DEALING WITH A TYRANT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 85, 3 January 1918, Page 9

DEALING WITH A TYRANT

AMERICAN DIPLOMAT'S STORY EARLY WAR DAYS IN BRUSSELS Mr. Hugli Gibson, the First Secretary of the American Legation in Brussels at the time that the Germans polluted the towii, has written "A Journal from a Legation,'-' which, it is said will.bo only second in interest to Mr! Gerard's .famous book. . Here is an extract of the story which Mr. Gibson relates in "Land and M'ater" of one of the preposterous generals who wero in charge of Brussels under the German occupation, and who tried to cook the official telegrams sent out by the United States Embassy and to delay their dispatch. Mr. Gibson was too much for him. This was in August, 1914.

A Tubby Little TVrarft. "The General himself is a littla tubby man, who looks as though lie might be about 55; his face iB red y.s fire when it is not purple, and the way ho rages about is enough to maka Olympus tremble. The orowd of frightened people who came to tho Hotel da Ville for laisser-passers and other papers all found their way straight to Ilia office; no one was on hand to sort them out and distribute them among the' various bureaux of the civil administration. Even tho staff officers did very little to spare their chief and head off the crowd. Thoy would come right np to him at his table and shove a piece d'identite under his nose with a tremulous request for a vise; ha would turn upon them and growl.

"Just as with us, every one wanted something quite out of the question, and then insisted on arguing about tlio answer that they got. A man would como up to the General and say that lio wanted to get a pass to iVamiir. The General would say impatiently that it was quite impossible. Then Mr. Man would say that that was no . doubt true, hut that he must go because ho had a wife or a family or a business or something else that he wanted to get to. As he talked the General would be getting redder and rodder, and when ahout to explode he would spring to hin foot and advance upon his tormentor waving his arms and roaring at him to get the -7— out of there. "Not satisfied with that, ho invari* ably availed himself of the opportunity of being on his feet to chaße all tha assembled crowd down the stairs and to scream at all tho officers in attendance for having allowed all this crowd to gather.' Then he would sit down and go through the same performance from the beginning.

"My Sharo of the Trouble.'-' "[■was there off and on formoro than two hours, and in that tima ho did not do. four minutes' continuous uninterrupted work. I had my shara of the troiylo. 1 explained my errand to an aide-de-camp, and asked him to seo that proper instructions were given for the sending of the telegrams. Ho took them and went away. Then after a few • minutes ho came, gravely back, clicked his heels, and announced that there was no telegraph communication with tho outside world, and that he did not know when it would ho reestablished. I asked him to go back to the General, who in tho meantimo had retreated to tho Gothic room and had loeked himself in with a group of officers. My friond camo back again, rather red in the face, and said he had authority to stamp my telograms and let them go,. Ho put the rubber stamp on them and said-1 could take them. I said that was all very well, but where could I take them since the telegraph" offioes were closed. He went off again and came back with the word that the offico in the central bureau was working for official messages. I

Hot into tho motor with the Italian Secretary, who had a similar task; and together we went to the central bureau. It nailed up tight and the German sentries on guard at the door swore to us by their Ehrenwort that there : was absolutely nothing doing. Fooling the Diplomats, "Back we went to the Hotel do Ville. Our friend the A.D.C. had disappeared, but we got hold of another and asked him toiinfovm himself. He went away and we spent a few minutes watching the General blow up everybody in- sight; when the A.D.C. came back he smilingly announced that there was no way of getting the hies-, sage's out oh the wire; that tho best thing we could do would be to send a courier to Holland and telegraph from there. I told' him to go back and get another answer. Then came another fruitless journey. By this timo the wild goose chasing was getting a little', bit monotonous, and when we -got. back to the ■ headquarters I. announced with, some emphasis to ,tho r"?r that I could reach that !° T care to any more of it; that I wanted liim to get me the rieht ■nte'jmtion and do it right away, | so that I should not have to go back fntilfn f 3 u d report an >'- moro utile errands. He went away in. some trepidation,' and was gone some time, uesently the General came out himseJr, seething in his best manner. A qui tout co tas de depeches roars lie.

A inoi,' says L knowing the' language. "lie then announced in a voice of thunder that tlioy were all wrong, and that he was having them rewritten ; before I could summon enough breath to snout him down and protest lie had gone into another room and slammed the.door. I rushed back to my trusty A.D.C. and told him to get .me those telegrams right away; he came back with word that they would be sent alter correction.' I said that under r.o circumstances could they send out a word over the signature of the American Minister without his having written it himself. He. came back and said he could not got the cables. I started to walk into the office myself to get them, only to bump into "the. General coming out with the messages in his hand. He threw them down on a table andbegari telling a young officer what corrections to make on. tho telegraph form itself. I protested vigorously against any such-proceedings, telling him that we should ho glad to havo his views as to any errors in our'message, but that ho. could not touch a letter in any official message.- At this stage'of the game ho was summoned to .tji.e. office of tho Burgomaster, and rush-' ed olf with-a string of oaths that would liavo made an -Arizona- cow--puncher'take olf his lial. The Coup. "The young ofiicer started calmly interlining the message, so 1 reached over and took it away from him with the statement -that 1 would report to my chief what had happened. He was all affutLor, and asited that I remain, as the General would not he long. I could not see any use in waiting longer, however, and made as dignified a letrent as possible under the circumstances. There were a number of cables in the handful T had carried around that were being sent in tho interest of the Gorman Government and of German subjects, and I took good care to tell the young man that, while we wero glad to do anything reasonable "or tliem or for their people, we had stood for a good deal more than fcliov had a right, io expect, ami that tlms: kiMck would stay on my desk until such time as they got ready to make a proper arrangement for our communications,"-