baron von [der] Lancken had returned from Berlin and in the early morning I was taken to see him (my notebook will shew, but I feel sure it was this Monday morning). He kindly came downstairs to see me and we talked in the beautiful Empire Reception room where earlier I had seen Count Harrach. He seemed tired and worried. I laid before him my great desire to go to Berlin and Ruhleben Camp, the more so that the unexpectedly strict character of the regulations binding me in Belgium had made my work of a very limited, almost useless character. He promised to do his best and to wire at once.

It was not until later that I learnt from my Baron that the military authorities in Belgium were not aware of my presence and obviously the Political Department felt nervous lest it should be discovered and not approved. Nevertheless they constantly referred to General v. Bissing as a ‘very fine man'. Both in Belgium and Berlin I found wide divergence of opinion between the Military and Civil Departments. The ‘War Office' always undoing the good and pacifying attempts of the Civil Departments. Baron von [der] Lancken was very pessimistic, he evidently felt very keenly the lying Campaign against Germany.

We started for
Louvain
– as usual in the rain, but when we got there it lifted a bit. We lunched in the train and so were prepared for a long afternoon. The Commandant of the town met us at the Station. Captain Kreuter (?notebook) a most charming and handsome young man of about 30. He wore a long and ample dark green cloak. We were introduced and he inquired what language he should speak running over a list for choice. I laughed and said ‘English'. ‘Ah! Then you are an American.' ‘No', I said ‘English'. He gave a start of surprise and bowed. I said ‘It is a secret, please guard it'. ‘With my life', he said gallantly and we walked off together. Outside he had a trap and horse ready for me. First however, he took me to the centre of the Station Square and described to me the events of the night of August 24 or 25. The Station Square is large and wide and all the houses that surround it are wrecked. They were chiefly small restaurant Inns. Louvain has two other large Squares, viz the Old Market and the Place de Peuples. The Germans assert that they had been in the town since the 19th, that the town was perfectly quiet and that notices had been affixed saying that if the people kept quiet nothing would happen to them, and that their men were bivouacked in the three Squares and their bayonets stacked. Suddenly a rocket was fired in the early evening and at that signal the German soldiery were fired upon from the houses, roofs and cellars of these three Squares. In the Station Square the fighting was fierce, the soldiers retaliating upon their unseen foe and setting fire to the houses in order to get them out. The fighting continued up the Station Street nearly the whole of which is ruined, only walls remaining. In the Place de Peuples the attack was less severe for only a part of the houses are ruined and those are scattered in and out amongst other houses quite untouched. Moreover the adjacent streets are unimpaired. The affair in the Old Market was more serious for the end wall of the famous Library comes down to the Square. Beneath it in a
rez de chaussée
, are always kept the piled up heap of tents and canvas booths belonging to the market. The evening was dry with a light breeze and by reason of the fighting and firing these canvasses caught fire and burnt like timber. The Library above was soon in flames. German soldiers turned round with Belgian citizens to extinguish the flames and helped work the town pump. The Library was broken into, to find the fire extinguishers, but actually that valuable building contained none, nor was any custodian to be found. The books caught quickly and nothing could be done. The building is gutted and only the walls and gable remain today. The greater part of the Old Market is untouched only (as in the Place de Peuples) some of the houses are wrecked. Unfortunately as the flames streamed into the sky the wind blew the sparks across to the roof of the Cathedral which also caught. The German officer, Capt Manteuffel, ordered a few houses adjacent to be blown up with dynamite to prevent the fire spreading to the Hotel de Ville and that unique building stands unharmed and untouched. Manteuffel himself rescued the painting, one of great value which hung in the Cathedral of St Pierre and carrying it out had it placed in the Volksbank where it is to this day. The fire was got under control, only the roof and Carillon being burnt, and the heat melting the leaded panes the old glass fell down and was smashed. Already
it is freshly roofed and the nave (still smelling of fire) boarded off while Service is held in the Choir and transepts. Here I watched with deepest emotion German soldiers and Belgian Citizens kneeling side by side at prayer. I gathered some relics of glass and molten lead.

All this and much else was told me by the young Commandant who had been trained in London in the School of Economics. Some day witnesses of the two sides will face each other and the truth be it what it may, will be established. Two things struck me – one, that the story coincided with the description of the event as given to Eleanor Hobhouse by a young fellow of 17, a violinist of Louvain; the second that the position of the destroyed houses etc. fitted in exactly with the facts as related.

But for a few hours there must have been a wild scene in that quiet little Cathedral town, that lovely August evening.

As we stood in the Station Square, the officer told me that all the civilians caught with arms actually in their hands (and the arms were many and various) were arrested and court-martialled then, I think, one in every three, twenty-seven in all, were marched to that very spot and shot – and there buried. He added that he had had the bodies exhumed and given a ‘beautiful burial' elsewhere. He was very sympathetic that young man. Further he told me that Louvain was a town of 44,000 inhabitants and 38,000 were living quietly there today. Perhaps an eighth of the town was destroyed – but as we drove about it seemed to me that was a very large estimate. Other fine churches in the town and all the other University buildings were unharmed. The exaggeration has been great. Only on the further side of the station a small suburb called Kesseloo is ruined – for the Belgian army making a sortie from Antwerp met the invaders there and they fought.

It was not allowed to buy or take photographs, but Capt Kreuter very kindly gave me a book of views as some aid to my memory. Cathedrals seen daily get dreadfully mixed. The respectable working classes of Louvain are suffering from the cessation of business and must perforce receive food from the Comité National.

I was taken to see Baroness Emmingen [? spelling] a German lady who, with helpers, has come to Louvain to do good to the people. They supplement the relief of the Comité National, by providing paid occupation, giving medical and other relief and by training children and girls. This lady's house and dispensary was shown to me and she kindly gave me a cup of tea for we were perished with cold and damp. Herr Kreuter had driven me all round and about and up to a high point whence I could see the whole town spread out before me. Of the 6,000 who fled, a good number of them are men under arms. He told me that in the country districts the peasantry had for the most part repaired their houses – broken often only in parts and that to date 1,600 had been so repaired in the Arrondissement [District] for which he was responsible.