Through the Iron Bars | Page 3

refused to betray her honour.
* * * * *
Let us watch, then, the closing of the prison gates. Up to the beginning of October, the Belgians, and specially the people of Brussels, had been kept in a state of suspense by the three sorties of the Belgian army, which left the shelter of the Antwerp forts to advance towards Vilvorde and Louvain, a few miles from the capital. At the beginning of September, the sound of guns came so close that the people rejoiced openly, thinking that deliverance was at their gates. To sober their spirit--or to exasperate their patience?--the Governor General ordered that a few Belgian prisoners, some of them wounded, with their quickfiring gun drawn by a dog, should be marched through the crowded streets. The men were covered with dust, their heads wrapped in blood-stained bandages, and they kept their eyes on the ground as if ashamed. Some women sobbed on seeing them, others cursed their guards, others plundered a flower shop and showered flowers upon them. At last two stalwart workmen shouldered away the escort, and, helped by the crowd, which paralysed the movements of the Germans, succeeded in kidnapping the prisoners, and getting them away to the neighbouring streets. They could never be discovered, and it was the last display of the kind which the Governor gave to Brussels.
During the siege, people had learnt to recognize the voice of every fort of Antwerp. They said to each other: "That is Lizele, Wavre Ste. Catherine, Waelhem." One after the other the Belgian guns were silenced, first Wavre, then Waelhem ... and the vibrating boom of the German heavies was heard louder than ever. The listening Bruxellois grew paler, straining every nerve to catch the voice of Antwerp. It was as if their own life as a nation was slowly dying away, as if they were mourning their own agony. But still the valiant spirit of the first days prevailed. "They will be beaten for all that. What was Antwerp compared with the Marne? All forts must fall under 'their' artillery. After all, the nest is empty; the King and the army are safe."
Since those days a kind of reckless indifference has seized the Belgians. If we must lose everything to gain everything, let us lose it. The sooner the better. It is the spirit of a poor man burning his furniture in order to shelter his children from cold, or of a Saint suffering every physical privation in order to gain the Kingdom of Heaven. It is an uncanny spirit composed of wild energy and bitter-sweet irony. "First Li��ge, 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. We knew that most of the high officials were stopping in Brussels on their way to Paris. On the other hand, any skilful move of the Allies, any successful sortie from Antwerp, might have jeopardized all the conqueror's plans and necessitated an immediate retreat. The Yser-Ypres struggle barred the way to Brussels as well as to Calais. The Germans knew now that they were safe, at least for a good many months, and began systematically to "organize the country." All communications with the uninterrupted part of Belgium were interrupted. It became more and more difficult and dangerous to cross the Dutch frontier without a special permit. The economic and moral pressure increased steadily, and the conflict between conquerors and patriots began, a conflict unrelieved by dramatic interest or excitement from outside, which carried the country back to the worst days of Austrian and Spanish domination.

II.
THE LOWERED FLAG.
The contrast which I have endeavoured to indicate, in the first chapter, between the attitude of the German administration before the fall of Antwerp and its behaviour afterwards is nowhere so well marked as in the measures taken for the purpose of repressing all Belgian manifestations of patriotism.
During the two first months of occupation, the Germans made at least a show of respecting the loyal feelings of the population. In his first proclamation, dated September 2nd, in which he announced his appointment as General Governor of Belgium, Baron von der Goltz declared that "he asked no one to renounce his patriotic feelings." And when, a few days later, the Governor of Brussels, Baron von Luttwitz, issued a poster "advising" the citizens to take their flags from their windows, he did this