Edmund Dane

“ All they for the moment grasped was the peril of an occupation by troops whose atrocities had been marked by a trail of burned-out villages and slaughtered peasantry. The crowds of fugitives from the country into Brussels were speedily swelled by yet even greater crowds out of the city. The roads to Ghent became thronged with refugees. Afoot and in every sort of vehicle, they fled from the on-coming Terror, the darkness relieved only by distant glares which told of villages in flames, and the fear sharpened by the sullen boom of far-off guns. ”

“ In turn they launched against the town the infantry of their African Army Corps, the not less famous Zouaves and Turcos; and that Sunday afternoon witnessed one of the most terrible bayonet fights in the history of Europe, a fight in which the little Belgian town and its environs became a hell. Amid a cannonade too appalling for description men fought through its streets until the ways were heaped with dying and dead. Charleroi was set on fire by shells, but the combat, which knew no truce, went on amid blazing buildings and collapsing walls. It was a combat of men turned devils. ”

“ Despite their heavy losses, the Germans negotiated the ditches, and though they were mowed down in hundreds by the machine guns now turned upon them, some gained the crest of the trenches. The earthworks were filled with dying and dead, but the storming parties still advanced over the bodies of their fallen comrades.
It was at this juncture that the Belgian troops received the order for a counter-assault. Rushing from the trenches en masse and in good order, they drove back the storming columns by an irresistible onset. In the pursuit, the German losses were enormous. ”

“ While infantry lined the positions on the east bank, and artillery opened a bombardment from the citadel and cliffs, the cavalry dashed across the bridge en masse, opening a way for the jaegers. In the steep streets and from behind garden walls in the new town an obstinate battle raged. It was determined by the onset of a division of French chasseurs, who drove the Germans in flight down to the margin of the river. The bridge became a mass of struggling fugitives, stumbling over fallen horses and men. To save themselves, those cut off threw themselves into the water. ”

“ Not France was the obstacle feared, but Great Britain. If we are to seek for the true reason of the anti-British spirit fostered in Germany, and certainly not discountenanced by official influence, it will be found in Great Britain standing in the way of this design. Colonies and welt-politik were the open talk of Pan-Germanism, but expansion east and west on the Continent of Europe was the definite objective of the plans so minutely prepared at Berlin; and of the costly and extensive apparatus of espionage spread like a network over Europe. ”

“ Not since the days of Attila has Western Europe been offered such a spectacle; nor has it been paralleled since the Gothic hordes rolled through the Alps on to the plain of northern Italy. The Goths were barbarians. These, their descendants, had the resources of civilisation, but applied to the same hopes and aspirations—dominion and the vision of material riches; inspired by the same belief in their own unconquerable prowess; impelled by the same conviction of their inborn right as the earth’s most valiant to possess and to rule the sunny lands held by cowards and degenerates. ”

“ On that stirring day in Brussels, which witnessed the departure of the King to join his troops at the front, the sentiment uppermost was in truth “faith in the nation’s destinies.” Great Britain had sent her ultimatum to Berlin in defence of Belgian rights. Not merely reservists called to the colours, but volunteers in multitudes were anxious to take up arms. Crowds besieged the recruiting offices. The public feeling in the Belgian capital reflected the public feeling everywhere. ”

“ This was intended to be a bayonet fight. Though the grey-green of the German uniforms was barely distinguishable in such a light, the masses betrayed themselves by their movement. They could be seen from the trenches creeping up for the last rush.
When it was made their columns flung themselves across the intervening ground, and into the ditches with reckless resolution. But the fire of the defenders was as steady as it was destructive. Notwithstanding that the deadly lightning of the machine guns swept away whole ranks, men fought their way to the parapet of the entrenchments. ”

“ Conscious of the part that Belgium has played for more than eighty years in the world’s civilisation, it refuses to believe that the independence of Belgium can be preserved only at the price of violation of her neutrality. ”

“ The Belgians have paid a high price for freedom. Ever since commerce and the arts found there their first foothold in Northern Europe, the flourishing cities and fertile fields of Belgium have been the lodestar of political adventurers and needy despoilers. They have been the sport of intrigues and royal marriages. They have been fought for by Burgundian, Spaniard, Austrian, Frenchman, Dutchman, and German. ”

“ By the Treaty of London in 1839, after the settlement of the Luxemburg question between Belgium and Holland the Guarantee was solemnly ratified. In the meantime Germany had come to believe in what Count von Moltke the elder called “the oldest of all rights, the right of the strongest.” Almost coincidently with the presentation of the Note at Brussels the German Chancellor at Berlin was, in conversation with the British Ambassador, describing the Guarantee as “a scrap of paper.” Treaties and engagements are certainly scraps of paper, just as promises are no more than breaths. ”

“ Belgium has been the cockpit of Europe, because Belgium, as a military base, has almost unrivalled advantages. Possession or occupation of Belgium—they are much the same thing—means command of its wealth of resources, and of its 3,400 or more miles of excellent main roads. Seizure of these is a great weight in the scale. A powerful army based on Belgium dominates France and more especially Paris. France could be reduced by it to a state of tutelage. ”

“ It was addressed to successful ambuscades; to fighting in open order; to rapid changes of position akin to guerilla tactics; to the defence of trenches, canals, and bridges. The Belgian soldier was asked to be resourceful and alert. If on manœuvres the army made none of the imposing show associated with mimic warfare in Germany, for the purposes it was designed to serve it was excellent. There could be no comparison, perhaps, between the parade smartness of a German and a Belgian regiment of infantry, but in essentials and for fighting on his own ground the Belgian was an easy first. ”

“ THE BELGIAN ARMY AND ITS WORK
Independently of delay, there was yet another reason for the defence of the forts at Liége which compelled the enemy to break them up. Their destruction meant that Liége as a fortress had ceased for the time to exist. For Belgium this was a heavy sacrifice. Its possible bearing, however, in the later stages of the war on a German defence of the Lower Rhine is manifest. As time goes by the trend of events makes it clear that the strategy of the Allied Powers was from the outset inspired by long views. ”

“ Belgium has ever been faithful to her international obligations; she has accomplished her duties in a spirit of loyal impartiality; she has neglected no effort to maintain her neutrality and to have it respected.
The attempt upon her independence which the German Government threatens would constitute a flagrant violation f the rights of nations. No strategic consideration justifies violation of right.
Were it to accept the propositions that have been put to it, the Belgian Government would sacrifice the honour of the nations and at the same time go back on its duties towards Europe. ”

“ To storm the forts, as had been proved, was not practicable. They had to be broken up by the shells of the huge ordnance brought along for the purpose, and mounted on massive concrete beds.
One by one the forts were broken up. They offered, however, an unyielding resistance. Their garrisons knew that they were called upon to sell their lives for the Belgian fatherland. None deserted their posts of duty. There have been many acts of heroism in this war. The defenders of the forts at Liége deserve an honoured place in the memories of an emancipated Europe. ”

“ Since the base of the army was Antwerp, where it had all its supplies and munitions, the first essential was not to be cut off from that base. An army defending its native country, and among its own people may, so far as foodstuffs are concerned, be said to be at home anywhere, but it cannot in modern warfare fight without shells and bullets, and when those it brings with it are exhausted its power as a present-day fighting force is at an end. No army can encumber itself in the field with more than the munitions it immediately needs. ”

“ In these murders the German soldiery spared neither age nor sex, and wreaked upon the most helpless their most indescribable and debased barbarities. It has been said that for every Belgian soldier killed in action, they slew three unarmed men, women, or children.
In the devastated districts the bodies of murdered peasants lay unburied in ditches by the roadside. The corpses of children, stiff in death, clung in their last attitude of terror to the corpses of their mutilated mothers. Others lay amid the roofless ruins of their homes. ”

“ What resistance could avail against such instantaneous discipline?
In truth, the discipline was rather on the side of the spectators than of the performers. A proclamation by M. Max had enjoined a scrupulous avoidance of acts of insult or violence. The injunction was implicitly obeyed. Though, like every great city, Brussels had its irresponsible elements, such was the influence and authority of its burgomaster, and the esteem in which he was justly held, that his requisition was taken by every inhabitant as a personal obligation. ”

“ No words can adequately picture the movement of an army, or rather a combination of armies, totalling nearly three-quarters of a million of men. The effect is too vast, and it might well be asked what human power could withstand such a multitude welded by an enormous labour of organisation into a machine of destruction and death. ”

“ All day the streets have been clogged and jammed with panicky fugitives fleeing from a city which, in their terrified imagination, is foredoomed. Every avenue of approach to the pontoon bridge across the Scheldt leading to St. Nicolaes has been rendered impassable by a heterogeneous mass of vehicles of every size and kind, from the millionaire’s motor-car to ramshackle gigs loaded up with the Lares and Penates of the unfortunate fugitives. ”

“ Incomplete though at this juncture the record must be, the British people may be helped by it the more fully to appreciate the sacrifices made by the Belgians for those ideals of ordered independence and freedom on which the greatness of our own Empire has been reared; ideals whose reality has been tested and not found wanting in the fiery trial of war. ”

“ Mistakes and miscalculations undoubtedly entered into the German disaster at Liége, and above all the mistake of grossly underestimating40 the quality and efficiency of the Belgian forces. That mistake was persisted in during all the attempts to storm the fortress. It cost thousands of German lives. Not certainly until this war is over will the extent of the disaster be really known. But that it was a disaster of the greatest magnitude is beyond any question.
From the merely military standpoint, the shattering of three army corps is a huge price to pay even for victory. ”

“ The Netherlands are a rich prize. Not merely their industrious and ingenious population, but their taxable capacity would make the German Empire easily the head State of Europe. If Holland has not the valuable coal and iron mines of Belgium, she has an important mercantile19 marine, and most valuable colonies, including a possession in India. The economic importance of the Netherlands to Germany, and possession of the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, is manifest. ”

“ To what an extent skilful troops may arrest the advance of a hostile force enormously greater in numbers has been many times exemplified in warfare. The Germans employed their overwhelming superiority in cavalry and machine guns with the greatest energy. They had to deal, however, with elusive yet bold and persistent enemies. In this part of Belgium, the country is perfectly flat. There are no hillocks to assist observation. Information by airmen was rendered unreliable by the rapid movements of the Belgian forces. ”

“ Each was filled to its utmost capacity with refugees who might have been sardines, so closely were they packed. In every chair round the saloon tables was a man or a woman asleep. Others were lying on the floors, on the deck, in chairs, or as they best could to seek a respite from their fatigues, a few, realising that theirs would be but a very short night—the boats were to sail at dawn so as to have as much daylight as possible with which to navigate safely the dangers of the mine-fields—preferred to walk about on the jetty discussing the while their hard fate. ”

“ In the declaration, already alluded to, issued by the Belgian Government on its removal to Antwerp the statement was made that “pursuit of the aim assigned to the Belgian troops in the general plan of campaign predominates over everything.... What is going on at our gates is not the only thing to be thought of. A strategic movement conceived with a well-defined object is not of necessity a retreat.... There is at the present time no necessity for letting ourselves be hung up. ”