The bombardment of Antwerp began about
ten o’clock on the evening of Wednesday, October
7. The first shell to fall within the city struck
a house in the Berchem district, killing a fourteen-year-old
boy and wounding his mother and little sister.
The second decapitated a street-sweeper as he was
running for shelter. Throughout the night the
rain of death continued without cessation, the shells
falling at the rate of four or five a minute.
The streets of the city were as deserted as those
of Pompeii. The few people who remained, either
because they were willing to take their chances or
because they had no means of getting away, were cowering
in their cellars. Though the gas and electric
lights were out, the sky was rosy from the reflection
of the petrol-tanks which the Belgians had set on
fire; now and then a shell would burst with the intensity
of magnesium, and the quivering beams of two searchlights
on the forts across the river still further lit up
the ghastly scene. The noise was deafening.
The buildings seemed to rock and sway. The very
pavements trembled. Mere words are inadequate
to give a conception of the horror of it all.
There would come the hungry whine of a shell passing
low over the house-tops, followed, an instant later,
by a shattering crash, and the whole façade of the
building that had been struck would topple into the
street in a cascade of brick and stone and plaster.
It was not until Thursday night, however, that the
Germans brought their famous forty-two-centimetre
guns into action. The effect of these monster
cannon was appalling. So tremendous was the detonation
that it sounded as though the German batteries were
firing salvoes. The projectiles they were now
raining upon the city weighed a ton apiece and had
the destructive properties of that much nitroglycerine.
We could hear them as they came. They made a
roar in the air which sounded at first like an approaching
express train, but which rapidly rose in volume until
the atmosphere quivered with the howl of a cyclone.
Then would come an explosion which jarred the city
to its very foundations.
Over the shivering earth rolled great
clouds of dust and smoke. When one of these terrible
projectiles struck a building it did not merely tear
away the upper stories or blow a gaping aperture in
its walls: the whole building crumbled, disintegrated,
collapsed, as though flattened by a mighty hand.
When they exploded in the open street they not only
tore a hole in the pavement the size of a cottage
cellar, but they sliced away the façades of all the
houses in the immediate vicinity, leaving their interiors
exposed, like the interiors upon a stage. Compared
with the “forty-twos” the shell and shrapnel
fire of the first night’s bombardment was insignificant
and harmless. The thickest masonry was crumpled
up like so much cardboard. The stoutest cellars
were no protection if a shell struck above them.
It seemed as though at times the whole city was coming
down about our ears. Before the bombardment had
been in progress a dozen hours there was scarcely
a street in the southern quarter of the city
save only the district occupied by wealthy Germans,
whose houses remained untouched which was
not obstructed by heaps of fallen masonry. The
main thoroughfares were strewn with fallen electric
light and trolley wires and shattered poles and branches
lopped from trees. The sidewalks were carpeted
with broken glass. The air was heavy with the
acrid fumes of smoke and powder. Abandoned dogs
howled mournfully before the doors of their deserted
homes. From a dozen quarters of the city columns
of smoke by day and pillars of fire by night rose
against the sky.
Owing to circumstances fortunate
or unfortunate, as one chooses to view them I
was not in Antwerp during the first night’s
bombardment. You must understand that a war correspondent,
no matter how many thrilling and interesting things
he may be able to witness, is valueless to the paper
which employs him unless he is able to get to the
end of a telegraph wire and tell the readers of that
newspaper what is happening. In other words, he
must not only gather the news but he must deliver
it. Otherwise his usefulness ceases. When,
therefore, on Wednesday morning, the telegraph service
from Antwerp abruptly ended, all trains and boats stopped
running, and the city was completely cut off from communication
with the outside world, I left in my car for Ghent,
where the telegraph was still in operation, to file
my dispatches. So dense was the mass of retreating
soldiery and fugitive civilians which blocked the
approaches to the pontoon-bridge, that it took me four
hours to get across the Scheldt, and another four
hours, owing to the slow driving necessitated by the
terribly congested roads, to cover the forty miles
to Ghent. I had sent my dispatches, had had a
hasty dinner, and was on the point of starting back
to Antwerp, when Mr. Johnson, the American Consul
at Ostend, called me up by telephone. He told
me that the Minister of War, then at Ostend, had just
sent him a package containing the keys of buildings
and dwellings belonging to German residents of Antwerp
who had been expelled at the beginning of the war,
with the request that they be transmitted to the German
commander immediately the German troops entered the
city, as it was feared that, were these places found
to be locked, it might lead to the doors being broken
open and thus give the Germans a pretext for sacking.
Mr. Johnson asked me if I would remain in Ghent until
he could come through in his car with the keys and
if I would assume the responsibility of seeing that
the keys reached the German commander. I explained
to Mr. Johnson that it was imperative that I should
return to Antwerp immediately; but when he insisted
that, under the circumstances, it was clearly my duty
to take the keys through to Antwerp, I promised to
await his arrival, although by so doing I felt that
I was imperilling the interests of the newspaper which
was employing me. Owing to the congested condition
of the roads Mr. Johnson was unable to reach Ghent
until Thursday morning.
By this time the highroad between
Ghent and Antwerp was utterly impassable one
might as well have tried to paddle a canoe up the
rapids at Niagara as to drive a car against the current
of that river of terrified humanity so,
taking advantage of comparatively empty by-roads,
I succeeded in reaching Doel, a fishing village on
the Scheldt a dozen miles below Antwerp, by noon on
Thursday.
By means of alternate bribes and threats,
Roos, my driver, persuaded a boatman to take us up
to Antwerp in a small motor-launch over which, as
a measure of precaution, I raised an American flag.
As long as memory lasts there will remain with me,
sharp and clear, the recollection of that journey up
the Scheldt, the surface of which was literally black
with vessels with their loads of silent misery.
It was well into the afternoon and the second day’s
bombardment was at its height when we rounded the final
bend in the river and the lace-like tower of the cathedral
rose before us. Shells were exploding every few
seconds, columns of grey-green smoke rose skyward,
the air reverberated as though to a continuous peal
of thunder. As we ran alongside the deserted quays
a shell burst with a terrific crash in a street close
by, and our boatman, panic-stricken, suddenly reversed
his engine and backed into the middle of the river.
Roos drew his pistol.
“Go ahead!” he commanded.
“Run up to the quay so that we can land.”
Before the grim menace of the automatic the man sullenly
obeyed.
“I’ve a wife and family
at Doel,” he muttered. “If I’m
killed there’ll be no one to look after them.”
“I’ve a wife and family
in America,” I retorted. “You’re
taking no more chances than I am.”
I am not in the least ashamed to admit,
however, that as we ran alongside the Red Star quays the
American flag was floating above them, by the way I
would quite willingly have given everything I possessed
to have been back on Broadway again. A great city
which has suddenly been deserted by its population
is inconceivably depressing. Add to this the
fact that every few seconds a shell would burst somewhere
behind the row of buildings that screened the waterfront,
and that occasionally one would clear the house-tops
altogether and, moaning over our heads, would drop
into the river and send up a great geyser, and you
will understand that Antwerp was not exactly a cheerful
place in which to land. There was not a soul
to be seen anywhere. Such of the inhabitants as
remained had taken refuge in their cellars, and just
at that time a deep cellar would have looked extremely
good to me. On the other hand, as I argued with
myself there was really an exceedingly small chance
of a shell exploding on the particular spot where
I happened to be standing, and if it did well,
it seemed more dignified, somehow, to be killed in
the open than to be crushed to death in a cellar like
a cornered rat.
About ten o’clock in the evening
the bombardment slackened for a time and the inhabitants
of Antwerp’s underworld began to creep out of
their subterranean hiding-places and slink like ghosts
along the quays in search of food. The great
quantities of food-stuffs and other provisions which
had been taken from the captured German vessels at
the beginning of the war had been stored in hastily-constructed
warehouses upon the quays, and it was not long before
the rabble, undeterred by the fear of the police and
willing to chance the shells, had broken in the doors
and were looting to their hearts’ content.
As a man staggered past under a load of wine bottles,
tinned goods and cheeses, our boatman, who by this
time had become reconciled to sticking by us, inquired
wistfully if he might do a little looting too.
“We’ve no food left down the river,”
he urged, “and I might just as well get some
of those provisions for my family as to let the Germans
take them.” Upon my assenting he disappeared
into the darkness of the warehouse with a hand-truck.
He was not the sort who did his looting by retail,
was that boatman.
By midnight Roos and I were shivering
as though with ague, for the night had turned cold,
we had no coats, and we had been without food since
leaving Ghent that morning. “I’m going
to do a little looting on my own account.”
I finally announced. “I’m half frozen
and almost starved and I’m not going to stand
around here while there’s plenty to eat and
drink over in that warehouse.” I groped
my way through the blackness to the doorway and entering,
struck a match. By its flickering light I saw
a case filled with bottles in straw casings.
From their shape they looked to be bottles of champagne.
I reached for one eagerly, but just as my fingers
closed about it a shell burst overhead. At least
the crash was so terrific that it seemed as though
it had burst overhead, though I learned afterward that
it had exploded nearly a hundred yards away.
I ran for my life, clinging, however, to the bottle.
“At any rate, I’ve found something to drink,”
I said to Roos exultantly, when my heart had ceased
its pounding. Slipping off the straw cover I
struck a match to see the result of my maiden attempt
at looting. I didn’t particularly care whether
it was wine or brandy. Either would have tasted
good. It was neither. It was a bottle of
pepsin bitters!
At daybreak we started at full speed
down the river for Doel, where we had left the car,
as it was imperative that I should get to the end
of a telegraph wire, file my dispatches, and get back
to the city. They told me at Doel that the nearest
telegraph office was at a little place called L’Ecluse,
on the Dutch frontier, ten miles away. We were
assured that there was a good road all the way and
that we could get there and back in an hour.
So we could have in ordinary times, but these were
extraordinary times and the Belgians, in order to
make things as unpleasant as possible for the Germans,
had opened the dykes and had begun to inundate the
country. When we were about half-way to L’Ecluse,
therefore, we found our way barred by a miniature
river and no means of crossing it. It was in such
circumstances that Roos was invaluable. Collecting
a force of peasants, he set them to work chopping
down trees and with these trees we built a bridge
sufficiently strong to support the weight of the car.
Thus we came into L’Ecluse.
But when the stolid Dutchman in charge
of the telegraph office saw my dispatches he shrugged
his shoulders discouragingly. “It is not
possible to send them from here,” he explained.
“We have no instrument here but have to telephone
everything to Hulst, eight miles away. As I do
not understand English it would be impossible to telephone
your dispatches.” There seemed nothing for
it but to walk to Hulst and back again, for the Dutch
officials refused to permit me to take the car, which
was a military one, across the frontier. Just
at that moment a young Belgian priest Heaven
bless him! who had overheard the discussion,
approached me. “If you will permit me,
monsieur,” said he, “I will be glad to
take your dispatches through to Hulst myself.
I understand their importance. And it is well
that the people in England and in America should learn
what is happening here in Belgium and how bitterly
we need their aid.” Those dispatches were,
I believe, the only ones to come out of Antwerp during
the bombardment. The fact that the newspaper readers
in London and New York and San Francisco were enabled
to learn within a few hours of what had happened in
the great city on the Scheldt was due, not to any
efforts of mine, but to this little Belgian priest.
But when we got back to Doel the launch
was gone. The boatman, evidently not relishing
another taste of bombardment, had decamped, taking
his launch with him. And neither offers of money
nor threats nor pleadings could obtain me another one.
For a time it looked as though getting back to Antwerp
was as hopeless as getting to the moon. Just
as I was on the point of giving up in despair, Roos
appeared with a gold-laced official whom he introduced
as the chief quarantine officer. “He is
going to let you take the quarantine launch,”
said he. I don’t know just what arguments
Roos had brought to bear, and I was careful not to
inquire, but ten minutes later I was sitting in lonely
state on the after-deck of a trim black yacht and
we were streaking it up the river at twenty miles
an hour. As I knew that the fall of the city was
only a matter of hours, I refused to let Roos accompany
me and take the chances of being made a prisoner by
the Germans, but ordered him instead to take the car,
while there was yet time, and make his way to Ostend.
I never saw him again. By way of precaution, in
case the Germans should already be in possession of
the city, I had taken the two American flags from
the car and hoisted them on the launch, one from the
mainmast and the other at the taffrail. It was
a certain satisfaction to know that the only craft
that went the wrong way of the river during the bombardment
flew the Stars and Stripes. As we came within
sight of the quays, the bombardment, which had become
intermittent, suddenly broke out afresh and I was
compelled to use both bribes and threats the
latter backed up by a revolver to induce
the crew of the launch to run in and land me at the
quay. An hour after I landed the city surrendered.
The withdrawal of the garrison from
Antwerp began on Thursday and, everything considered,
was carried out in excellent order, the troops being
recalled in units from the outer line, marched through
the city and across the pontoon-bridge which spans
the Scheldt and thence down the road to St. Nicolas
to join the retreating field army. What was implied
in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy
will be appreciated when I explain the conditions which
existed. In places the lines were not two hundred
yards apart and for the defenders no movement was
possible during the daylight. Many of the men
in the firing-line had been on duty for nearly a hundred
hours and were utterly worn out both mentally and
physically. Such water and food as they had were
sent to them at night, for any attempt to cross the
open spaces in the daytime the Germans met with fierce
bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. The evacuation
of the trenches was, therefore, a most difficult and
dangerous operation and that it was carried out with
so comparatively small loss speaks volumes for the
ability of the officers to whom the direction of the
movement was entrusted, as does the successful accomplishment
of the retreat from Antwerp into West Flanders along
a road which was not only crowded with refugees but
was constantly threatened by the enemy. The chief
danger was, of course, that the Germans would cross
the river at Termonde in force and thus cut off the
line of retreat towards the coast, forcing the whole
Belgian army and the British contingent across the
frontier of Holland. To the Belgian cavalry and
carabineer cyclists and to the armoured cars was given
the task of averting this catastrophe, and it is due
to them that the Germans were held back for a sufficient
time to enable practically the whole of the forces
evacuating Antwerp to escape. That a large proportion
of the British Naval Reserve divisions were pushed
across the frontier and interned was not due to any
fault of the Belgians, but, in some cases at least,
to their officer’s misconception of the attitude
of Holland. Just as I was leaving Doel on my
second trip up the river, a steamer loaded to the
guards with British naval reservists swung in to the
wharf, but, to my surprise, the men did not start to
disembark. Upon inquiring of some one where they
were bound for I was told that they were going to
continue down the Scheldt to Terneuzen. Thereupon
I ordered the launch to run alongside and clambered
aboard the steamer.
“I understand,” said I,
addressing a group of officers who seemed to be as
much in authority as anyone, “that you are keeping
on down the river to Terneuzen? That is not true,
is it?”
They looked at me as though I had
walked into their club in Pall Mall and had spoken
to them without an introduction.
“It is,” said one of them coldly.
“What about it?”
“Oh, nothing much,” said
I, “except that three miles down this river
you’ll be in Dutch territorial waters, whereupon
you will all be arrested and held as prisoners until
the end of the war. It’s really none of
my business, I know, but I feel that I ought to warn
you.”
“How very extraordinary,”
remarked one of them, screwing a monocle into his
eye. “We’re not at war with Holland
are we? So why should the bally Dutchmen want
to trouble us?”
There was no use arguing with them,
so I dropped down the ladder into the launch and gave
the signal for full steam ahead. As I looked
back I saw the steamer cast off from the wharf and,
swinging slowly out into the river, point her nose
down-stream toward Holland.
On Friday morning, October 9, General
de Guise, the military governor of Antwerp, ordered
the destruction of the pontoon-bridge across the Scheldt,
which was now the sole avenue of retreat from the
city. The mines which were exploded beneath it
did more damage to the buildings along the waterfront
than to the bridge, however, only the middle spans
of which were destroyed. When the last of the
retreating Belgians came pouring down to the waterfront
a few hours later to find their only avenue of escape
gone, for a time scenes of the wildest confusion ensued,
the men frantically crowding aboard such vessels as
remained at the wharves or opening fire on those which
were already in midstream and refused to return in
answer to their summons. I wish to emphasise the
fact, however, that these were but isolated incidents;
that these men were exhausted in mind and body from
many days of fighting against hopeless odds; and that,
as a whole, the Belgian troops bore themselves, in
this desperate and trying situation, with a courage
and coolness deserving of the highest admiration.
I have heard it said in England that the British Naval
Division was sent to Antwerp “to stiffen the
Belgians.” That may have been the intention,
the coming of the English certainly relieved some and
comforted others in the trenches. But in truth
the Belgians needed no stiffening. They did everything
that any other troops could have done under the same
circumstances and more. Nor did the
men of the Naval Division, as has been frequently
asserted in England, cover the Belgian retreat.
The last troops to leave the trenches were Belgians,
the last shots were fired by Belgians, and the Belgians
were the last to cross the river.
At noon on Friday General de Guise
and his staff having taken refuge in Fort St. Philippe,
a few miles below Antwerp on the Scheldt, the officer
in command of the last line of defence sent word to
the burgomaster that his troops could hold out but
a short time longer and suggested that the time had
arrived for him to go out to the German lines under
a flag of truce and secure the best terms possible
for the city. As the burgomaster, M. de Vos, accompanied
by Deputy Louis Franck, Communal Councillor Ryckmans
and the Spanish Consul (it was expected that the American
Consul-General would be one of the parlementaires,
but it was learned that he had left the day before
for Ghent) went out of the city by one gate, half a
dozen motor-cars filled with German soldiers entered
through the Porte de Malines, sped down the broad,
tree-shaded boulevards which lead to the centre of
the city, and drew up before the Hotel de Ville.
In answer to the summons of a young officer in a voluminous
grey cloak the door was cautiously opened by a servant
in the blue-and-silver livery of the municipality.
“I have a message to deliver
to the members of the Communal Council,” said
the officer politely.
“The councillors are at dinner
and cannot be disturbed,” was the firm reply.
“But if monsieur desires he can sit down and
wait for them.” So the young officer patiently
seated himself on a wooden bench while his men ranged
themselves along one side of the hall. After
a delay of perhaps twenty minutes the door of the dining-room
opened and a councillor appeared, wiping his moustache.
“I understand that you have
a message for the Council. Well, what is it?”
he demanded pompously.
The young officer clicked his heels
together and bowed from the waist.
“The message I am instructed
to give you, sir,” he said politely, “is
that Antwerp is now a German city. You are requested
by the general commanding his Imperial Majesty’s
forces so to inform your townspeople and to assure
them that they will not be molested so long as they
display no hostility towards our troops.”
While this dramatic little scene was
being enacted in the historic setting of the Hotel
de Ville, the burgomaster, unaware that the enemy
was already within the city gates, was conferring with
the German commander, who informed him that if the
outlying forts were immediately surrendered no money
indemnity would be demanded from the city, though
all merchandise found in its warehouses would be confiscated.
The first troops to enter were a few
score cyclists, who advanced cautiously from street
to street and from square to square until they formed
a network of scouts extending over the entire city.
After them, at the quick-step, came a brigade of infantry
and hard on the heels of the infantry clattered half
a dozen batteries of horse artillery. These passed
through the city to the waterfront at a spanking trot,
unlimbered on the quays and opened fire with shrapnel
on the retreating Belgians, who had already reached
the opposite side of the river. Meanwhile a company
of infantry started at the double across the pontoon-bridge,
evidently unaware that its middle spans had been destroyed.
Without an instant’s hesitation two soldiers
threw off their knapsacks, plunged into the river,
swam across the gap, clambered up on to the other
portion of the bridge and, in spite of a heavy fire
from the fort at the Tete de Flandre, dashed forward
to reconnoitre. That is the sort of deed that
wins the Iron Cross. Within little more than
an hour after reaching the waterfront the Germans
had brought up their engineers, the bridge had been
repaired, the fire from Fort St. Anne had been silenced,
and their troops were pouring across the river in
a steady stream in pursuit of the Belgians. The
grumble of field-guns, which continued throughout
the night, told us that they had overtaken the Belgian
rearguard.
Though the bombardment ended early
on Friday afternoon, Friday night was by no means
lacking in horrors, for early in the evening fires,
which owed their origin to shells, broke out in a dozen
parts of the city. The most serious one by far
was in the narrow, winding thoroughfare known as the
Marche aux Souliers, which runs from the Place
Verte to the Place de Meir. By eight o’clock
the entire western side of this street was a sheet
of flame. The only spectators were groups of
German soldiers, who watched the threatened destruction
of the city with complete indifference, and several
companies of firemen who had turned out, I suppose,
from force of training, but who stood helplessly beside
their empty hose lines, for there was no water.
I firmly believe that the saving of a large part of
Antwerp, including the cathedral, was due to an American
resident, Mr. Charles Whithoff, who, recognizing the
extreme peril in which the city stood, hurried to
the Hotel de Ville and suggested to the German military
authorities that they should prevent the spread of
flames by dynamiting the adjacent buildings. Acting
promptly on this suggestion, a telephone message was
sent to Brussels, and four hours later several automobiles
loaded with hand grenades came tearing into Antwerp.
A squad of soldiers was placed under Mr. Whithoff’s
orders and, following his directions, they blew up
a cordon of buildings and effectually isolated the
flames. I shall not soon forget the figure of
this young American, in bedroom slippers and smoking
jacket, coolly instructing German soldiers in the most
approved methods of fire fighting. Nearly a week
before the surrender of the city, the municipal waterworks,
near Lierre, had been destroyed by shells from
the German siege guns, so that when the Germans entered
the city the sanitary conditions had become intolerable
and an epidemic was impending. So scarce did
water become during the last few days of the siege
that when, on the evening of the surrender, I succeeded
in obtaining a bottle of Apollinaris I debated with
myself whether I should use it for washing or drinking.
I finally compromised by drinking part of it and washing
in the rest.
The Germans were by no means blind
to the peril of an epidemic, and, before they had
been three hours in occupation of the city their medical
corps was at work cleaning and disinfecting. Every
contingency, in fact, seemed to have been anticipated
and provided for. Every phase of the occupation
was characterized by the German passion for method
and order. The machinery of the municipal health
department was promptly set in motion. The police
were ordered to take up their duties as though no change
in government had occurred. The train service
to Brussels, Holland and Germany restored. Stamps
surcharged “Fur Belgien” were
put on sale at the post office. The electric
lighting system was repaired and on Saturday night,
for the first time since the Zeppelin’s memorable
visit the latter part of August, Antwerp was again
ablaze with light. When, immediately after the
occupation, I hurried to the American Consulate with
the package of keys which I had brought from Ghent,
I was somewhat surprised, to put it mildly, to find
the consulate closed and to learn from the concierge,
who, with his wife, had remained in the building throughout
the bombardment, that Consul-General Diederich and
his entire staff had left the city on Thursday morning.
I was particularly surprised because
I knew that, upon the departure of the British Consul-General,
Sir Cecil Hertslet, some days before, the enormous
British interests in Antwerp had been confided to
American protection. The concierge, who knew me
and seemed decidedly relieved to see me, made no objection
to opening the consulate and letting me in. While
deliberating as to the best method of transmitting
the keys which had been entrusted to me to the German
military governor without informing him of the embarrassing
fact that the American and British interests in the
city were without official representation, those Americans
and British who had remained in the city during the
bombardment began to drop in. Some of them were
frightened and all of them were plainly worried, the
women in particular, among whom were several British
Red Cross nurses, seeming fearful that the soldiers
might get out of hand. As there was no one else
to look after these people, and as I had formerly
been in the consular service myself, and as they said
quite frankly that they would feel relieved if I took
charge of things, I decided to “sit on the lid,”
as it were, until the Consul-General’s return.
In assuming charge of British and American affairs
in Antwerp, at the request and with the approval what
remained of the Anglo-American colony in that city,
I am quite aware that I acted in a manner calculated
to scandalize those gentlemen who have been steeped
in the ethics of diplomacy. As one youth attached
to the American Embassy in London remarked, it was
“the damndest piece of impertinence” of
which he had ever heard. But he is quite a young
gentleman, and has doubtless had more experience in
ballrooms than in bombarded cities. I immediately
wrote a brief note to the German commander transmitting
the keys and informing him that, in the absence of
the American Consul-General I had assumed charge of
American and British interests in Antwerp, and expected
the fullest protection for them, to which I received
a prompt and courteous reply assuring me that foreigners
would not be molested in any way. In the absence
of the consular staff, Thompson volunteered to act
as messenger and deliver my message to the German
commander. While on his way to the Hotel de Ville,
which was being used as staff headquarters, a German
infantry regiment passed him in a narrow street.
Because he failed to remove his hat to the colours
a German officer struck him twice with the flat of
his sword, only desisting when Thompson pulled a silk
American flag from his pocket. Upon learning
of this occurrence I vigorously protested to the military
authorities, who offered profuse apologies for the
incident and assured me that the officer would be punished
if Thompson could identify him. Consul-General
Diederich returned to Antwerp on Monday and I left
the same day for the nearest telegraph station in
Holland.
The whole proceeding was irregular
and unauthorized, of course, but for that matter so
was the German invasion of Belgium. In any event,
it seemed the thing to do and I did it, and, under
the same circumstances I should do precisely the same
thing over again.
Though a very large force of German
troops passed through Antwerp during the whole of
Friday night in pursuit of the retreating Belgians,
the triumphal entry of the victors did not begin until
Saturday afternoon, when sixty thousand men passed
in review before the military governor, Admiral von
Schroeder, and General von Beseler, who, surrounded
by a glittering staff, sat their horses in front of
the royal palace. So far as onlookers were concerned,
the Germans might as well have marched through the
streets of ruined Babylon. Thompson and I, standing
in the windows of the American Consulate, were the
only spectators in the entire length of the mile-long
Place de Meir which is the Piccadilly of
Antwerp of the great military pageant.
The streets were absolutely deserted; every building
was dark, every window shuttered; in a thoroughfare
which had blossomed with bunting a few days before,
not a flag was to be seen. I think that even
the Germans were a little awed by the deathly silence
that greeted them. As Thompson drily remarked,
“It reminds me of a circus that’s come
to town the day before it’s expected.”
For five hours that mighty host poured
through the canons of brick and stone:
Above the bugle’s din,
Sweating beneath their haversacks,
With rifles bristling on their backs,
The dusty men trooped in.
Company after company, regiment after
regiment, brigade after brigade swept by until our
eyes grew weary with watching the ranks of grey under
the slanting lines of steel. As they marched they
sang, the high buildings along the Place de Meir and
the Avenue de Keyser echoing to their voices thundering
out “Die Wacht Am Rhein,” “Deutschland,
Deutschland Uber Alles” and “Ein Feste
Burg ist Unser Gott.”
Though the singing was mechanical, like the faces
of the men who sang, the mighty volume of sound, punctuated
at regular intervals by the shrill music of the fifes
and the rattle of the drums, and accompanied always
by the tramp, tramp, tramp of iron-shod boots, was
one of the most impressive things that I have ever
heard. Each regiment was headed by its field music
and colours, and when darkness fell and the street
lights were turned on, the shriek of the fifes and
the clamour of the drums and the rhythmic tramp of
marching feet reminded me of a torchlight political
parade at home.
At the head of the column rode a squadron
of gendarmes the policemen of the
army gorgeous in uniforms of bottle-green
and silver and mounted on sleek and shining horses.
After them came the infantry: solid columns of
grey-clad figures with the silhouettes of the mounted
officers rising at intervals above the forest of spike-crowned
helmets. After the infantry came the field artillery,
the big guns rattling and rumbling over the cobblestones,
the cannoneers sitting with folded arms and heels
drawn in, and wooden faces, like servants on the box
of a carriage. These were the same guns that
had been in almost constant action for the preceding
fortnight and that for forty hours had poured death
and destruction into the city, yet both men and horses
were in the very pink of condition, as keen as razors,
and as hard as nails; the blankets, the buckets, the
knapsacks, the intrenching tools were all strapped
in their appointed places, and the brown leather harness
was polished like a lady’s tan shoes. After
the field batteries came the horse artillery and after
the horse artillery the pom-poms each drawn
by a pair of sturdy draught horses driven with web
reins by a soldier sitting on the limber and
after the pom-poms an interminable line of machine-guns,
until one wondered where Krupp’s found the time
and the steel to make them all. Then, heralded
by a blare of trumpets and a crash of kettledrums,
came the cavalry; cuirassiers with their steel
helmets and breastplates covered with grey linen, hussars
in befrogged grey jackets and fur busbies, also linen-covered,
and finally the Uhlans, riding amid a forest of lances
under a cloud of fluttering pennons. But
this was not all, nor nearly all, for after the Uhlans
came the sailors of the naval division, brown-faced,
bewhiskered fellows with their round, flat caps tilted
rakishly and the roll of the sea in their gait; then
the Bavarians in dark blue, the Saxons in light blue,
and the Austrians the same who had handled
the big guns so effectively in uniforms
of a beautiful silver grey. Accompanying one
of the Bavarian regiments was a victoria drawn
by a fat white horse, with two soldiers on the box.
Horse and carriage were decorated with flowers as
though for a floral parade at Nice; even the soldiers
had flowers pinned to their caps and nosegays stuck
in their tunics. The carriage was evidently a
sort of triumphal chariot dedicated to the celebration
of the victory, for it was loaded with hampers of
champagne and violins!
The army which captured Antwerp was,
first, last and all the time, a fighting army.
There was not a Landsturm or a Landwehr regiment
in it. The men were as pink-cheeked as athletes;
they marched with the buoyancy of men in perfect health.
And yet the human element was lacking; there was none
of the pomp and panoply commonly associated with man;
these men in grey were merely wheels and cogs and
bolts and screws in a great machine the
word which has been used so often of the German army,
yet must be repeated, because there is no other whose
only purpose is death. As that great fighting
machine swung past, remorseless as a trip-hammer,
efficient as a steam-roller, I could not but marvel
how the gallant, chivalrous, and heroic but ill-prepared
little army of Belgium had held it back so long.