CHAPTER X BELGIUM All pity choked with custom of fell deeds: That this foul deed shall smell above the earth SHAKESPEARE: Julius Cæsar, III, I. URING the last days of July, 1914, DUR seven and a half million Belgian men, women, and children lived their ordinary lives, industrious, peaceful, and thrifty people, little blazoned in the world's dispatches. A fortnight later, Belgium had suffered martyrdom which will keep her name and that of her destroyer alive as long as posterity shall remember examples of supreme heroism and of Satanic guilt. So nigh was grandeur to her dust, and so unsuspected by those in whom it dwelt! During fourscore years Belgium had existed as an independent nation, coveted alike by France and Germany, but unharmed by both; for her right to existence had been guaranteed by the great Powers. Even in 1870, when Prussia was hurling her armies against France, and the passage through Belgium would have been most useful, Bismarck showed sufficient regard for public opinion in Europe and America to declare that Prussia would not violate the neutrality of Belgium. Bismarck pricked any of the Ten Commandments like a bubble, when he thought he could gain anything thereby; but, being a statesman, he avoided wanton lawlessness, not because it was wanton, but because it was bad statecraft. William II, however, who deemed himself greater than Bismarck, thought that he proved his superiority by violating all laws. On the morning of August 4 he sent his troops into Belgium. That same afternoon, when Sir Edward Goschen interviewed the German Chancellor, in the forlorn hope that the avalanche of war already started might be checked mid-course, he found Bethmann Hollweg "very agitated." For England had announced that, if Belgium were invaded, she would fulfil her solemn promise to defend Belgian neutrality. "His Excellency," Goschen records, "at once began a harangue which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said that the step taken by the [British] Government was terrible to a degree; just for a word -‘neutrality,' a word which in war-time has so often been disregarded-just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her."1 That "scrap of paper," torn by the command of the impatient Kaiser, will float for ages on every wind as an indictment of his crime. On that same day, August 4, BethmannHollweg made this explanation to the German Reichstag: Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law! Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and perhaps [as a matter 1 Stowell, 1, 365. of fact the speaker knew that Belgium had been invaded that morning] are already on Belgian soil. Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international law. It is true that the French Government has declared at Brussels that France is willing to respect the neutrality of Belgium as long as her opponent respects it. We knew, however, that France stood ready for the invasion. France could wait, but we could not wait. A French movement upon our flank upon the lower Rhine might have been disastrous. So we were compelled to override the just protest of the Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. The wrong-I speak openly that we are committing, we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened, as we are threatened and is fighting for his highest possessions, can have only one thought- how he is to hack his way through! 1 These words, blurted out by the Chancellor in palliation of Germany's crime, will be stamped as indelibly on the pages of history as was Belshazzar's condemnation on the wall of his banquet-room. Addressing the members 1 Stowell, 1, 445-46. of the Reichstag, into whom the venom of Kultur had penetrated, Bethmann-Hollweg knew that his plea of necessity would be accepted as a matter of course: for the first principle of Kultur teaches that whatever Prussianized Germany wishes to do is therefore "necessary." The burglar who, on being caught, should protest that it was "necessary" for him to break a bank, would be only a ready disciple of German Kultur. So the Kaiser's troops violated the Belgian frontier, and advanced with clatter of cavalry scouts and goose-step tramp of infantry, with rumble of cannon and whirr of myriad motors and trucks, into the doomed country. "Let us through!" shouted the Prussians; "let us through, or we will hack our way through!" And although Belgium was but a small country- her army at its maximum counting less than one to ten of the Germans - knowing the awful risk, she resolutely and without fear blocked the way. In the face of men for all time she bore witness that she set honor above |