A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium. Hugh Gibson
and keep its collective mind off the gossip that is flying about.
Last night our cipher telegrams to Washington were sent back from the telegraph office with word that under the latest instructions from the Government they could not be forwarded. The Minister and I hurried over to the Foreign Office, where we found several of the colleagues on the same errand. It was all a mistake, due to the fact that the General Staff had issued a sweeping order to stop all cipher messages without stopping to consider our special case. It was fixed after some debate, and the Minister and I came back to the shop and got off our last telegrams, which were finished at three this morning.
I was back at my desk by a little after eight and have not finished this day's work, although it is after midnight. I have averaged from three to five hours sleep since the trouble began and, strange to say, I thrive on it.
I have called several times to-day at the French and British Legations to get the latest news. They keep as well posted as is possible in the prevailing confusion, and are most generous and kind in giving us everything they properly can.
There seems to have been a serious engagement to-day at Liège, which the Germans are determined to reduce before proceeding toward France. The report is that the attack was well resisted and the Germans driven back with heavy loss. A number of prisoners have been taken and were being brought into Brussels this evening along with the wounded. In the course of the fighting there was a sort of charge of the Light Brigade; one squadron of Belgian Lancers was obliged to attack six times its number of Germans and was cut to pieces, only one officer escaping. The morale of the Belgians is splendid.
This afternoon as the Minister and I were going to call on the British Minister, we passed the King and his staff headed out the Rue de la Loi for the front. They looked like business.
Several times to-day I have talked over the telephone with the Embassy in London. They seem to be as strong on rumours as we are here. One rumour I was able to pass on to Bell was to the effect that the British flagship had been sunk by German mines with another big warship. Another to the effect that five German ships have been destroyed by the French fleet off the coast of Algeria, etc., etc.
The Red Cross is hard at work getting ready to handle the wounded, and everybody is doing something. Nearly everybody with a big house has fitted it in whole or in part as a hospital. Others are rolling bandages and preparing all sorts of supplies.
The military attachés are all going about in uniform now. Each Legation has a flag on its motor and the letters C.D.—which are supposed to stand for Corps Diplomatique, although nobody knows it. I have seized Mrs. Boyd's big car for my own use. D.L. Blount has put his car at the disposal of the Minister and is to drive it himself.
There is talk already of moving the Court and the Government to Antwerp, to take refuge behind the fortifications. When the Germans advance beyond Liège, the Government will, of course, have to go, and the diplomatic corps may follow. It would be a nuisance for us, and I hope we may be able to avoid it.
Germans are having an unhappy time, and I shall be happier when they are across the border. Nothing much seems to have happened to them beyond having a few shops wrecked in Antwerp and one or two people beaten up here. One case that came to my knowledge was an outraged man who had been roughly handled and could not understand why. All he had done was to stand in front of a café where the little tables are on the sidewalk and remark: "Talk all the French you can. You'll soon have to talk German." Of course there are a lot of Belgians, Swiss and Dutch who rejoice in good German names and they are not having a pleasant time. One restaurant called Chez Fritz, I saw when coming along the Boulevard this evening, had hung out a blackboard with the proud device: "Fritz est Luxembourgeois, mais sa Maison est Belge." He was taking no chances on having the place smashed.
August 6th.—This morning when I came into the Legation I found the Minister of Justice in top hat and frock coat waiting to see somebody. He had received a report that a wireless station had been established on top of the German Legation and was being run by the people who were left in the building. He came to ask the Minister's consent to send a judge to look, see and draw up a procès verbal. In our own artless little American way we suggested that it might be simpler to go straight over and find out how much there was to the report. The Minister of Justice had a couple of telegraph linemen with him, and as soon as Mr. Whitlock could get his hat, we walked around the corner to the German Legation, rang the bell, told the startled occupants that we wanted to go up to the garret and—up we went.
When we got there we found that the only way onto the roof was by a long perpendicular ladder leading to a trap door. We all scrambled up this—all but the Minister of Justice, who remained behind in the garret with his top hat.
We looked the place over very carefully, and the workmen—evidently in order to feel that they were doing something—cut a few wires which probably resulted in great inconvenience to perfectly harmless people farther along the street. But there was no evidence of a wireless outfit. One of the men started to explain to me how that proved nothing at all; that an apparatus was now made that could be concealed in a hat and brought out at night to be worked. He stopped in the middle of a word, for suddenly we heard the rasping intermittent hiss of a wireless very near at hand. Everybody stiffened up like a lot of pointers, and in a minute had located the plant. It was nothing but a rusty girouette on top of a chimney being turned by the wind and scratching spitefully at every turn. The discovery eased the strain and everybody laughed.
Then there was another sound, and we all turned around to see a trap door raised and the serene, bemonocled face of my friend Cavalcanti looked out on us in bewilderment. In our search we had strayed over onto the roof of the Brazilian Legation. It seemed to cause him some surprise to see us doing second-story work on their house. It was a funny situation—but ended in another laugh. It is a good thing we can work in a laugh now and then.
The day was chiefly occupied with perfecting arrangements for getting off our German refugees. The Minister wished the job on me, and I with some elements of executive ability myself gave the worst part of it to Nasmith, the Vice-Consul-General. Modifications became necessary every few minutes, and Leval and I were running around like stricken deer all day, seeing the disheartening number of government officials who were concerned, having changes made and asking for additional trains. During the afternoon more and more Germans came pouring into the Consulate for refuge, until there were over two thousand of them there, terribly crowded and unhappy. Several convents were also packed, and we calculated that we should have two or three thousand to get out of the country. In the morning the Legation was besieged by numbers of poor people who did not know which way to turn and came to us because they had been told that we would take care of them. We were all kept busy; and Leval, smothering his natural feelings, came out of his own accord and talked and advised and calmed the frightened people in their own language. None of us would have asked him to do it, but he was fine enough to want to help and to do it without any fuss.
A crowd of curious people gathered outside the Legation to watch the callers, and now and then they boo-ed a German. I looked out of the window in time to see somebody in the crowd strike at a poor little worm of a man who had just gone out the door. He was excited and foolish enough to reach toward his hip pocket as though for a revolver. In an instant the crowd fell on him; and although Gustave, the messenger, and I rushed out we were just in time to pull him inside and slam the door before they had a chance to polish him off. Gustave nearly had his clothes torn off in the scrimmage, but stuck to his job. An inspired idiot of an American tourist who was inside tried to get the door open and address the crowd in good American, and I had to handle him most undiplomatically to keep him from getting us all into trouble. The crowd thumped on the door a little in imitation of a mob scene, and the Garde Civique had to be summoned on the run from the German Legation to drive them back and establish some semblance of order. Then de Leval and I went out and talked to the crowd—that is to say, we went out and he talked to the crowd. He told them very reasonably that they were doing harm to Belgium, as actions of this sort might bring reprisals which would cost the country dear, and that they must control their feelings. He sounded the right note so successfully that the crowd broke up with a cheer.
Orders have been issued to permit us free use of the