A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium. Hugh Gibson
say that there were already seven hundred of them gathered there. We shall have to have another special train for day after to-morrow morning, and hope to get most of the remaining Germans out of harm's way by that time.
The Belgians continue to be a surprise. At last accounts they were still holding the forts at Liège. The French appear to have established themselves along the Meuse and to be ready for the attack when it comes. Where the British troops are, nobody here seems to know—and, strange to say, they are not advertising their whereabouts. There are plenty of people who have had confidential tips from their cook's brother, who lives in the country and has seen them with his own eyes. According to such stories they are all landed at Ostend and are being hurried across the country through Malines. Another story is that they have been shipped through to Liège in closed freight cars to outwit German spies, and that they are now in the thick of it. According to still another of these confidential fellows, they have been shipped through Brussels itself in the night and we were unaware when they passed under our very windows. You can choose any story you like and get an audience with it these days.
To-day's mouth-to-mouth news is that the French have fought a big battle near St. Hubert and repulsed the Germans with heavy losses. This has about as much confirmation as the reports as to the whereabouts of the British army.
To-day trains have been coming in all day with wounded from Liège, and the lot—Belgian and German—are being cared for by the Red Cross. The Palace has been turned into a hospital, and the Queen has taken over the supervision of it. Nearly every big hotel in town has turned its dining-room into a ward, and guests are required to have their meals in their rooms. Some of the big department stores have come up finely in outfitting hospitals and workrooms, clearing out their stocks, and letting profits go hang for the time being. The International Harvester Company cleared its offices here and installed twenty-five beds—informing the Red Cross that it would take care of the running expenses as long as the war lasts. The hospital facilities have grown far faster than the wounded have come in, and there is an element of humour in the rush of eager women who go to the station and almost fight for the wounded as they are brought off the trains.
I impressed the services of several people to help out to-day, but the most valuable are two crack stenographers who have been turned over to us by business firms here. By dint of labouring with them all morning and afternoon and seeing as few people as possible, I have managed to clean up my desk, so that I can go to bed with a clear conscience to-night when I have got through my call to London.
Brussels, August 8, 1914.—To-day our new organisation is working like clockwork. In Cruger's formerly calm chancery there are five typewriters pounding away, and at the committee rooms there are swarms of people working to take care of odds and ends. Monsieur de Leval has a table at one side of my room, and the committee relieves us of the people who want information and those who want to talk.
Sunday, August 9th.—I got this far when the roof fell in last night. During the afternoon yesterday I got out to attend to a few odds and ends of errands—and, as always happens when I go out, things began to happen. I came back to find the Minister and de Leval wrestling with a big one.
A curious telegram had come from The Hague, quoting the text of a message which the German Government desired us to present to the Belgian Government. Here it is in translation, a truly German message:
The fortress of Liège has been taken by assault after a brave defense. The German Government most deeply regret that bloody encounters should have resulted from the attitude of the Belgian Government toward Germany. Germany is not coming as an enemy into Belgium; it is only through the force of circumstances that she has had, owing to the military measures of France, to take the grave decision of entering Belgium and occupying Liège as a base for her further military operations. Now that the Belgian army has upheld the honour of its arms by its heroic resistance to a very superior force, the German Government beg the King of the Belgians and the Belgian Government to spare Belgium further horrors of war. The German Government are ready for any compact with Belgium which can be reconciled with their conflicts with France. Germany once more gives her solemn assurance that it is not her intention to appropriate Belgian territory to herself and that such an intention is far from her thoughts. Germany is still ready to evacuate Belgium as soon as the state of war will allow her to do so.
Of course we were loath to present anything of the sort, but the thing had to be handled carefully. After some pow-wowing I went over to the Foreign Office with the message and saw Baron van der Elst. I told him seriously that we had received a very remarkable telegram which purported to contain a message from the German Government; that it bore no marks of authenticity, and that we were not sure as to its source; but that we felt that we should be lacking in frankness if we did not show him what we had received. He seized the message and read it through, his amazement and anger growing with each line. When he had finished, he gasped for a minute or two and then led me into the next room to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Davignon, to whom he translated the telegram aloud. When they had finished discussing the message and I had a pretty clear idea as to the Belgian attitude toward the proposal—not that I had had any real doubt—I asked him: "If the American Minister had delivered this message what would have been its reception?" Without an instant's hesitation, M. Davignon replied: "We should have resented his action and should have declined to receive the communication."
That was all I wanted to know and I was ready to go back to the Legation.
I took Baron van der Elst home in the car and had the pleasure of seeing him explain who he was to several Gardes Civiques, who held up the car from time to time. He was very good-natured about it, and only resented the interruptions to what he was trying to say. His son is in the army and he has no news of him. As he got out of the car he remarked that if it were not so horrible, the mere interest of events would be enough to make these days wonderful.
When I got back to the Legation and reported the result of my visit, we went to work and framed a telegram to Washington, giving the text of the German message, explaining that we had nothing to prove its authenticity and adding that we had reason to believe that the Belgian Government would not accept it. The same message was sent to The Hague. This pleasant exercise with the code kept us going until four in the morning. Eugène, the wonder chauffeur, had no orders, but curled up on the front seat of his car and waited to take me home. He was also on hand when I got up a couple of hours later, to take me back to the Legation. Chauffeurs like that are worth having.
When I came in this morning the place was packed with Germans. Some cheerful idiot had inserted a notice in the papers that all Germans were to be run out of the country, and that they should immediately apply to the American Legation. As the flood poured in, Leval got on the telephone to the Sûreté Publique and found out the true facts. Then we posted a notice in the hall. But that was not enough. As is always the case with humans, they all knew better than to pay any attention to what the notice said and each one of the hundred or more callers had some reason to insist on talking it over with somebody. When they once got hold of one of us, it was next to impossible to get away without listening to the whole story of their lives. All they had to do was to go down to the German Consulate-General, where we had people waiting to tell them all there was to know. It was hard to make them realise that by taking up all our time in this way, they were preventing us from doing things that were really necessary to serve them in more important matters. I said as much to several of them, who were unusually long-winded, but every last one replied that HIS case was different and that he must be heard out at length.
Our refugee train left this morning and took eight hundred more of the poor people. Where they all turn up from, I don't know, but each day brings us a fresh and unexpected batch. Many of the cases are very sad, but if we stop to give sympathy in every deserving case, we should never get anything practical done for them.
To-day's budget of news is that the French have got to Mulhouse and have inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Germans. According to reports, the Alsatians went mad when the French troops crossed the frontier for the first time in forty-four years. They tore up and burned the frontier posts and generally gave way to transports of joy. I would have given a lot to see the crowds in Paris.
A letter came yesterday from Omer, the legation footman, who is