VIII Captured Belgium and Its Governor General
“The Governor General will receive you at four,” said Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann, explaining things; “I shall accompany you.”
As we had just come up from the front around Lille, the only clothes we had were those on our backs; and to Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann’s officer’s boots and my puttees, the mud of the trenches still clung in yellow cakes. Hardly the most proper clothes in which to meet King Albert’s successor; but in field gray we had to go. Through the busy streets, up the long hill, to the Government buildings, we skirted the edge of that rectangle of stone buildings where Belgian officials used to conduct Belgian affairs. At the corner we turned, passing up the Rue de la Loi, where King Albert’s palace frowns down upon two black and white striped Prussian sentry boxes, and then entered the Belgian War Ministry building. A German private ushered us up a flight of marble stairs to an antechamber, where we waited, while an adjutant disappeared through a pretentious white double door, to tell His Excellency that we had come. I noticed two marble busts in that antechamber, white busts on pedestals in opposite corners—the King and Queen of Belgium, and I wondered if they ever visited this city again, would it be an official visit, the guests of another nation, or a home-coming.
The Governor General received me in a dainty, Louis Quinze room, done in rose and French gray, and filled incongruously with delicate chairs and heavy brocaded curtains, a background which you felt precisely suited His Excellency. In the English newspapers, which by the way, the Germans do not childishly bar from the Berlin cafés, I had read of His Excellency as the “Iron Fist,” or the “Heavy Heel,” and I rather expected to see a heavy, domineering man. Instead, a slender, stealthy man in the uniform of a general, rose from behind a tapestry-topped table, revealing as he did, a slight stoop in his back, and held out a long-fingered hand. As I looked at Governor General von Bissing I saw that he wore the second class of the Iron Cross and no other decorations; at the same time I imagined he had been awarded about ten orders which he could have strung across his narrow chest. His black, glistening, almost artificial-looking hair, was brushed back tight over his head, and when I noticed his eyes, I saw that they were of bluish gray, heavy and unrelenting, pouched and lined, glowing in a way that either made you want to turn away, or else stare, fascinated by their powers. He struck me as being rather longer headed than most Germans, and his straggly grayish mustache only half hid the thin, straight, ruthless lines of his mouth; but when you tried to study his face, you could discern only two things, features thin, but intensely strong, pierced with two points of fire, sunken, glowering eyes. And I knew then what they meant by the Iron Fist.
General von Bissing spoke no English. Somehow I imagined him to be one of those old patriots who would never learn the language simply because it was English. Through Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann I asked the Governor General what Germany was doing towards the reconstruction of Belgium. I asked Herrmann to explain to him—for I dreaded attempting my ungrammatical German—that America, when I had left it, was under the impression that Belgium was a land utterly laid waste by the German armies; in America the common belief was that the German military Government meant tyranny; what was Germany doing for Belgium?
“I think,” replied Governor General von Bissing, “that we are doing everything that can be done under the circumstances. Those farmlands which Lieutenant Herrmann tells me you saw, coming up from Lille to Brussels, were planted by German soldiers and in the spring they will be harvested by our soldiers. Belgium has not been devastated, and its condition has been grievously misstated, as you have seen. You must remember that the armies have passed back and forth across it—German, Belgian, English, and French, but I think you have seen that only in the paths of these armies has the countryside suffered. Where engagements were not fought or shots fired, Belgium is as it was. There has been no systematic devastation for the purpose of intimidating the people. You will learn this if you go all over Belgium. As for the cities, we are doing the best we can to encourage business. Of course, with things the way they are now, it is difficult. I can only ask you to go down one of the principal business streets here, the Rue de la Neuve for instance, and price the articles that you find in the shops, and compare them with the Berlin prices. The merchants of Brussels are not having to sacrifice their stock by cutting prices, and equally important, there are people buying. I can unhesitatingly say that things are progressing favorably in Belgium.”
And although I felt General von Bissing could be a hard master, he impressed me like a good many hard masters, as being thoroughly sincere. Thinking of Schleswig, I asked him if he thought that Belgium could ever be Germanized. Suppose after the peace treaty was signed that Germany decided to keep Belgium, would the Empire ever be able to assimilate the new people? Before replying, General von Bissing appeared to be thinking hard; he dropped his eyes and hesitated long, finally saying: “I do not think that it is the time for me to discuss this point.”
The conversation turned upon Belgian and English relations before this war. The Governor General mentioned the documentary evidence found in the archives in Brussels, and proving an understanding between these countries against Germany. He talked briefly about the point that the subjects of King Albert had been betrayed into the hands of English financiers, and then laconically said: “The people of Belgium are politically undisciplined children. You may know of the high percentage of criminality in Belgium. You may have heard that the slums of Antwerp are considered the worst in the world. Apparently education was never designed in Belgium for the mass of the people. They knew nothing, they could conjecture nothing, about what was going on between their rulers and the rulers of other countries. Even now they believe that relief is at any moment at hand. They think the English will deliver them,” and the Governor General sneered. “They are the victims of subtle propaganda that generally takes the form of articles in French and neutral newspapers,” and General von Bissing looked me straight in the eyes, as though to emphasize that by neutral, he meant the newspapers of the United States.
“I can understand the French doing this,” he said, “because they always use the Belgians, and do not care what happens to them. It is beyond my comprehension, though, how the Government of any neutral country permits the publication of newspaper articles that can have but one effect, and that is to encourage revolt in a captured people. A country likes to call itself humanitarian, and yet it persists in allowing the publication of articles that only excite an ignorant, undisciplined people and lead them to acts of violence that must be wiped out by force,” and the Governor General’s mouth closed with a click.
“Do you know that the people of Brussels, whenever a strong wind carries the booming of heavy guns miles in from the front, think that French and English are going to recapture the city. Any day that we can hear the guns faintly, we know that there is an undercurrent of nervous expectancy running through the whole city. It goes down alleys, and avenues, and fills the cafés. You can see Belgians standing together whispering. Twice they actually set the date when King Albert would return.
“This excitement and unrest, and the feeling of the English coming in, is fostered and encouraged by the articles in French and neutral newspapers that are smuggled in. I do not anticipate any uprising among the Belgians, although the thoughtless among them have encouraged it. An uprising is a topic of worry in our councils. It could do us no harm. We could crush it out like that,” and Von Bissing snapped his thin fingers, “but if only for the sake of these misled and betrayed people, all seditious influences should cease.”
I asked the Governor General about the attitude of officials of the Belgian Government, who were being used by the Germans in directing affairs.
“My predecessor, General von der Gotz,” he replied, “informed me that the municipal officials in Brussels and most Belgian cities, showed a good cooperative spirit from the start. The higher officials were divided, some refusing flatly to deal with the German administration. I do not blame these men, especially the railway officials, for I can see their viewpoint. In these days, railway roads and troop trains were inseparable, and if those Belgian railway officials had helped us, they would have committed treason against their country. There was no need, though, for the Post Office officials to hold out, and only lately they have come around. Realizing, however, that without their department, the country would be in chaos, the officials of the Department of Justice immediately cooperated with us. To-day the Belgian civil courts try all ordinary misdemeanors and felonies. Belgium penal law still exists and is administered by Belgians. However, all other cases are tried by a military tribunal, the Feld Gericht.”
I asked Excellence von Bissing if there was much need for this military tribunal.
“We have a few serious cases,” he said; “occasionally there is a little sedition, but for the most part it is only needle pricks. They are quiet now. They know why,” and slowly shaking his head, Von Bissing, who is known as the sternest disciplinarian in the entire German army, smiled.
And then I urged the most important question—Belgian neutrality.
“It would have been a very grave mistake,” said Von Bissing, slowly, “not to have invaded Belgium. It would have been an unforgivable military blunder. I justified the invading of Belgium on absolutely military grounds. What other grounds are there worth while talking about when a nation is in a war for its existence? If we had not sent our troops into Belgium the English would have landed their entire expeditionary army at Antwerp, and cut our line of communication. How do I know that? Simply because England would have been guilty of the grossest blunder if she had not done that, and the man who is in charge of England’s army has never been known as a blunderer. It was the only way. Subsequent events, the finding of diplomatic documents, have proven the English agreements with Belgium. In the captured fortresses at Namur, Lüttich (Liége), and Antwerp, we found stores of French guns and ammunition. Germany would have been much worse off than she is to-day if she had not gone through Belgium. A great state like Germany could not permit holding back at such a time in its history.”
This led us into talking about the situation in America. We talked about the burning of Louvain, which I later saw and found to be comparatively little damaged, roughly, but one-twelfth was destroyed, and I saw the paintings that German officers risked their lives in fire to save. We talked about Louvain and then about General Sherman’s march from Atlanta to the sea, when a whole state was burned and laid waste.
“The truth will come out,” said Von Bissing slowly. “Your country is renowned for fair play. You will be fair to Germany, I know. Your American Relief Commission is doing excellent work. It is in the highest degree necessary. At first the German army had to use the food they could get by foraging in Belgium, for the country does not begin to produce the food it needs for its own consumption, and there were no great reserves that our troops could use. But the German army is not using any of Belgian food now.”
I asked the Governor General if the Germans had not been very glad that America was sending over food. I told him that when I left New York, the number of unemployed there was huge—largest, so Mayor Mitchell had said, in the city’s history—and that some Americans were so unsentimental as to think that this food for Belgium might better be distributed in their own country. This seemed to disturb General von Bissing.
“It is most important,” he repeated, “that America regularly sends provisions to Belgium. Your country should feel very proud of the good it has done here.” Somehow I had the idea that His Excellency was indulging in quiet amusement at my expense. He impressed me as being far too clever to make such a statement in entire sincerity. “I welcome the American Relief Committee,” he said. “We are working in perfect harmony. Despite reports to the contrary, we never have had any misunderstanding. Through the American Press, please thank your people for their kindness to Belgium.”
General von Bissing held out his hand; the interview was over. In the next room I saw on a little table a pot of tea and a plate of little cakes. I wondered if the Governor General really ate cakes. I bowed my way out of the rose and French gray room and walked with Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann down the marble stairs. I was thinking of a story that I had heard of His Excellency. A few years ago he was having great difficulty in keeping orderlies; they all found him too strict. Finally he obtained a new orderly, a grim looking individual.
“What were you before you entered the army?” Von Bissing asked him.
“A lion tamer,” replied the orderly.
“Good,” exclaimed Von Bissing, “you stay.”
Try to think of a slender, slightly stooped military man, perhaps a trifle foppish, with his sleek, brilliantined hair, sitting in a delicate gold and tapestried chair, and directing the affairs of a captured nation. His face is sallow, and his sunken eyes always seemed to smolder, and his mouth is so thin and straight, as almost to be cruel, but you feel that he is absolutely fair, and it is hard to think of him as breaking his word. I cannot imagine Governor General von Bissing doing that. I think he is ruthlessly honest, ruthlessly just, hard, a rigid disciplinarian, and scrupulously fair, and if reprisals are necessary no sentimentality will stay his hand. “They are only needle pricks,” he says of seditious Belgians,—“they know why.” The ideal man for a military government, his is an Iron Fist; but if the fist were of softer stuff, all Belgium would be in chaos.