UNDER PRUSSIAN DOMINATION.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15723, 17 October 1916, Page 9

UNDER PRUSSIAN DOMINATION.

POSITION IN BELGIUM

INTRACTABILITY OF THE PEOPLE

(arZCIAI.LT WRITTEN" TOR "TH* TRESS.")

(Br Mns Jcliax Grande.)

BERNE, July 2G,

The German Press Propaganda Office, whose headquarters are at' Berlin, with branches in 'Zurich, Amsterdam, and other towns in neutral countries, lias been for more than a year persistently disseminating reports concerning the satisfactory manner in which the Belgian population is settling dawn and becoming attached to German rule. In this work of propaganda it is loyally seconded by tho "Wolff Agency, which has diligently circulated . these reports as testimony from neutral (and therefore inferentially unimpeachable) sources, to tho benefits of German administration in Belgium and to the happiness an«l content of the Belgians under it. The ingeniousness of these German propagandists cannot be excelled. Some of them first circulate the news, which they wish, to bo believed by neutrals, and, of course, if possible, by belligerents, in. certain more or less Germancontrolled organs in the neutral Press, preferably the Swiss Press. Then the Wplff Agency, virtually tho same people but with another name, and therefore appearing .to bo a separate- organisation, takes iip the cue, and transmits this news to other neutral countries again as emanating from a neutral source, whereas as a matter of fact it does nothing of the kind. Germany thus first. inserts her manufactured news in her controlled Press in one neutral land' or another, and then disseminates it far and wide in. others; and this she lias done sinco the beginning of the war, and not merely concerning Belgium but also about Serbia, conditions in the. German Empire, the progress of hostilities, and, in short, every possible subject upon which she desires certain opinion to prevail. For instance, I have seen articles inserted in Herr Erzberger s organ.- Thee "Ncue Zuerchcr 'Nachrichten," which were afterwards sent to Swcdeu, Holland, and Spain, ami even the United States, the opinion of '.'another neutral country.-' Similarly, I have watched articles from the German-<eon-trolled Dutch papers being circulated in Switzerland as representative of Dutch public opinion.

About nothing, however, is German propaganda more persistent than about conditions in Belgium, even the aid of cinematographs being invoked to impress neutrals with an adequate notion of the attitude of the Belgian population under Prussian domination. Nevertheless the Gorman authorities arc careful to ensure that none but neutrals of known pro-Pntssian proclivities. usually Germans naturalised as Swiss, shall visit tho occupied parts of Belgium. 'As I personally know, indeed, the only correspondents of Swiss newspapers who have been allowed to enter Bolgiuni since the war have been representatives of papers admittedly German-controlled. In vain, however, does Germany seal the Belgian frontier, and suffer none approved pro-Germans to cross it. News still loaks through, and quite lately 1 was talking with the subject of a neutral State —I will not say which—a man whom I knew long before the war, and who- had just been spending ;; ronsiderable time in various parts of Belgium, particularly Brussels and Antwerp. He assures me that the soldiers of the Giyman army of occupation in Belgium, mostly Landsturm (last line) men, portly and bearded, go about wearing a sullen aspect, evidently not relishing their task. This, after all, is not surprising, since no attempt is made by the Belgian population to conceal their hatred for the German soldiers. '"During, the weeks I spent in Brussels,' 7 my informant. - 'I "never • smv a Belgian, it were occasionally a \

prostitute, either look friendly at a German officer, or say a friendiy word to one.'' The German soldiers of *h° army of occupation were only too obviously longing to be away from Belgium, and. more tnan one said to my jriein! . 'Tf only this farce were over, and we could go back home!" To go about the Belgian country at. present, particularly about districts where the villages are all in ruins, and the people living in hovels, is even sadder than to visit the cities. Large tracts of land are not cultivated, doubtless because the inhabitants know that whatever they grow tho Germans will immediately commandeer. My friend motored about the country, and he tells mo that wherever the car stopped the people—chicfly poor, decrepit old women, distressingly thin and wretchedlooking—would come up to it, not, saying a word, but merely holding out their hands piteously. '1 he Lundsturm soldiers, however, are not particularly rough with the people, in which respect they are superior to their officers. Any tolerably good villa or habitable Louse is, of course, occupied by the local oommandant or by troous. Both the Belgians and prisoners of- war are compelled to work in coal-mines, but the former are paid mii-erabiy low wages, and the money earned from the output of coal naturally does not benefit Belgium, but the German lleichsbank.

Apparently Germany has now abandoned her doubtless clumsy attempts to win the confidence and friendship of the Belgians in Belgium, hut before doing so, «ho even prevailed upon the Archbishop of Colore to send a mission of French-speaking Roman Catholic priests, eloquent preachers, to go lip and down the country and endeavour to exert their influence upon the Belgian clergy-and laity. Not only did tkc.se emissaries preach, teach and exhort in church, school, and convent, but they actually instituted a house to house campaign of ingratiation, talking to tho people, distributing tracts and pamphlets, and in every way trying 10 induce them to become reconciled to their present rulers. Moreover, in order not to neglect the Belgian Protestant population, the Gorman Evangelical Synod sent at the same time a deputation of pastors and even lady missionAries wlioee duty'-.it was io do for the Belgian _ Protestants what the priests were doing for the the Iloman Catholics of the country. All these insinuating: endeavours, however, have proved fruitless. Priests and pastors alike were received with sympathy in thencapacity of co-religionists, but only in the rarest of eases—always those of Belgians of German origin—could they aichicvo the slightest snows* in what was, after all, their real purpose.

As a matter of fact, these measures were in the nature of forlorn hopes, for a year or more ago the Germans were forced to the conclusion that their Belgian victims had no intention of over having anything to do with thom, that they were and would remain deadly enemies of Germany, and all things German, and ■would never forget having seen their own kith and kin massacred by Gorman invaders. A careful scrutiny of tho German Press reveals the curious fact that all the time when the Germans were tolling the neutral public h.o>v much the Belgians were growing to love .Prussian rule, they were, nevertheless, in reality, aware of the impossibility of reconciling them thereto, Even German writers did not fail to note the red, black and yellow cockades, and the portraits of King Albert ostentatiously displayed by the. Belgians on all occasions, until Von Bissing forbade the wearing of Belgian colours. But this prohibition was scarcely pasted on the walls before everyone, man. woman, and child, was wearing an ivy leaf, ivy being symbolical of the-motto "je raenrs ou jo m'atiacho." —I die or I cling. The fact that the Belgians always contrived to receive papers from outside and thus to become acquainted with tho true facts of the world's situation and conditions -in Germany, has also not escaped tho Germans. Yet another way in which Belgians manifest their independent views is "bycelebrating the birthday not of tho Kaiser but of tho King of Spain, and putting placards in the sliop windows to the effect that "Spain helped us in our misery; let lis, therefore, in token of our gratitude, keep tho birthday of her King." When Italy* declared war on Austria, the' Belgian people learned of the event, and signified their satisfaction by wearing the Italian colours. This being forbidden by Governor-General Von 13isisiug. they immediately appeared wearing tiny pieces of macaroni instead. Even Von Hissing could lvot make himself look so foolish as he must have done had h# issued a 6olemn proclamation prohibiting the Belgians from wearing bits of macaroni. In view of the admissions in the leading German newspapers, it is surely singularly inept on the part of tho Germans to pretend that the' Belgians ar«. otherwise than wholly intractable, irreconciled and irre<?onsilable. For instance, tho "Borlinger Tacblatt," writing recently about Flemish Belgians, remarked that they are "undoubtedly of low-German stock, but oven before tli'K war "they never looked on us as brothers, and they will not .do so now—quite tho contrary." . The Flemish, indeed,, as tho writer realises, <; aro eating their hearts-out with rage .against Germany. Anyone., who has lieard tho menacing words 'Lienor dood ala Duitsch' (sooner be dead than Gorman) proceeding from thousands of throats, will certainly agree with me when I assort that th/» Flemish had rather be addressed 'in French than in German."

The oppressed Belgian population, as the Germans a>'e perpetually asserting, is certainly calm; in this they speak truth. But their calm is the calm of sullen, dogged determination, and not that of reconciliation and nppeasemcnt. The people know that thousands of their brothers and fathers, ,and even of their mothers'and sisters are dragging out a lingering existence in prison hecause of their intractability, and they themselves have always the Prussian bayoilet and tho Prussian cannon pointing at their heads. Belgium, in short-, is a soethiiur mass of opposition, kept in check only bv armed force —which may explain the fact that some of the latest German "peace feelers,-" issued through the neutrnl press, contain hints as to the possibility of Germany one day evacuating Belgium.