“Where’s your husband?” I ask.
“I don’t know. He was mobilized. He went to the front. I’ve heard nothing. I only keep hoping he is alive.”
A couple of German soldiers sauntered in and bought half a dozen packages of American cigarettes each. In Germany the most they would have been allowed to buy would have been ten bad German cigarettes. When they had gone, she said:
“I keep the store open. But for how long? Our stocks came from England and America. And my child. Where the milk? I’ve got canned milk for about two months. But after that—”
She paused. Finally she got it out:
“In the end, how will it be? I mean, do you think Belgium will ever be like before—independent, and with our King?”
“Well, of course, if the Allies win, it will be like the last time….” We gave the obvious reply.
“If? …But why do they retreat so fast? With the British and the French, we had more than a million men in Belgium. And they didn’t hold out as long as the few Belgians in 1914. I don’t understand it.”
We didn’t either, and we left. Back at the restaurant where our cars were waiting, some of our party were returning, their arms laden with booty. Many were not back yet, so F. and I wandered over to the Rathausplatz. Above the City Hall the Swastika floated in the afternoon sun. Otherwise, except for the German troops clustered about, the square looked the same. We spotted the offices of an American bank. We went inside and asked for the manager. Previously at luncheon we had asked the Germans to take us to the American Embassy, but they had refused. The American Embassy staff fled with the Belgian government, they told us. I protested that at least a secretary of Embassy would have been left in charge. No, they claimed, only a porter was left. This was manifestly an untruth, but F. and I gave it up. It was too far to walk in the short time we had.
The two managers of the bank—one had arrived from New York two days before Belgium was invaded—seemed glad to see us. Our Ambassador Cudahy and his entire staff had remained in Brussels, they told us. But they had been unable to communicate with the outside world. So far as they knew, all Americans were safe. Some, along with a party of Jewish refugees, had tried to get out a couple of nights before the Germans entered. But twenty miles outside the capital the Germans had bombed the railroad bridge, and the train had had to stop. There was some panic, especially among the Jews, which is understandable. The Jews and five or six Americans had decided to go on towards the coast on foot. The rest, including one of the managers, had returned to Brussels. No one knew what had happened to those who pushed on to the coast.
Stray items about Brussels: Street-cars running, but no private motor traffic permitted. Germans had seized most of the private cars. No telephone service permitted. Movies closed; their posters still advertising French and American films. The army had forbidden the population to listen to foreign broadcasts. Signs were up everywhere, with an appeal of the burgomaster, written in French and Flemish, asking the population to remain calm and dignified in regard to the German troops. American offices had a notice written on the stationery of the American Embassy, stating: “This is American property under the protection of the U. S. Government.”
Left Brussels in the late afternoon, our cars filled with the loot almost everyone had bought. We returned to Aachen about nine thirty p.m. I had some luck. I’ve arranged with RRG in Berlin to broadcast from Cologne at four thirty a.m. this night.
I’ve just finished the piece. Had to get the censors from the Propaganda Ministry and the High Command out of bed to read it. Though I’ve had little sleep for some time, I do not feel sleepy or tired. I hired a car and a chauffeur to drive me to Cologne—about forty miles. He insists on starting now—one a.m. Says the troops on the road will slow us up, maybe too the British bombers. So far they’ve not been over tonight, though it’s almost full moon.
May 21, 6.15 a.m.—Broadcast went off all right. No English bombers. Had difficulty in finding the broadcasting studio in the black-out. Finally a fat blonde, standing on a doorstep with a soldier, gave us directions in Cologne that worked. Snatched a half-hour’s sleep at the studio, and dozed for the hour and a half that it took us to drive back to Aachen. Dozed almost all the way, that is. It was a beautiful dawn and I finally woke up to feel it. Down to breakfast now and we’re off to the front at six thirty a.m. No time to take my clothes off, but did snatch a shave.
Footnote to May 20.—Returning from Brussels to Aachen, we ran across a batch of British prisoners. It was somewhere in the Dutch province of Limburg, a suburb, I think, of Maastricht. They were herded together in the brick-paved yard of a disused factory. We stopped and went over and talked to them. They were a sad sight. Prisoners always are, especially right after a battle. Some obviously shell-shocked, some wounded, all dead tired. But what impressed me most about them was their physique. They were hollow-chested and skinny and round-shouldered. About a third of them had bad eyes and wore glasses. Typical, I concluded, of the youth that England neglected so criminally in the twenty-two post-war years when Germany, despite its defeat and the inflation and six million unemployed, was raising its youth in the open air and the sun. I asked the boys where they were from and what they did at home. About half of them were from offices in Liverpool; the rest from London offices. Their military training had begun nine months before, they said, when the war started. But it had not, as you could see, made up for the bad diet, the lack of fresh air and sun and physical training, of the post-war years. Thirty yards away German infantry were marching up the road towards the front. I could not help comparing them with these British lads. The Germans, bronzed, clean-cut physically, healthy-looking as lions, chests developed and all. It was part of the unequal fight.
The English youngsters, I knew, had fought as bravely as men can. But bravery is not all; it is not enough in this machine-age war. You have to have a body that will stand terrific wear and tear. And then, especially in this war, you must have all the machines of warfare. I asked the English about that. There were six of them, standing a little apart—all that were left, they told me, from a company that had gone into battle near Louvain.
“We didn’t have a chance,” one of them said. “We were simply overwhelmed. Especially by those dive-bombers and tanks.”
“What about your own bombers and tanks?” I asked.
“Didn’t see any.” This answer was chorused.
Three of the men had dirty, bloody bandages over one eye. One of the three looked particularly depressed, and stood there gritting his teeth in pain.
“A shame,” his comrade whispered to me. “He’s lost the eye. Feels pretty rotten about it.”
“Tell him it isn’t so bad,” I said, trying in my awkward way to be comforting. “I lost the sight of one eye myself,” I said, “and you never notice it.” But I don’t think he believed me.
On the whole, though, despite the shell-shock, despite the black future as prisoners, they were a cheery lot. One little fellow from Liverpool grinned through his thick glasses.
“You know, you’re the first Americans I’ve ever seen in the flesh. Funny place to meet one for the first time, ain’t it?” This started the others to make the same observation, and we had a good laugh. But inside I was feeling not so good. F. and I gave them what cigarettes we had and went away.
AACHEN, May 21
Finally got to the actual front today and saw my first battle—along the Scheldt River in western Belgium. It was the first actual fighting I had seen since the battle for Gdynia in Poland last September.
Driving to the front we again went through Louvain. Surprising how many people had returned. The peasants had brought in food. To our amazement, a small vegetable market was functioning in a ruined street.
Heading southwest from Brussels, we drove along the road to Tournai, still in Allied hands. At Tubize, a few miles southwest of Waterloo, the familiar signs of recent fighting—the houses along the streets demolished, half-burnt debris everywhere. So far, I tho
ught, this war has been fought along the roads—by two armies operating on wheels. Almost every town wholly or partially destroyed. But the near-by fields untouched. Returning peasants already tilling them.
About noon we reached Enghien and drove to the headquarters of General von Reichenau, commander of the 6th Army. Headquarters were in a château not far from the town. In the park leading to the Schloss anti-aircraft guns were mounted everywhere. It was one of those pleasant Renaissance châteaux that dot the countryside in Belgium and France, and the park and lawn leading up to it were cool and green.
Reichenau, whom I had seen occasionally in Berlin before the war, greeted us on the porch. He was tanned and springy as ever, his invariable monocle squeezed over one eye. With typical German thoroughness and with an apparent frankness that surprised me, he went over the operations thus far, stopping to answer questions now and then. In a brief cable to CBS scribbled out later from my notes taken during the interview, I wrote:
“Despite the German successes up to date, Reichenau emphasized to us that the fighting so far had been only an enveloping movement, and that the decisive battle had yet to take place.
“‘When and where?’ I asked him.
“‘Where,’ he laughed, ‘depends partly on what the enemy does. When, and how long it will last, I leave to the future. It can be short or long. Remember, the preliminary fighting at Waterloo lasted several days. The decisive battle at Waterloo was decided in eight hours.’
“Reichenau admitted that ‘possibly our progress will now be slowed up if Weygand decides to make a grand stand. We started this battle absolutely confident. But we have no illusions. We know we still have a big battle ahead of us.’
“Reichenau said the German losses were comparatively small, so far, averaging about one tenth of the number of prisoners taken. Last official counting of prisoners was 110,000, not counting the half-million Dutch who surrendered.
“Someone asked how the German infantry got across the rivers and canals so fast, seeing that the Allies destroyed the bridges pretty well.
“‘Mostly in rubber boats,’ he said.”
Some further quotations from Reichenau I noted down roughly:
“Hitler is actually directing the German army from his headquarters. Most of the blowing up of bridges and roads in Belgium carried out by French specialists…. I ride 150 miles a day along the front and I haven’t seen an air-fight yet. We’ve certainly been surprised that the Allies didn’t try at least to bomb our bridges over the Maas River and the Albert Canal. The British tried it only once in the day-time. We shot down eighteen of them. But there seems to be no doubt that the English are holding back with their air force. At least that’s the impression I get.”
And I got the impression that this rather bothered him!
Further notes of talk with Reichenau:
“English have two army corps in Belgium, largely motorized. Belgians hold the north sector; British the centre and southern flanks…. We encountered one Moroccan division. It fought well, but lacked staying power and didn’t hold out long…. The hardest fighting the first days was along the Albert Canal. Then, later, along the Dyle Line, especially around Gembloux, northwest of Namur.”
A few more questions and answers. The general is in an almost jovial mood. He is not tense. He is not worried. He is not rushed. You wonder: “Have these German generals no nerves?” Because, after all, he is directing a large army in an important battle. A few miles down the road two million men are trying to slaughter one another. He bosses almost a million of them. The general smiles and, jauntily, says good-bye.
“I’ve just given permission for you to go to the front,” he says. His eyes light up. “You may be under fire. But you’ll have to take your chances. We all do.”
He turns us over to his adjutant, who wines us with an excellent Bordeaux, no doubt from the cellar below. Then off to the front.
Soon we hear the distant rumble of artillery. We are on the road to Ath, which, I note on my map, is as near to Lille, still held by the French, as it is to Brussels. More evidences now that the battle is just ahead. The Red Cross ambulances pass by more frequently. The stench of dead horses in the village streets. In the pastures off the roads, cattle lying motionless on the grass, felled by a bomb or a shell.
Near Ath we make a little detour and hit down a pleasant country lane. A first lieutenant, recently an official in a Wilhelmstrasse ministry, who is one of our guides, stands up, Napoleon-like, in the front seat of his car and goes through great gesticulations to give us signals, now to turn, now to stop, etc. Our drivers, all soldiers, say his excited signals mean nothing; the boys at the wheels of our cars laugh…. But the lieutenant apparently smells the blood of battle, though we are still some distance from it.
We come, all of a sudden, on a very pungent smell. All that is left of a small, miscellaneous French column after a German air attack. Along the narrow road are a dozen dead horses stinking to heaven in the hot sun, two French tanks, their armour pierced like tissue paper, an abandoned six-inch gun and a 75; and a few trucks, abandoned in great haste, for scattered about them are utensils, coats, shirts, overcoats, helmets, tins of food, and—letters to the wives and girls and mothers back home.
I note the freshly dug graves just off the road, marked by a stick on which hangs a French helmet. I pick up some of the letters, thinking perhaps one day I can mail them or take them to their destination and explain, maybe, what the last place, where the end came, was like. But there are no envelopes, no addresses, no last names. Just the scrawled letters: “Ma chère Jacquoline,” “Chère Maman,” etc. I glance through one or two. They must have been written before the push began. They tell of the boredom of army life and how you are waiting for your next leave in Paris, “ma chérie.”
The stench of the dead horses in the late spring sunshine is hard to endure, though someone has sprinkled lime on them. So we push on. We pass a tiny village. Five or six farmhouses at the crossing of a path with the road. Cattle graze in the pastures. Pigs squeal about the barnyards. All are thirsty, for the farmhouses are deserted. The cows have not been milked for some days and their udders are painfully swollen.
We can hear the guns pounding very clearly now. We speed down the dusty road past endless German columns of trucks carrying troops, carrying ammunition, carrying all-important oil, hauling guns, big and small. The bridge over a stream or a canal at Leuze has been blown up, but German engineers have already constructed an emergency one over which we go.
Leuze is jammed with vehicles and troops. Blocks of houses have been smashed to smithereens. Some still smoulder. We stop for half an hour on a pleasant little square, surrounded by a church, a school, and the City Hall or some government building. The school is a Red Cross station. I meander over to it. The ambulances are lined up, waiting to unload the wounded, seven or eight of them, waiting. Even with the wounded there is the same machine-like, impersonal organization. No excitement, no tension. Even the wounded seem to play their part in this gigantic businesslike machine. They do not moan. They do not murmur. Nor complain.
We get a bite to eat while we wait—a piece of brown bread with some sort of canned fish ragout spread over it. Then off to the front. Before we start, the army officer in charge warns of the danger. Warns that we must follow his orders promptly. Explains how to dive for a near-by field and lie flat on your belly if the Allied planes come over or if the French artillery opens fire. Our party is a little tense now as we go forward. We proceed north, parallel with the front, and back of it about five miles to Renaix, hurry through the town, and then north towards the Scheldt River, where they’re fighting. Infantry on foot, almost the first we’ve seen on foot—are deploying down various paths towards the river. Heavy artillery—and this is amazing to see six-inch guns, pulled by caterpillar trucks, and on rubber tires, are being hauled up a hillside at forty miles an hour. (Is this one of the German military secrets, such big guns being hauled so fast?) Finally we stop. A battery of six
-inch guns, concealed under trees in an orchard at the right of the road, is pounding away. Now we have a view over the valley of the Scheldt and can see the slopes on the other side. The artillery thunders, and a second later you see the smoke from the shells on the far slopes. An officer explains they’re bombarding the roads behind the enemy lines. You can follow the winding roads on the other side by the smoke of each exploding shell. We pile out of our cars, but immediately someone orders us back. Someone explains we’re too exposed. Enemy planes or artillery could get us here. So we cut back, and then turn due west and climb a hill beyond the artillery positions, so that they are now behind us, firing over our heads. This is an artillery observation post in the woods at the summit of the hill. We sit on a slope and look through the trees towards the front line.
But it’s disappointing. You see so little, actually. You cannot make out the infantry, or what they’re doing. An officer explains they’re fighting along the river there below. The Allies still hold both banks, but are retreating across the Scheldt. The only evidence you have of infantry fighting is that the German artillery barrage advances. Then stops. Then starts again much nearer to us. You conclude that the other side has counter-attacked, and the German attack, behind its own artillery barrage, must start all over again. An amateur officer from the Wilhelmstrasse insists he can follow the infantry. I grab my glasses. The infantry is invisible.
From the smoke of the exploding shells on the slopes across the Scheldt you can see that the Germans are giving the enemy’s rear lines of communication a terrific pounding. Through field-glasses you see how the Germans shoot up the road, following all the windings. After a while there is a great cloud of smoke spreading over the far side. So far we haven’t heard much of the German artillery as a factor in their amazing progress. The work of the Stuka bombers took most of our attention. But it’s obvious that this German motorized artillery, brought up to position right behind the advancing tanks at forty miles per hour, is a tremendous factor. The Allies probably had not reckoned that artillery could move so fast. Around us now the Germans are firing with six-inch guns and 105’s. The noise is not so deafening as I expected. Perhaps one’s ears get used to it.
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 Page 32