Mrs. Warren's Daughter — Chapter XVII, The Germans in Brussels: 1915-1916, Part 1

THE GERMANS IN BRUSSELS: 1915-1916

In the early spring of 1915, Vivie, anxious not to see her mother in utter penury, and despairing of any effective assistance from the Americans (very much prejudiced against her for the reasons already mentioned), took her mother's German and Belgian securities of a face value amounting to about £18,000 and sold them at her Belgian bank for a hundred thousand francs (£4,000) in Belgian or German bank notes.

She consulted no one, except her mother.

Who was there to consult?

She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them.

But as she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their cruel situation?

If the Allies were eventually victorious, Mrs. Warren could return to England.

There at least she had in safe investments £40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives.

If Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one fifth what they had stood at before the War.

If Germany were victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother's shares in Belgian companies might be unsaleable.

Better to secure now a lump sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted.

And as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own keeping.

They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching.

It was useless to hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-séjour so long as the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in compensation for the sequestration of the property.

The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully concealed in Mrs. Warren's bedroom at the Hotel Impérial and Vivie for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also the jewels and plate at the bank.

They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-séjour.

Von Giesselin, after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily transportable nature.

But the visit was a heart-breaking disappointment.

Their reception was surly; the place was little else than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers.

Any search for clothes or books was a mockery.

Nothing was to be found in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and unnameable horrors or military equipment articles.

The garden was trampled out of recognition.

There had been a beautiful vine in the greenhouse.

It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung withered and russet coloured.

The soldiers, grinning when Vivie noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches.

It had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse deliberately smashed.

On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears, descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens.

She asked the orderly that they might stop and greet her.

She approached.

Mrs. Warren got out of the car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish.

Since her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment;

though she added, "As to their virtue, _that_ has long since vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the soldiers get drunk.

Oh Madame!

If you could only say a word to that Colonel with whom you are living?"

Mrs. Warren dared not translate this last sentence to Vivie, for fear her daughter forced her at all costs to leave the Hotel Impérial.

Where, if she did, were they to go?

The winter of 1914 had witnessed an appalling degree of frightfulness in eastern Belgium, the Wallon or French-speaking part of the country more especially.

The Germans seemed to bear a special grudge against this region, regarding it as doggedly opposed to absorption into a Greater Germany; whereas they hoped the Flemish half of the country would receive them as fellow Teutons and even as deliverers from their former French oppressors.

Thousands of old men and youths, of women and children in the provinces south of the Meuse had been shot in cold blood; village after village had been burnt.

Scenes of nearly equal horror had taken place between Brussels and Antwerp, especially around Malines.

Von Bissing's arrival as Governor General was soon signalized by those dreaded Red Placards on the walls of Brussels, announcing the verdicts of courts-martial, the condemnation to death of men and women who had contravened some military regulation.

Yet in spite of this, life went on in Brussels once more--by von Bissing's stern command--as though the country were not under the heel of the invader.

The theatres opened their doors; the cinemas had continuous performances; there was Grand Opera; there were exhibitions of toys, or pictures, and charitable bazaars.

Ten days after the fall of Antwerp _char-à-bancs_ packed with Belgians drove out of Brussels to visit the scenes of the battles and those shattered forts, so fatuously deemed impregnable, so feeble in their resistance to German artillery.

Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the sight-seers.

As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur and were there warned that without a special passport they might not pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs.

Except in the matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes for raising the Irish against the British Government.

Von Giesselin however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations.

Frau von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous banquet given at the Palace Hotel.

The King--whom the still defiant Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_, reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom.

He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances.

Seeing there was some hope in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses, tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers, grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions.

They paid her or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special obligations.

If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and the very petitioners went away, with the ingratitude common in such cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the Hotel Impérial.

It was not surprising therefore that in the small circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she was viewed with suspicion or contempt.

She supported this odious position at the Hotel Impérial as long as possible, in the hope that Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the British Government would do what the American Consul General professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them passports to proceed to Holland.

Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity.

After the occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic" Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had stopped publication.

Its newspapers had been invited to continue their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion, but of course under the German Censorate and martial law.

As one editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would all be shot in a week."

But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.

Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a direction favourable to German policy.

The German Government had already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old dominions of the House of Burgundy.

On the contrary, in their tenure of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were under a German regime to give it a new literature.

Whether or not they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian.

It suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German people--that nation of great philologists--since the death of the Roman Empire.

German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie," instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they were quite able to contribute _articles de fond_ to a pretended national Belgian press.

Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian "Sans-Patries" ready to come to their assistance: Belgian nationals of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the best people.

They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not adversely affected.

There were also a few Belgian Socialists--a few, but enough--who took posts under the German provisional government, on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not matter under what flag you drew your salary.

Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist.

Not quite prepared to go to the stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences.

(There were others like him--Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian, Württembergisch--or the German occupation of Belgium might have ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they slew their oppressors.

) He hoped through the pieces played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of existence under the German Empire.

But his efforts brought down on him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois.

They were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music, need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the Central Powers.

Thus the couplets "Dans le service de l'Autriche Le militaire n'est pas riche" were changed to "Dans le service de la Suisse Le militaire n'est pas riche."

These passionate lines of a political exile: "A l'étranger un pacte impie Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi, Mais à present, o ma patrie Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"

were rendered harmless as "A l'étranger, en réverie Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi Mais à present, o ma patrie Je penserai sans cesse à toi!"

The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel--calling in Vivie to help him as presumably a good scholar in French--got on her nerves, and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.

Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper, "_L'Ami de l'Ordre_" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the Belgians), "_La Belgique_," "_Le Bruxellois_," "_Vers la Paix_."

He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe.

She might, for instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.

Vivie declined any such propositions.

"I have told you already, and often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for my mother and me.

We might have been in a far more uncomfortable position but for your kindness.

But I cannot in any way associate myself with the German policy here.

I cannot pretend for a moment to condone what you do in this country.

If I were a Belgian woman I should probably have been shot long ago for assassinating some Prussian official--I can hardly see von Bissing pass in his automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb.

But there it is.

It is no business of mine.

As I can't get away, as you won't let us go out of the country--Switzerland, Holland--and as I don't want to go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans.

Can't I go and help every day in your hospitals?

If you'll continue your kindness to mother--and believe me"--she broke off--"I _do_ appreciate what you have done for us.

I shall _never_ forget I have met _one true German gentleman_--if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or annoyed.

There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond belief.

If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her insulting questions--whether she can give them the addresses of--of--light women ...

you know the sort of thing.

I have always been outspoken with you.

All I ask is that mother shall be allowed to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served there.

But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the trouble, the lack of waiters.

A word from you--And then if my mind was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor people.

They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter--the shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel--Most of all I should like to help in the hospitals.

My own countrywomen will not have me in theirs.

They suspect me of being a spy in German pay.

Besides, your von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross.

Well: if you want to be kind, give me an introduction there.

Surely it would be bare humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"--she broke down--"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along the Boulevard d'Anspach.

Blood dripped from them as they passed, and I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary--'" "My _tear_ Miss Warren--I will try to do all that you want--You will not do _anything I_ want, but never mind.

I will show you that Germans can be generous.

I will speak about your mother.

I am sorry that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel.

There are some--what-you-call 'bounders'--among us, as there are with you.

It is to be regretted.

As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a person who can make things easy for you.

I will write a letter to my cousin--like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig--Minna von Stachelberg.

She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur.

Oh!

it was very sad; they were but six months married.

Afterwards she came here to work in our Red Cross--I think now she is in charge of a ward..."

So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter humiliation.

Gräfin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental.

In fact she was of that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by our Press at the time of the War.

There were many like her of the upper middle class, the professorial class, the lesser nobility to be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Halle, Bonn, München, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart, Cologne--nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well, highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of the enfranchisement of women.

The War came just too soon.

Had Heaven struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had time been given for the New German Woman to assert herself in politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no maltreatment of Servia.

Germany would have ranged herself with the Western powers and Western culture.

Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ...

like a comrade, she said, in the War for the Vote ...

"which we will resume, my dear, as soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with the same weapons."

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in nursing she was a novice and had much to learn.

She introduced her to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by degrees.

But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy, she should be called in to his ward ...

From that interview Vivie returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers would be amongst them.

These would cheer up at the sound of her pleasant voice speaking their tongue.

Yet she would witness on such occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality.

Once there came out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends evidently.

They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp.

At that moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face.

The Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.

Alarums!

Excursions!

A German officer rushed up to enquire while the Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen and the Englishman was striving to free him.

Vivie explained to the officer what had occurred.

He bowed and saluted: seized the soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing frequency.

As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere, inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue de la Loi--a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.

But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red Placard which had been posted up in a public place.

The daylight had almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice legible.

It ran: CONDAMNATIONS

Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a prononcé les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise pendant l'état de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues à l'ennemi): 1° Philippe BAUCQ, architecte à Bruxelles;

2° Louise THULIEZ, professeur à Lille;

3° Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un institut médical à Bruxelles;

4° Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien à Bruxelles;

5° Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, à Montignies.

À LA PEINE DE MORT

* * * * * Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms of hard labour for the same offence--assisting young Belgians to leave the Belgium that was under German occupation.

And further, the information that of the five condemned to death, _Philip Bauck_ and _Edith Cavell_ had already been _executed_.

* * * * * The monsters!

Oh that von Bissing.

How gladly she would die if she might first have the pleasure of killing him!

That pompous old man of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split the tongues of finches to make them sing better.

Edith Cavell--she did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women--but Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far and wide for her goodness of heart.

She had held aloof from Vivie, but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her suspect--living, seemingly, under the protection of a German official?

But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was no room in the military hospitals--And for such a trivial offence as _that_--and to kill her before there could be any appeal for reconsideration or clemency.

Oh _what_ a nation!

She would tend their sick and wounded no more.