Agent of Peace

by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme

  [June 8th] Next morning I got down for my coffee at 7 o’clock and found a very excellent coffee and milk ample in supply and the same three large thin slices of bread and some preserve (I think no butter but my notes left in Berne will supply that point accurately). The bill was moderate, the hotel seemed well supplied with male waiters, etc. We walked to the station under the lovely cathedral which I longed to stop and lionize – someday.

  Again the station (another one) was thronged with soldiery and I knew they were massing on the Western frontier. Again steps to climb, Continental stations are dreadful in that respect. A comfortable carriage and an easy run of some three hours – past Aachen – Aix-la-Chapelle (burial place of our far off ancestor Charlemagne) brought us to Heberstal, the Belgium frontier.

  Notes

  * Emily had many dealings with Lord Kitchener when he was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902. In 1914 he was made Secretary of State for War with Cabinet rank.

  ** Joseph C. Grew, then Secretary at the American Embassy in Berlin, said: ‘We have no white bread any more; it is brown and the flour is mixed with a specific percentage of potatoes, but it is not bad.’

  * British soldiers

  1. EH Journal vol. 1 pp. 12–26

  7

  EMILY’S JOURNAL: INTO BELGIUM, JUNE 1916

  G erman troops had pushed through Belgium en route for France in August 1914. They had a million men in five armies and expected a quick victory. This had not happened. Their advance had been halted near the River Marne 30 miles (50km) from Paris, and after a battle they had been forced to retreat. The British had joined the French and both sides now resorted to trench warfare. Trenches, with underground bunkers, reached across France from Switzerland to the sea. It was there that the armies faced each other for four years.

  Except for a small salient around Ypres, in the north-west, the whole of Belgium was occupied. Two German armies, with thousands of troops, remained in Belgium. It was reported that in 1914 where there had been the slightest resistance – even a single shot – retaliation had been severe; houses were burnt and hostages, including women and children, were taken and shot. The world was outraged and Emily, always sceptical of atrocity reports which were used extensively by the press for propaganda purposes, wanted to see these places for herself. Naturally she wanted to talk to the people but this was forbidden.

  John Horne and Alan Kramer in their book German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial give us an idea of the extent of these atrocities. The first were reported at Liège which Emily only travelled through; then at Aerschot where twenty captured Belgian troops were shot and thrown into the river after which burning and looting took place and men were rounded up and shot. In Dinant, which Emily was unable to visit because of the bad weather, things were worse. Women and children were shot and the whole town was torched. At Louvain the famous library, home of many medieval documents, was said to have been deliberately set on fire and completely destroyed, a fact omitted completely in the German White Paper, while the inhabitants were terrorised, their homes burnt and hostages shot. At Charleroi where civilians were said to have been used as human shields, house burning and executions took place.

  Emily spent ten days in Belgium in June 1916 and visited many of these places as well as Brussels, Malines and Antwerp but, although she was allowed to travel wherever she wished, she was forbidden to talk to any of the inhabitants, a matter that she deeply regretted. Thus, although she understood the difficulties of living under martial law from her South African experience, she was prevented from fully comprehending the extent and brutality of the occupation.

  The strength of Emily’s testimony must be in what she saw with her eyes. She had been in Belgium in 1902, and again in 1904 when she had studied lace-making, and knew her way around so could compare the occupied country with its peacetime state.

  We pick up Emily’s Journal at the Belgium border:1

  Here we changed trains and I had to wait in the Customs while Von Rosenberg went to look for the Escort sent from Brussels to meet me. Presently he came, looking rather sleepy and introduced himself as Baron Falkenhausen, Freiherr von Friedensthal. He was in uniform, though not of the picturesque kind. He wore a long pale blue military overcoat which did not become him very well as he is short – and has an ungainly walk. He never wore the beautiful cloak which falls in such classic and graceful folds. He was fair, clean shaven and very young looking – spoke English well and idiomatically and was full of merriment. I think his laughter was largely nervous. However we soon made friends and I was able to put him at his ease, though I think being escort to a formidable old maid in a grey bonnet and a golf cape (for it was very cold) was really rather alarming to him. He asked me how old I judged him to be and I said about my nephew’s age or a little more – say 26. He said he was 32 and then spoke of a wife and child! Afterwards it all came out that they had married just a few weeks before war broke out (she is an Austrian-born Gräfin). His duty separated them and he had only seen her once since for a few days. She was at home at the family place in Silesia.

  Von Rosenberg made his adieux – he had done service on the Russian frontier and had since travelled immensely (I think he told me as many miles as if he had been round the world). His father’s castle was on the Russian frontier. He was used to catching trains waking up at all hours or never sleeping at all. He was about 22.

  A few minutes and we were in Belgium entering it at a pretty part, wooded and hilly country. The first village we passed was Doulain or Dourrain. And it lay calm and lovely in the valley; but on the heights, wood crested above it, stood the ruins of what had been a fine villa which Falkenhausen pointed out to me. He said, ‘There you see the first house destroyed in Belgium by the German Army.’ Then he went on to explain that it was inhabited by a Belgium Count who determined to resist from his private house standing alone as it does, the passage of the German army. He barricaded the house and fired from windows and roof. It was naturally replied to and the result was a ruin. No other house in the vicinity seemed to be touched. I found as the days went on that this fact was characteristic of the destruction wherever I was brought in contact with it. One house would be in ruins, the other next door to it would be intact. One street in ruins, the next to it intact – one block in ruins, the surrounding blocks untouched, and so on.

  We soon passed Liège where excepting about Herstal things seemed in status quo. One looked in vain for the famous fort, but learnt that modern forts are invisible. It is an ugly coal-mining town. The suburb Herstal was the scene of much street fighting and where the rougher element of the industrial population, factory women and children attacked the invaders and threw boiling water and oil from their windows upon them.

  Then a thrill came over me as I neared Louvain [Leuven] and the gable of the Cathedral was pointed out to me. A pretty town with its river running through. From here onwards the scattered houses in the fields shewed signs now and again of the passage of the armies, for cottages shewed repairs of roof or wall but not by any means all of them, and fewer as we approached Brussels which we reached at midday. A good fourteen years since I was first in Brussels viz in the spring of 1902. I was there again in 1904 when I was studying lace-making. The town looked peaceful and lovely as usual, though of course a large number of German officers were in the streets as well as men. The railways were entirely manned by German officials (I learned later that the entire Belgian staff refused to serve). They, however, run their own trains and police their own streets and try their own civil cases in their own law courts. The Belgian police have, however, to salute German officers.

  Talking of saluting, one of the clearest memories that will live with me of my whole tour is the ‘eyes’ of the German soldiery. It appears that in the German army a soldier must salute his superior not only with his hand but with his eyes. He must look straight into the Officers’ faces with his eyes. Walking always in Belgium with an officer as I
did I faced continually these eyes nominally saluting – really charged with deep, mingled, wonderful expressions. Eyes of all colours, blue, grey, brown, yellowish brown, black, hazel all made to look straight at you and all charged with feeling I find it hard to depict in words. One thing in common though I think all were tired – weary – trying but not always succeeding to hide their fatigue from the Superior – pathetic, pleading, gentle also for the most part – one or two with hatred – but not one fierce. Very often sad and also eyes as of men in physical pain – one or two only with youthful merriment. These constantly recurring glimpses into the inmost souls of scores of men moved me to tears and haunt and will haunt me for years.

  Conditions: We drove straight to the hotel. In the train my Baron as I called him, told me he had arranged to take me to the Astoria and though it was delicately put, it was clearly enough conveyed to me that I had no choice in the matter. He also alluded to the conditions under which I had come – of which I was ignorant and they certainly came rather as a blow, because I had not been told them and, though prepared for rigid martial law, had hardly expected such strictness. He said I must go straight to Brussels and it would be necessary that I should always sleep there, that it was not considered advisable that I should speak to Belgians and that I was to be always accompanied by him. I expressed regret because, as I said, such rules would militate against any chance of real investigation, but there I was and of course I should loyally obey the rules laid down. On that point he need have no doubts. He replied they had perfect confidence in me, but these were the rules and no exception could be made.

  Therefore I arrived at the Astoria feeling on parole – and also that I should be able to learn very little beyond which my eyes would teach me of the actual material destruction. In fact I said to my Baron: ‘Your refusal to let me speak to Belgians is your greatest condemnation and in one way I learn more from the prohibition than all the people could tell me.’

  The hotel was very weird and silent – several common rooms shut up. I had, however, a light cheerful room on the 4th floor for 5frs and with hot and cold taps in the room.

  More Conditions: The manager was told that I was under the protection of the Political Department and I was told I must not go out into the street, not even to enter a shop or buy a stamp unless the Baron were with me. He took me to my room and left me to change and rest, asking that he might go back to change and dress as he had been up all night. He would come later to take me to the authorities.

  Very soon I went down to get some tea, the restaurant dining room was dim and deserted, one waiter wandered forlornly about. I drank my tea and asked if I could have some boiled eggs for supper at 6 p.m. as I did not take late dinner. ‘Ah’, said the waiter with a dejected air ‘Nous ne dinons jamais maintenant’ [We never dine now]. The hall was empty and no books or newspapers were anywhere to be seen. Only now and then an officer passed through, truly an hotel mort.

  At 4.30 p.m. the Baron appeared much refreshed and we sallied forth – the evening was fine but cold. We took the tram and I noticed that he stood on the platform and would not come in and sit down amongst the people and this continued throughout my stay. I noticed at once the antagonistic looks of the people and he admitted that was the reason and that it was torture to him to be exposed to their insults – often silent ones. In fact as the days went on I saw that he kept entirely aloof – would never – at my suggestion – ask the way of a Belgian in the street, nor go with me if he could avoid it into a shop. He shrank. ‘It serves you right,’ I would say, ‘You have no business here.’ ‘Still if we were not here, you would be’, was his reply. And that I think was very probable.

  The people also would look at me with wide-eyed curiosity, not able to understand how it could come about that a woman so evidently English could be going about with a German officer. I kept as grave as possible, and avoided his helping hand to alight from or climb into trams and sometimes they thought I was under arrest, sometimes I am sure they thought I was German too and their faces took the same look of antagonism. It was very disappointing that I could not talk to them at all as I longed to do.

  This first afternoon we went to the beautiful house (formerly of some Belgian official) where the staff of the Political Department was installed. Baron von [der] Lancken*, Von Romberg’s friend who had given me a letter to him, was unfortunately in Berlin so I only saw Count Harrach his deputy and young von Moltke who with Falkenhausen made up the Chiefs of that Department. As I could not go upstairs Count Harrach very kindly came down to see me in the very elegantly furnished Empire drawing room looking out upon the park – now closed to the public. Count Harrach is the son of a well-known German artist and is himself a sculptor residing mostly in Florence. He was handsome cultivated and highbred. He was a bit shy about his English but spoke it to please me, and now and then lapsing into French. Even the fact that he had to give me ‘orders’ and make me understand that I must strictly obey could not detract from his exceeding charm. He forbade my going into the war zones, but I was free to go where I pleased in the ‘occupied zones’. I asked if it were not possible to get a car or some conveyance to move about from village to village etc, but he said no motor was available, I must use the trains and in any case always return to sleep in Brussels. With my limited time and powers I felt this would be a great drawback to the work I wanted to do. I spoke of my desire to go also to Berlin which he promised to forward. Then followed an informal and friendly talk with all the three men – von Moltke moved me immensely – such a very sweet almost boyish face and very tall. He is not married, but my Baron said he was as old as himself. We talked of the naval battle** and the war generally. They asked me what England was fighting for and why. And the vivid impression I carried away from those three men was their broken-hearted consternation that England should have declared war upon them in the darkest moment of their history.

  We took a little détour on returning to the hotel so as to see something of Brussels and arranged early to bed and to spend the first day quietly after so tiring a journey. I found it very cold. Reaching the hotel, I went to have my supper and found that the Baron intended to sit with me. This he did, ordering a drink – whiskey and soda – the reply being ‘there was none’, so something else was substituted. For supper came brown bread very similar to that in Germany but the three slices were large and thick instead of medium and thinnish, far more in fact than I wanted. The prices also of my meals were the same or if anything rather less than I pay in the Westminster Palace Hotel. The dejected waiter waited. During this meal we were able to talk and learn somewhat of each other’s lives and points of view. Falkenhausen told me of his year spent at King’s, Cambridge – of his English friends. Mr Wodehouse son of Lord Kimberley I think, and the Quickes of Devonshire – his grief that his friend Quicke had already been killed in the war. How he had valued his English friends and loved the English country life and hunted on Exmoor etc, how England’s entry into the war with them had broken all his ideals. Interesting too, it was, to note in the light of the average English view that we are out to kill Prussianism, that he and his friends who had been attracted to and had embraced the English liberal and democratic views, had now definitely discarded them and returned to arguing that their bureaucratic system was after all superior.

  After supper I pleaded for bed and he took me to the lift promising to call for me at 10 a.m. There is German time plus Summer Time in Belgium and I went to bed with the sun shining and read by daylight till nearly 11 p.m. I do not think I switched on the light once in either country.

  Friday, June 9th The morning was cold, windy, fine and showery by turns. I rang to have my coffee in bed and it came up, good in quality plentiful in quantity and three very large thick slices of the delicious brown bread and plenty of good butter and jam. I could never eat more that a part of one slice of bread and kept also a piece for the afternoon, the rest went down again.

  Punctually at 10 a.m. came my Baron and found me awaiting hi
m in the gloomy silent hall. He suggested taking me to the lace depôt – set going by the Germans to provide work for the countless lace-makers in the country districts. The turnover is large and the profits go to the Belgian Red Cross. I have in my Aide Mémoire* noted the details about this work, which was evidently supported solely by the German officers buying for their wives. Some of the lace was good, but none of it the very first class, nor of the type I most admire. Also the wages did not seem to me high enough, tho’ undoubtedly a help. I bought a couple of small bits as it seemed de rigueur. Just below was another shop where blouses were being made, the manager being an Americanized German. Some thirty young women make these and work daily; in busy times several dozen more are employed. This of course, was to show me what the Germans were doing and I quite felt that whatever business they undertake they do well.

  Coming out and wandering in what seemed a happy busy town, we came with a sudden start on a queue of people, three or four deep, mostly women and girls with a sprinkling of men – the Belgians waiting to be fed. It was a sharp reminder of tragic facts. They were very neat in appearance, quiet, orderly folk but the faces were strained and wan. I watched, not liking to do it, and spoke a bit with the Baron over it. (This is further described in an article I wrote about it.) He promised I should see something of these people and visit the Communal Kitchens. Afterwards it became an ordinary sight and one that recurred again and again in different quarters of the town and in different towns. It always gave me a shock and brought one back to realities.

  He suggested turning into the Cathedral which I was glad to do, wondering if any ill had happened to it. Seeing all in statu quo I exclaimed with delight that no harm had been done at which he drew himself up and said stiffly, ‘Germans do not destroy Cathedrals’. And in the end I think this will be found to be true, Louvain Cathedral and Malines are both partially injured (tho’ Service is being held in both) but the one, Malines was injured equally by the cannon of both sides, and not much; the other, Louvain, caught fire accidentally, the Germans doing their best to extinguish it. Dinant Church is, I believe, destroyed as a result of the street fighting consequent upon the civilian outbreak – and probably churches in the small towns of Visé etc but we paid no respect to churches in South Africa. Rheims is the usual instance, but the French used it as an observation post and not till then did a German ball hit it and then only one. At least the ‘White book’ on this must be read before judgment is formed. Anyhow grand old Brussels Cathedral stands unharmed and so does Antwerp. We admired the piers and the wonderful tints and hues of the stained glass.