Emile Cammaerts

“ They can only oppose a stout heart, a loyal spirit, and an ironic smile to the persecutions to which they are subjected. They can do nothing—they must do nothing—only hope and wait. But there are as much heroism and beauty in their black frock-coats and their soiled workmen's smocks as in the gayest and most glittering uniforms.
It is the plain matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. Many more people will be tempted to praise the glory of our soldiers. But, if the incidents of conquered Belgium's life are not recorded in good time, they might escape notice. ”

“ Quite close stands the Palace where another Belgian prince returned lately, after four years' incessant labour at the side of his soldiers amid the sodden fields of Flanders. There is a great contrast between the civilization of the eleventh and that of the twentieth century, between the Great Adventure sought by the old crusaders and the Great War forced on Western Europe, between the mystic idealism of the Middle Ages and the practical idealism of modern times. ”

“ When the seventy-fifth anniversary of Belgian Independence gave him at last the opportunity of breaking the silence imposed upon him by the Congo campaign, he uttered a supreme warning to the nation: "Let us not be overconfident in our present prosperity; let us stand closer and closer together around our flag. Nations, like human beings, have to pass through a critical age which brings about old age or premature death. Its date, for young nations, falls during the last quarter of the first century of their existence." ”

“ It is an uncanny spirit composed of wild energy and bitter-sweet irony. "First Liège, then Brussels, then Namur, now Antwerp. The King has gone, the Government has gone. If all Belgium has to go, let it go. It is the price we have to pay. The victory of our soul shall be all the greater if our body is shattered and tortured."
Henceforth, the voice of Belgium reaches us only from time to time. Its sound is muffled by the enemy's strangle-hold, which grows tighter and tighter. Before the fall of Antwerp, the German administration of General von der Goltz had merely a temporary character. ”

“ If patriotism has become a religion in Belgium, this religion has found a priest whose authority is recognised by the last unbeliever. If every church has become the "Temple de la Patrie," if the Brabançonne resounds under the Gothic arches of every nave, Cardinal Mercier has become the good shepherd who has taken charge of the flock during the King's absence. The great Brotherhood, for which so many Christian souls are yearning, in which there are no more classes, parties, and sects, seems well nigh achieved beyond the electrified barbed wire of the Belgian frontier. ”

“ If it were not for our pressing need of independence, nothing up to now justifiesPg 298 our existence. What matter to her our national soul tempered by age-long traditions! If we resist, she will put an end to our existence as a free State with a stroke of the pen. In bending before the inevitable, Belgium will save her nationality, spare the disputed districts the horrors of war, and make a sacrifice which Europe will be obliged to take into account on the day when, bearing no responsibility in the outbreak of war, the country will be able to claim her revenge! ”

“ They were ankle-deep at Liège, waist-deep at Louvain, the bog rises even to their lips to-day. In the desperate efforts which they make to free themselves they inflict fresh and worse tortures on their victims. It is as if victory could only be reached through the country's willing sacrifice. But every cry which the Germans provoke in the Belgian prison is heard throughout the world, every tear shed there fills their bitter cup, every drop of blood they shed falls back on their own heads. ”

“ She sacrificed territory, centuries of independence, long periods of prosperity, but she remained essentially one people and one land, a small people on a small land, combining the genius of two races and two languages and acting as a natural intermediary between the great nations of Europe. Her history, up to her last fight, is nothing but the struggle of a nation to assert her right to live, in spite of her weakness, in the midst of great military Powers. Unity, first constituted in the fifteenth century, is at once endangered by the rule of a foreign dynasty. ”

“ From decree to decree, from proclamation to proclamation, the last threads of the curtain of legality which remained between the victim and the tyrant have been cut one by one. Between the acts of the German administration in Belgium and those of the African slave drivers, we are now unable to discover any difference whatever. The old plague which had been the shame of Europe for more than two centuries has risen again from its ashes. It appears before us with all its hideous characteristics. People are torn from their homes and sent away to foreign lands without any hope of returning. ”

“ They must not be considered as the outcome of a crude instinct towards aggrandisement, following the military success of the Belgian army at the end of the Great War, or of a wild thirst for revenge, but merely as the outburst of irredentist feelings, nursed in silence during eighty years of neutrality, and revived, among a certain group of intellectuals, by the fierce struggle waged by the nation for the safeguard of its liberties. ”

“ There are no periods of Belgian history where intellectual and artistic production reached such a low level as under the Napoleonic régime. How could it be otherwise at a time when official patronage directed every activity towards imperial worship? In France, such worship, stimulated by brilliant victories, might have inspired some sincere manifestations, but in Belgium, where the people submitted to the French régime only as to a necessary evil, military glory could not provoke any genuine enthusiasm. ”

“ Surely if one man, one leader, has come out of this severe trial unstained, with his virtue untarnished, it is indeed Albert the First, King of the Belgians. His simple and loyal attitude in face of the German ultimatum, the indomitable courage which he showed during the Belgian campaign, his dignity, his reserve, his almost exaggerated modesty, ought to have won for him, besides the deep admiration of the Allies and of the neutral world, the respect and esteem even of his worst enemy. ”

“ Literature is perhaps nowadays the most characteristic expression of civilization, just as painting was the most striking mode of expression in the Renaissance and architecture in the Middle Ages. We have seen that, in the Netherlands, civic monuments constitute a typical feature in mediæval architecture, but, though it is important to insist on the conditions which favoured and inspired the building of belfries and cloth-halls, the important part played by churches in the Netherlands, as in France and England, must nevertheless be acknowledged. ”

“ If it be told how the new Belgian army, reorganised and re-equipped after the terrible ordeal on the Yser, is at the present moment much stronger than at the beginning of the war, how it has been able lately to extend its front in Flanders, and how some of its units have rendered valuable help to the cause of the Allies in East Africa and even in Galicia, the story sounds like a fairy tale. There is, in the history of this unequal struggle, the true ring of legendary heroism ”

“ Belgium will never be what Charlemagne made it, the nucleus of a great Empire; but, unless it remains a free factor in the history of Europe, as it was for the first time under the great emperor, conflicts between the two rivals, abruptly brought together along the same frontier, become inevitable. There is a big jump from the ninth century to the Congress of Vienna, between the glory of Aix-la-Chapelle and the establishment of Belgian neutrality ”

“ An eye-witness of the raids was telling me, a few days ago, that, on some occasions, the men in the slave trains are able to communicate with the people outside: "They shout, of course, 'Long live Belgium' and 'Long live King Albert,' but the most frequent cry, in which they seem to put their last ounce of strength, is: 'Do not sign,' which means: 'Do not sign an engagement to work in Germany, do not sign a compromise.'" And I have not the slightest doubt that, if they had heard of the German peace offers, they would still shout, "Do not sign, do not sign a German peace!" ”

“ Wandering through the most important squares and gardens of Belgian towns, the stranger will be astonished at the number of monuments raised to the great Belgians of the past and to the heroes of Belgian history. In Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and even the small provincial towns, he will find statues dedicated not only to the modern kings and statesmen, but to the leaders of the various revolts against foreign oppression, to the great artists and communal tribunes. ”

“ In spite of the most authentic documents, of the most glaring material proofs, it might be difficult to realise that the human spirit may fall so low. It seems as if we were diminishing ourselves when we accuse our enemies. We have lived so long in the faith that "such things are impossible" that, now that they happen almost at our door, we should be inclined to doubt our eyes rather than to doubt the innate goodness of man. Never did I feel this more strongly than when I saw, for the first time, a caricature of King Albert reproduced from a German newspaper. ”

“ No doubt, the resistance offered by the Belgian nobles to their foreign sovereigns might be simply represented as the direct effect of the feudal system and of the jealous pride which every vassal entertained towards his suzerain. But, if local ambitions became supreme in Europe in the tenth century, we may at least point out that, owing to the mixed characters of language and race prevailing in Belgium, and to the peculiar position occupied by Flanders and Lotharingia, nowhere were those tendencies more evident than in these distant marches of France and Germany. ”

“ The world looks on, and its burning pity, its ardent sympathy, brings warmth and comfort to the Belgian slave. There is still some light shining through the narrow window of the cell. And there is not a man worthy of the name who does not feel more resolute and more confident in final victory when he meets the haggard look of the martyred country and watches her pale, patient, and still smiling face pressed against the iron bars. ”

“ In spite of those who insist, in flattering terms, on Belgium's youth, she strongly maintains her right to old traditions and wants to keep her ancient heroes before her eyes. More or less consciously, the sculptors of these statues realized that their fathers of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages had as great a share in the making of the nation as present kings and ministers. Their sudden appearance in the midst of Belgian towns was not the result of official zeal, but the living symbol of the gratitude of new to old Belgium. ”

“ But the worst of all tortures—starvation—is not often inflicted. The idea is, I suppose, that the conversion must be sudden and striking. But Belgium's oppressors do not any longer want to convert her. They have tried and they have failed. They merely want to take all the food, all the raw materials, all the machines and—last but not least—all the labour they can out of her. Their fight is not the fight of one religion against another. It is the fight of material power against any philosophy, any religion which stands between it and the things which it covets. ”

“ Some members of the aristocracy, like Charles Joseph de Ligne, who was, besides, a remarkable writer, were in close relations with the French philosophers, but they were only a small minority and most of the Belgian nobles were decidedly hostile to the new ideas. Voltaire, who visited Brussels in 1738, did not appreciate this provincial atmosphere: "The Arts do not dwell in Brussels, neither do the Pleasures; a retired and quiet life is here the lot of nearly all, but this quiet life is so much like tedium that one may easily be mistaken for the other." ”

“ If we are unable to hold Belgium, any pro-German demonstrations in the Northern provinces may suggest the idea that it is the wish of the Flemings to be bound to the Empire and give a pretext for the annexation of Antwerp and Flanders. If even that is impossible and if we are obliged to give back his Kingdom to King Albert, we shall have sown so many germs of discontent in the country that it will be impossible for the Government to restore Belgium in her full unity and power. She will never become against us the strong bulwark of the Allies. ”

“ Not only do they rank among the most inspired religious writings of the Middle Ages, but they are the expression of a deep-rooted religious movement which animated the Flemish bourgeoisie at the time, and which had its origin in the foundation of the institution of the Béguines and the Beggards, so active and so influential during the twelfth century. This movement aimed at bringing religion closer to the common people through the work of laymen who, though deeply attached to the Church, were conscious of its limitations and of the barrier which aristocracy and privilege had built around it. ”

“ It is the same kind of double-edged declaration as that used on the occasion of the Allied air-raid on Brussels. Literally speaking, it cuts both ways. The excuse becomes a threat and the untruth savours of blackmail. Healthy minds work by single or treble propositions. If we did not remember that our aim is to analyse the beautiful and heroic side of the occupation of Belgium, rather than to dwell on its most sinister aspects, we should recognize, in this last manoeuvre, the lowest example of human brutality and hypocrisy, the double mark of the German hoof. ”

“ The fifteenth century is for Belgium what the Elizabethan period is for England and the seventeenth century for France. Not only did the territorial importance of the unified provinces reach its culminating point and the national princes play a prominent part in European politics, but, from the point of view of economic prosperity and intellectual efflorescence, Bruges, Brussels and Antwerp rivalled, at the time, the great Italian Republics of the Renaissance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no better illustration of the paramount importance of a strong and independent Belgium to the peace of Europe than the series of wars which followed each other in such rapid succession during the seventeenth century. It is true that, in nearly every instance, the new situation created in the Netherlands cannot be given as the direct cause of these various conflicts, resulting from territorial ambitions, dynastic susceptibilities and even, as in the case of the Thirty Years' War, from circumstances quite independent of those prevalent on the Meuse and the Scheldt. ”

“ It has always been the German policy to bully and to cajole almost at the same time. But the image of Germania offering, with her sweetest humanitarian smile, an olive-branch to the Allies whilst her executioners are starving thousands of Belgian slaves and clubbing them with their rifles, will stand in the memory of mankind as the climax of combined brutality and hypocrisy. ”

“ Their point of view was entirely contrary to that of the mediæval artists. For the latter, Art sprang naturally from a fervent mysticism, just as flowers spring from the soil. Its intimate faith does not need any effort, any artifices, to make itself apparent; even secondary works retain a religious value. The sacred pictures of the seventeenth century appear, in contrast, as a gigantic and wonderful piece of religious advertisement. ”

“ 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 traveller wonders, one moment, at the change, then takes up the road again, adding one further unanswered question to his load of unsolved problems. The historian evokes the terrible years of the fifth century, when the fate of Europe hung in the balance and when the surging waves of Pagan Germanism spent their last energy along that leafy barrier which saved Christianity and Roman civilization, and incidentally gave the Belgian nation its most prominent and interesting character. ”