Albert Rhys Williams

“ No slave ever went whipped to his task with greater loathing.
Once I saw slowly plodding back into Brussels a long gray line of soldiers; the sky, too, was gray and a gray weariness had settled down upon the spirits of these troops returning from the destruction of a village. I was standing by the roadside holding in my arms a refugee baby.
Its attention was caught by an officer on horseback and in baby fashion it began waving its hand at him. Arrested by this sudden gleam of human sunshine the stern features of the officer relaxed into a smile. ”

“ We simply help to render the heartbreaking task of reconciliation well-nigh impossible by lashing to a wilder fury the people already blinded, embittered and frenzied by their own hate. Those who, above the luxury of giving full rein to their own passions, put the welfare of the French, English, Belgians and other broken peoples of earth, will do everything in their power to eradicate this gangrene from their souls. ”

“ At the Gare du Nord a cordon of soldiers had been thrown about the station; crowds surged up against the gates, a few frantically pleading and even crying to get through. The guards, to every plea and threat returned a harsh "C'est impossible." Undaunted by the despair of others, she looked straight into the eyes of the somber gate-keeper and, with every art, told the story of Robert le Marchand, brave young officer of France; of his American girl and his deep longing for her. ”

“ The only outwardly tragic touch came from our chauffeur. When he heard the words "la mobilization" he flung down his cap, threw up his hands, bowed his head a second, then gripped his steering wheel and, for fifteen miles, drove desperately, accurately, as though his car were a winged bullet shooting straight into the face of the enemy. That fifteen-mile run from Reuilly to Paris was through a long lane of sorrow: for not to one section or class, but to all France had come the call to mobilize. Every home had been summoned to the sacrifice of its sons. ”

“ That long gray column swinging on through Liege so mesmerized me that my natural revulsion against slaughter was changed to actual admiration.
Had an officer right then thrust a musket into my hand, I could have mechanically fallen into step and fared forth to the killing of the French. Such an experience makes one chary about dispensing counsels of perfection to those fighting in the vortex of the world-storm. Whenever I begin to get shocked at the black crimes of the belligerents, my own collapse lies there to accuse me. ”

“ The tragedy of it all is that humanity must go at this crippled by a hatred like acid eating into the soul.
Villages will arise again from their ruins, the plow shall turn anew the shell-pitted fields into green meadow-lands, a kindly nature will soon obliterate the scars upon the landscape, but not the deep searings on the soul. Europe must grapple with this work of reconstruction handicapped by this black devil poisoning the mind and vitiating every effort. The worst curse bequeathed to the coming generations is not the mountain of debt but this heritage of hate. ”

“ Some war photographers wanted a picture of a spy shot. I had volunteered to play the part of a spy, and, after being blindfolded, was led over against a wall, where a Belgian squad leveled their rifles at me. I assured him that the sensation was by no means terrible; but he would not be comforted. Death itself he wouldn't mind so much, if he could have found it in the open fighting gladly for his country; but it seemed a blot on his good name to be shot for just snooping around the German lines. ”

“ But such statistics are just the unemotional symbols of misery. We can look at this colossal sum of human tragedy without being gripped one whit. If we look into the soul of one woman these figures become invested with a new and terrible meaning.
Such an opportunity was strangely given me as we stood in a long queue outside the American embassy waiting for the passports that would make our personages sacrosanct when the German raiders took the city. A perspiring line, we shuffled slowly forward, thanking God that we were not as the Europeans, but had had the good sense to be born Americans. ”

“ The prison is the real maker of democracy. I saw that clearly when, at five o'clock, joy came marching into the room. It was an officer who was its herald with the simple words, "The theater manager is free." That was a trumpet blast annihilating all rank and caste. The manager, forgetting his office and his dignity, and embracing with his right arm a peasant and with his left an artisan, danced round the room in a delirium of delight. ”

“ The great state has become the keeper of men's consciences. The dragooning of the soul goes on just the same. Only the power to do it has been transferred from the priests to the officers of the state. To compel men to kill when their whole beings cry out against it, is an atrocity upon the souls of men as real as any committed upon the bodies of the Belgians.
Amidst the wild exploits and wilder rumors of those crucial days when Belgium was the central figure in the world-war, the calmness of the natives was a source of constant wonder. ”

“ My way now wound through what was, to all purposes, one German camp, strung for miles along the Meuse. The soldiers were busy with domestic duties. Everywhere there was the cheer and rhythm of well-ordered industry in the open air. In one place thousands of loaves of black bread were being shifted from wagon to wagon. In another they were piling a yard high with mountains of grain. The air was full of the drone of a great mill, humming away at full speed, while the Belgian fields were yielding up their golden harvests to the invaders. ”

“ In another a sewing-machine of American make testified to the thrift and progressiveness of one household. In the last house as I left the village a rocking-horse with its head stuck through the open door smiled its wooden smile, as if at any rate it could keep good cheer even though the roofs might fall.
My road now wound into the open country; and I was heartily glad of it, for the hedges and the houses at Mouland provided fine coverts for prowling German foragers or for Belgians looking for revenge. Dead cows and horses and dogs with their sides ripped open by bullets lay along the wayside. ”

“ Many a peasant did not live to see his house go up in flames—his dwelling dyed by his own blood was now turned into a funeral pyre. These were the first sacrificial offerings of Belgium on the altar of her independence.
I now entered Vise, or rather what once had been the little city of Vise. It was almost completely annihilated and its three thousand inhabitants scattered. Through the mass of smoking ruins I pushed, with the paving-stones still hot beneath my feet. Quite unawares I ran full tilt into a group of soldiers, looking as ugly and dirty as the ruins amongst which they were prowling. ”

“ But he did not venture to contradict Van Hee, and he whispered hoarsely: "No, I am not a German either."
He was completely demoralized, a picture of utter desolation.
"If you are not German, or Belgian, or French, or English, what are you then?"
The poor fellow whimpered: "0 Gott! I don't know what I am."
"I'll tell you what you are. You're an American!" exclaimed Van Hee with great gusto. "That's what you are—an American! Get that? An American!"
"Ja, ja ich bin ein Amerikaner!" he eagerly cried ("Yes, yes, I am an American!") , relieved to find himself no longer a man without a country. ”

“ The free-lance interrupted to call him out for a picture before it was too dark. Gremberg took his position on the trench, his hand shading his eyes. It is the famous iron trench at Melle from which the Germans had withdrawn.
He is not looking for the enemy. If they were near, ten bullets would have brought him down in as many seconds. He is looking into the West.
And to me he is a symbol of all the soldiers of Europe, and all the women of Europe who huddle to their breasts their white-faced, sobbing children. They are all looking into the West, for there lies Hope. There lies America. ”

“ At our approach to the great Meuse bridge an officer shouted into each compartment:
"Every window closed. All cigars and pipes extinguished."
"Why?" we asked.
"The bridge is mined with explosives and a stray spark might set them off," a soldier informed us.
The first German attempt to set foot on the bridge would be the signal for sending the great structure crashing skywards.
The end of the run was Maastricht, now become a town of crucial interest. It was like a city besieged. Barricades of barbed wire and paving stones ripped from street ran everywhere. ”

“ At any moment the gray German tide might break out of Brussels and pour its turbid flood of soldiers through these very streets. Even now a Taube hovered in the sky, and from the skirmish-line an occasional ambulance rumbled in with its crimsoned load. ”

“ He might have been a spy set to worm out any confidences, and then carry them to Javert.
Left to himself, each man let his most pessimistic thoughts drag his spirits down. Gloom is contagious, and it soon became as heavy in the room as the gray clouds of smoke. The one bright, hopeful spot was the lone woman prisoner. She alone refused to succumb to the depressing atmosphere, and sought to play woman's ancient role of comforter. ”

“ We all rise to the glorification of suffering little Belgium. Whatever brief we may hold for her though, we ought not to picture even her peasant people as a mild, meek and inoffensive lot. That isn't the sort of stuff out of which her dogged and continuing resistance was wrought. That isn't the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three days of grace. ”

“ To start civilization on the upward path again, to make the world into a neighborhood anew, to achieve the moral unity of humanity, is that infinitely bigger task with which the human will is challenged. As in the last years it has relentlessly concentrated its energies upon the Great War, now through the next decades and generations it must as steadfastly hold them to the Great Reconciliation. ”

“ They were a group of young war-photographers to whom danger was a magnet. Though none of them had yet reached the age of thirty, they had seen service in all the stirring events of Europe and even around the globe. Where the clouds lowered and the seas tossed, there they flocked. Like stormy petrels they rushed to the center of the swirling world. That was their element. A free-lance, a representative of the Northcliffe press, and two movie-men comprised this little group and made an island of English amidst the general babel. ”

“ He felt so happy that he took a little collection from us, and in due time returned with some bread and chocolate and soda water. But even the soda water, as if adjusting itself to the spiritlessness of the prisoners, refused to effervesce. The music had by contrast seemed only to increase the general depression.
Only one free spirit soared above his surroundings. He was a young Belgian—Ernest de Burgher by name—a kindly light amidst the encircling gloom. He took everything in life with a smile. ”

“ With the British flag flying at the front, we sped away next morning on the road to Termonde. At Melle we came upon the blazing cottages we had seen pictured the night before. Here we encountered a roving band of Belgian soldiers who were in a free and careless mood and evinced a ready willingness to put themselves at our disposal. Under the command of the photographers, they charged across the fields with fixed bayonets, wriggled up through the grass, or, standing behind the trenches, blazed away with their guns at an imaginary enemy. They did some good acting, grim and serious as death. ”

“ It is not an unique experience. Whoever has been drawn into the center of the conflict has found himself swept by passions of whose presence and power he had never dreamed.
For example: I was a pacifist bred in the bone. Yet, caught in Paris at the outbreak of the war, my convictions underwent a rapid crumbling before the rising tide of French national feeling. The American Legion exercised a growing fascination over me. A little longer, and I might have been marching out to the music of the Marseillaise, dedicated to the killing of the Germans. ”

“ We left the Belgian Army cheering the Stars and Stripes, and came to the outpost of sharpshooters. Crouching behind a barricade, they were looking down the road. They didn't know whether the Germans were half a mile, two miles, or five miles down that road.
Into that uncertain No-Man's-Land we drove with only our honking to disturb the silence, while our minds kept growing specters of Uhlans the size of Goliath. Fletcher and I kept up a hectic conversation upon the flora and fauna of the country. But Van Hee, being of strong nerves, always gleefully brought the talk back to Uhlans. ”