BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15237, 26 March 1915, Page 10

BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS.

SUFFOCATING A PEOPLE. HOW TO FIGHT WITHOUT ARMS. J ■ ' (From an American Correspondent of "The Times.") King Albert and his soldiers arc not tho only Belgians fighting for the cause of the Allies. Some seven millions of Belgians at homo aro also fighting. Tho soldiers in tho Allied trenches at Pixmndc, enjoying tho privilege of freo men in tho remaining unconquered strip of their soil, face the enemy in open battle with weapons as good as his.. But tho peoplo between tho German trenches and the Dutch frontier are waging war with only mind and spirit against tho bayonets of Landsturm guards.

In former day s tho traveller hardly thought of Belgium as haviug patriotic homogeneity. Sho seemed a hothouso of industry whose nationality was the artificial product of European politics. After five months of German occupation ono would not havo been surprised to find her thrifty artisans, manufacturers, peasants, and traders bowing to Ca?sar in at least a truco of outward friendliness for the sake of individual profit. Nothing of the kind has happened. Belgium is an unshaken unit of defiance of German rule. Her metal, struck to a whito heat in the furnace of war, has cooled under German occupation to tempered steel. Whether always latent or newly bom out of the horrors of Louvain. Belgian nationalism is a fact. Defeat and suffering have only served to strengthen tho Belgians' lovo of their King and of all the principles ho incarnates. "We know how to suffer in Belgium." said a Belgian jurist. "Our abilit-v to suffer and to hold fast .to our hearths has kept us going through tho centuries. Now a ruffian has como into our house and taken us by the throat. Ho can choke us to death or he can slowly .starve us to death, but he cannot mako us yield. No, wo shall never forgive 1" "You. too, hate, then.*"' I asked . "Of course I hate. For the first time in my lifo I know what it is to hate; and so do my countrymen. . begin to .enjoy my hate. It is ono of tho privileges of our present existence. We cannot stand on chair and tables as they do in Berlin cafes and sing our hate, but no one can stop our hating in secret." "WAR IS WAR-" Whereas outside of Belgium you get contradictory items of Belgian news, which lead to confusion, onco you are in Belgium tho German logic of the German methods from the outset of their occupation becomes clear. As one rides about the country the systematic destruction of- certain groups of houses where there had been sniping k evident in the cold rains which mark the result of a definite order about a definite location. The Germans insist that theirs was tho merciful way. Krieg ist Kricg! By calculated reprisals and punishment they stopped sniping. If they Fiad bothered with trials and investigations, they e?ay, sniping would have kept up. They may have taken innocent lives and burned the homes of the-innocent, they admit, but their defence is that thereby they saved many lives of their soldiers and thousands upon thousands of lives of Belgians "and prevented the feud between' the rulers and the ruled from becoming more embittered.

Sniping 0%-er. the next step in policy was to keep the population quiet with a minimum of eoldiery. which -would permit a maximum .it the front. Prussian brusqueness was found unnecessarily irritating to the population. A Belgian would lose his temner and turn desecrate, and the Prussian would reply with the bayonet. Therefore, the elcleif; of the Saxon and Bavarian forces were called in. They were* amiable fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into their own hands. Thouf.h rotund, they were good enough for doing Gen-try-go and guarding the roads, while the more vigorous could be nut to more strenuous ■work. For the German staff thinks thincs out well. Krieg Jst Krieg at Louvain. Diplomacy is diplomacy to-day in Belgium.

The occupation is strictly military. It concerns itself -wit l ' the business of national suffocation. All the functions of the national government are in German hands. But Belgian policeinr-n guide the street traffic, arrest culprits for ordinary misdemeanours, and take them before Belgian Judges;. This concession, which also ine-ans a eavinjj in

soldiers, only aggravates to the Belgian the regulations directed against his freedom. Whereas refugees departed freely from Louvain in August and from Antwerp iv October, because their movement could nob be controlled, now Belgians only in exceptional instances may leave their country. They aro prisoners in their own land. They may not £*> from one town to another; they may not use tho telephone or the telegraph ; they may write letters only through tho Gorman military post; they may not use their own railroad system as passengers or for parcel transport. Belgians seen walking across the fields are hailed by a Landsturm guard. They may walk only in the streets and go to their shops and offices within tho radius of their own communities. Tho psychological effect of this is appreciable only after it is endured. Ono might bo quito content for a week Within the confines of his own houso and garden, but the moment a sentry with a bayonet appeared at the gate with word that one could not co to the post office or lo call on a neighbour across tho 6treet. one's own house and garden become a gaol. THE GERMAN BOYCOTT. Tho Belgians aro prisoners who shame, outwit, and pinprick their gaolers in a kind of warfare more efficacious than sniping, in which both sexes and all ages have becomo expert through a merciless apprenticeship. Any Belgian, unless he bo a Belgian official, who has dealings or social relations with a German is proscribed by his class. Should a German officer sit down at tho same table in a cafe or restaurant with a Belgian, the Belgian takes another seat. If an officer enters a tram, women draw back so their garments will not touch his, as if they would escape vermin. One officer who lost his temper on such an occasion exclaimed: —"Madame. I shall not contaminate you !" Her only reply was to look at the officer's coat and draw a little farther away.

In tho smaller towns where the Germans are billeted in Beljxian houses, of course the hosts must servo their unwelcome guests. "Yet we manage to let them know what is in our heart," said one woman. "Some try to be friendly. They say they have wives and children at home, and wo cay. 'How .glad your wives nnd children would be to see you! Why don't you goliome? , "

When . a report reached tho commander in Ghent that an old man had concealed arms, a sergeant with a guard was sent to search tho house. "Yes. my son has a rifle."

"Where is it?" "In his hands on the Ys-or, if he is not dead. Monsieur. You are welcometo search. Monsieur."

If tho sergeant had struck tho old man his neighbours would havo known it. Tho tale would have travelled on the whisper to Brussels, and eventually to the neutral countries, which would have called forth the plaint from tho Foreign Office at Berlin: —"After all our pains, there you soldiers go, breaking the crockcrv again!" The German officer and every German soldier in Belgium is the mouthpiece of propaganda for tho policy which succeeded that of Louvain. after "terrorisation had accomplished its purpose." They tell the Belgians at every opportunity that the English and the French can never como to their rescue. The Allies are beaten; Paris nnd Warsaw will soon fall; the Suez Canal will soon bo in Turkish hands. I-, was the British got Belgium into trouble; the British who arc responsible for the idleness, the penury. tho hunger, and the eufferinn in Belgium to-day. The British used Belgium as a cat's paw: then they deserted her. But the Belgians remain unconvinced. The rnlei-s cannot understand why the Belsrians should not like them. Occasionally they break out in disgust at the failure" of their efforts by declaring that, "the Beleians are a vile, worthless, tricky people, who outrht to be wined off the face of tho earth,*' as a fitting fate for anyone who cannot appreciate the benefit of going into the hopper of the wonderful' machine of German paternalism. RIDICULE AND HATE. If the Belgian bo lost- to Kultur it Ls his own fault, and not for want of systematic instruction. An Englishman or a Frenchman who gets irritated at. times with his own national censorship could only imagine how a Belgian feels if everything he had to read about the war were under tho German censorship. Conies of "The Times." though drastically forbidden, do resc-h Brussels, but are' seen only by a fortunate few. In times when the Belgian most want* real news, when ho has littlo to do but wonder what the real news is, in place of his favourite morning and evening edition, now suppressed or Published elsewhere, lie gets only the newspapers established under German auspices, which aim to chango tho views which he will not change. If ho cannot afford or. for a paper. **""hv the German. Austrian, and Turkish bulletins and tho German wireless news are nost-ed on iho wai's among the latest "verbotons and proclamations. About the only time that a Belgian smiles is when he stop; to read

these bulletins, and ho likes to have the German sentry see his smile. "Little ones, be good! Here, is a now fairy tale!" lie tells his neighbours. Belgium is developing a new humour; a humour at the expense of the ; Germans, the only kind of humour for ! which Belgians have any luvtrt. In their homes they mimic -their rulers freely as they please. To carry mimicry into the streets menus arrest for the elders, but. not always tor the children. You have hoard tho story, which is true, of bow some- gamins put carrots in old bowler hat« to represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader's command of "On to Paris" did a goose-step backwards. There is another which you may have not heard of a email boy who put on grandfather's spectacles. a pillow under his coat, and a card on his cap. "Officer of the Landsturm." The conquerors had enough sense not to interfere with the battalion which was taking Paris; but the- x>seudo-Landsturm officer was chased into a doorway and got a cuff after his placard was taken away from him. Most of tho Belgians, -wearing the black yellow, and red, or berts portrait in their buttonholes, pass by the Gorman patrols oi- the sentries in front of public Imildinis without seeming to s<l3 them. When an order was issued that- Belgian colours or tho King's portrait should not be displayed. tho next day they were as conspicuously for eale in tho shops as over, and many Belgians replied by wearing a second button with the portrait of the Oueen, a Bavarian, beside that of tho King, or by adding tho King's iwrtraifc to tho colours where they had worn only a singlo emblem. At Mass in Brussels I saw an enormous Belgian flag draped on a standard in tho centre of a church. Authority might not tear down th« symbol of patriotism when safeguarded by a religious service. A German officer entering a shop to buy -a cigar and finding the King's portrait on the walls, exclaimed: — "Don't you know that is forbidden?" 'Tes, Monsieur." "Then why do you leave it up? "Because I love mv King. Don't you love your Kaiser? You wouldn't love him any the less if he were in trouble, would you?"

The officer took his cigar and Jei't tho shoo without further comment. Ho knew that tho woman who served him was thinking, "It is your privilege to buy. but as I sell I loathe you! I loathe yon!" What a puffing and rushing about for the Landsturm if they had tried to enforce tho order against the flags and buttons! * No sooner would they have cleared tho buttonhole of a Belgian in front than tho colours would havo appeared in a buttonhole at tho rear. If all offenders wero arrested tho gaols of Germany could not hold them. UNARMED WAR. These aro, littlo things, but reflective of how the millions of unarmed wage their war. There are more vital things. Germans may force Belgians into tho mines, as they have at Liege, or to other forms of manual labour under guards. But the bayonet fails with the skilled artisan. Tho repairing of a German official automobile would hardly bo risked at a Belgian garage. That automobile would likely break down before it was far along tho road; and how could the officer riding in it prove, that the mechanic at tho garage was responsible for the accident? Usually when skilled laliour is required thero aro no skilled Belgians to bo found. Belgians refuse to work in the arms factories op any other factories which produce materia! of war for tho enemy. With their 6atire, with lips stiff with scorn, with glances of contempt, with every resource of civilised man's wit and stubbornness and the force of tho mass of their millions they are fighting while economic ruin stares them in the face, and bread from America gives them the strength te go on. They have suffered most of ali the Allies for the Allies' cause. It looks as jf they may havo to starve for it. We como to tho problem of ho\r a country dependent on . tho food it bought, with _'it* industry is to live if the Allies do not break open tho doors witli victory.

<; It does eeem nearer!"' people in Brussels keep saying when they hear gun-fire. There is something pitiiul and something fine in their confidence and loyalty. They liave no doubt that Sir John French" is coming. Knglantl, they think, is invinciblo. .-Vs tl»ey soo German officers in tfyince and as they obey with their bodies but not their minds, they dream of that day when their KingVhall mount the .steps of his Palace and khaki columns march through tho streets tinging "Tipperarv."