The Road to Liége

Excerpt:

. . . On entering Belgium, on the 4th of August, the Germans anticipated a brief resistance, undertaken as a matter of form. But during the night of the 4th of August and the day and the night of the 5th, the attempted attacks upon the forts had already resulted in terrible losses on the side of the invaders. Immediately their rage was diverted to the civilian population.

"If Belgium places obstacles in the way of our march forward, Germany will be forced to regard her as an enemy," said the ultimatum. And the Staff was even more definite : " If Belgium resists, be terrible ! "

The civilians, hemmed in between the departing troops and those for ever arriving, were accused of firing on the German forces ! . . . From that moment the siege of each fort was accompanied by a campaign of cruelty and violence waged, against, the surrounding countryside. Beginning here, the data fall of them- selves into the following divisions :

From the 4th to the 8th of August :

I. — To the south of the river Vesdre. The frontier : Francorchamps, Hockay, Sart-lez-Spa.

Before the forts of Embourg and Boncelles : Chanxhe, Poulseur, Lince, Louveigni.

II. — Before the forts of Chaudfontaine and FLiRON : Battice, Herve, La Bouxhe, Soiron, Otne, ForSt, Saint- Hadelin, Magnie, RomsSe, Fecher-Soptnagne, Micheroux, Retinne, FUron, Beyne-Heusay.

III. — Round the forts of Evegnee and Barchon : Berneau, Mouland, Warsage, Quet(e-du-Bois, Bellaire, Julimont. Various Localities.

After the 13th of August :

Barchon, Blegny, Wandre, Vise.

IV. — Round Pontisse : — Herstal, Vivegnis, Oupeye, Hermalle, Haccourt, HermSe, Heure-le-Romain.

V. — The city of Liege. Various localities.

THE TWO PERIODS

Chronologically, the two first groups and a portion of the third form a whole ; these localities were ravaged between the 5th and the 8th of August.

Then ensued a week of comparative calm. This was according to orders, for the German Government was making fresh proposals to Belgium. After recognising that the Belgian Army had " upheld the honour of its arms in the most brilliant fashion by a heroic resistance to greatly superior forces," the German Government " begged His Majesty the King and the Belgian Government to avert from Belgium the horrors of war " (Grey Book, 62). On Belgium's second refusal the German Government informed the Belgian Government, through diplomatic channels, " that the war would now assume a cruel character (einen grausamen Charakter)."

And, indeed, on the 14th and the following days pillage, incendiarism, and massacre were resumed on both banks of the Meuse, and in Liege itself.

And for ten days the beast unchained raged through all the invaded provinces. This was the second phase, as plainly premeditated and deliberated as the first.

THE FOURTH OF AUGUST

As is known, the German ultimatum was sent to Belgium on Sunday the 2nd of August. That same day the German Minister in Brussels and the German military attaché had made the most reassuring declarations. In Berlin, at the same time, the Belgian Minister was being maintained in a mood of false security. And at this very moment numerous trains were already bearing toward the Belgian frontier troops drawn from the north of Germany, notably from Magdeburg and Schwerin.

And at seven o'clock that evening, like a thunder- bolt, the ultimatum burst upon Belgium — with a delay of twelve hours for the reply.

On the 4th of August, in the morning, the German army violated the neutrality of the Belgian territory. The invading troops entered Belgium at Gemmenich, Henri-Chapelle, Baelen, Membach, Bairaque Michel, Hockay, Francorchamps, etc. ; that is, by the roads leading from Aix to Vise, from Aix to Lidge by way of Herve, from Eupen to Dolhain, from Aix to Verviers, from the camp of Elsenborn to Baraque Michel, from Malmedy to Hockay, from Malmedy to Francorchamps and Stavelot, etc.

Thanks to the rapidity of their march, the first Belgian villages encountered suffered, as a rule, hardly at all. The distance of eighteen miles or so dividing the frontier from the Meuse and the Ourthe was covered during the 4th of August, as the sudden attack made upon Belgium involved the immediate capture of the forts of Li6ge, which were only " forts of arrest."

Still, there was not a village which had not to pay its tribute : here a farm was burned, there a chateau ; and almost everywhere there was pillage. Before considering what happened around the forts, let us see what occurred in some of the frontier villages.

And first, a preliminary remark : In the narratives about to follow there is, necessarily, no great variety ; the conduct of operations was everywhere the same ; a simulated attack upon the troops, followed by pillage, incendiarism, massacre, and deportation. Everywhere the authorities were held responsible ; everywhere, too, the clergy were foremost among those accused. Phari- saical Germany, who on every occasion raises her blood-stained hands to Heaven, was filled with fury against the priest, in whom she saw a moral authority ready to answer for the victims and to testify to their innocence. Doubtless, too, her Lutheran hatred inspired the policy of inciting the Catholics of the Rheinland against their Belgian co-religionists ; other- wise one cannot explain their rancour. Berlin and the reptile Press immediately denounced the priests as the fomentors of the Belgian resistance ; it was they who organised the " francs- tireurs," and they were torturers, who found a vent for their cruelty in the hospitals !

So we must not be surprised if almost always we see them in the foreground ; they, with the civil authorities, became closely acquainted with the Teuton terror ; with them, they had the courage to suffer for their country, and often to shed their blood.

Diversities of politics and of faith disappeared in the tempest ; drawn together by identical feelings of patriotism, those who were formerly the most violently opposed learned to know and to value one another. Let us do homage to one and all, as the events reveal them to us . . .