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THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 


THE   SECRET   PRESS 
IN  BELGIUM 


BY 

JEAN  MASSART 

Vice-Director  of  the  Class  of  Sciences 
in    the    Royal    Academy   of   Belgium. 


Translated  by  BERNARD  MIALL. 


WITH  14  ILLUSTRATIONS 


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NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY 

681  Fifth  Avenue 


v"   ^f!- 


Copyright,  1918 
By  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


AH  Rights  Resetted 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

In  another  volume,  "Belgians  under  the  German 
Eagle,"  ^  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  how  greatly  the 
German  mentality  differs  from  our  own;  in  place  of 
the  terror  which  the  German  strives  to  inspire,  the 
Belgian  displays  the  profoundest  calm — a  most  irri- 
tating form  of  response — and  an  ingenuous  humour. 

The  object  of  the  present  work  is  to  describe  one 
of  the  forms  assumed  by  this  resistance :  the  clandestine 
publication  and  distribution  of  newspapers,  pamphlets, 
books,  picture-postcards,  etc. 

While  the  above-mentioned  volume  was  based 
upon  documents  which  originated  beyond  the  Rhine, 
or  which  were  at  least  adorned  by  the  official  stamp 
of  the  German  censorship,  this  present  work  makes 
little  use  of  any  but  uncensored  writings.  The  reader 
will  thus  appreciate  the  contrast  between  the  two 
classes  of  literature. 

Until  August,  191 5,  I  was  able  to  contribute  to 
the  prohibited  Press.  Since  escaping  from  my  native 
land,  I  have  had  at  my  disposal  the  greater  part  of 
the  clandestine  publications  appearing  in  Belgium. 
However,  I  have  occasionally  had  to  content  myself 

^  Comment  les  Beiges  resistent  a  la  domination  allemande, 
published  by  M.M.  Payot  (Paris  and  Lausanne) ;  the  English 
translation  of  which,  under  the  above  title,  was  published 
by  Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin. 


38G.938 


vi  PREFACE 

with  copying  articles  reproduced  in  Belgian  news- 
papers appearing  in  Holland. 


Every  newspaper  publishes  two  kinds  of  article: 
those  which  are  written  specially  for  its  readers,  and 
those  which  are  extracted  from  other  newspapers  or 
reviews.  The  secret  Belgian  Press  is  written  almost 
exclusively  by  willing  helpers,  not  by  professional 
journalists,  whose  style  would  too  readily  betray 
them.  Those  articles  which  have  the  advantage  in 
the  matter  of  form  are  therefore,  as  will  readily  be 
understood,  those  which  are  borrowed  from  foreign 
publications.  But  we  are  assuming  that  these  are 
familiar:  for  which  reason  the  reader  will  find,  in  this 
volume,  next  to  nothing  from  La  Soupe,  or  the  Revue 
hehdomadaire  de  la  Presse  frangaise,  which  are 
the  leading  journals  of  our  Secret  Press,  but  which 
contain  hardly  anything  but  reprinted  or  translated 
matter. 

We  have  almost  invariably  reproduced  articles  in 
their  entirety,  without  elisions.  We  have  realised  only 
too  vividly,  thanks  to  the  profit  which  the  Germans 
have  derived  from  the  mutilation  of  documents,  what 
a  dishonest  procedure  such  mutilation  is.  If  the 
article  is  really  too  long,  or  contains  passages  of  no 
interest  to  us,  we  indicate  where  the  suppressions  have 
been  effected. 

It  was  necessary  to  make  a  selection  of  articles  for 
reproduction.  We  reproduce  only  those  which  best 
reveal  the  contrast  between  the  Belgian  and  the  Ger- 
man mentality. 

The  author's  comments  are  as  brief  as  possible; 


PREFACE  vii 

they  exist  only  to  assist  the  reader  fully  to  appreciate 
the  influences  of  the  Secret  Press;  for  which  purpose 
it  was  necessary  to  indicate  the  state  of  mind  existing 
in  Belgium  before  the  publication  of  these  articles, 
and  the  effect  which  they  produced  upon  the  Belgian 
mentality. 

***** 

These  prohibited  writings  are  a  mere  episode,  almost 
an  insignificant  episode,  in  the  daily  struggle  which 
the  Belgians  in  Belgium  have  to  sustain  against  the 
demands  of  the  Power  in  occupation — demands  which 
are  increasingly  harsh,  increasingly  unjustified.  But 
the  Secret  Press,  better  than  any  other  form  of  ac- 
tivity, enables  the  foreigner  to  realise  the  indomitable 
energy  and  the  persistent  good  humour  of  a  people 
which  will  not  allow  itself  to  be  crushed. 


J.  M. 


Villa  Thuret, 
Antibes,  January,  19 17. 


CONTENiTjS 

PAGE 

I.  What  is  Forbidden.    What  is  Tolerated. 

A. — Prohibited  Publications. 

1.  The  Importation  of  Books  and 

Newspapers    -        -        -        -       i 

2.  Reprinted  Books  and  Newspapers      6 

3 .  Original  Publications  -        -        -     1 1 

4.  German  Regulations  affecting  the 

Press      -        -        -        -        -    30 

5.  The   Aerial   Supplement   of   La 

Libre  Belgique  -        -        -    36 

6.  Counterfeit     Prohibited     News- 

papers   -        -        -        -        -     37 

B. — ^Authorised  Publications        -        -    39 

1.  Gratuitous  Information      -        -    40 

2.  German    Publications    Sold    in 

Belgium  -        -        -        -    61 

3.  Newspapers  which  profess  to  be 

Belgian  -        -        -        -        -     78 

4.  Dutch   Newspapers  Allowed   to 

Enter  Belgium        -        -        -    95 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  PAGE 

I.  (a)  The  Cover  of  the  Revue  hehdo- 

madaire  de  la  Presse  frangaise  -  To  face       6 
(b)  German    Stamp    Surcharged 
Belgien <<     <<  5 

II.  The  First  Page  of  No.  62  of  La 

Libre  Belgique  -        -         -         -   ''     '*  7 

III.  The  First  Page  of  No.  83  of  La 

Libre  Belgique  -         -         -        -   "     "        14 

IV.  The  First  Page  of  No.  81  of  La 

Libre  Belgique  -         -        -         -    "     "        15 

V.  The  First  Page  of  De  Vlaamscke 

Leeuw "     "        22 

VI.  The  First  Page  of  Z:>^  Fri/^  5^^m    -    ''     ''        23 

VII.  "  German  Justice  in  Louvain  "    -    "     *'        62 

VIII.  *'  Armed  Guard  of  the  Represen- 
tatives of  a  Belgian  LocaHty  "     '*     '*        63 

IX.  (a)  ''  Removal  of  the  Inhabitants 

of  a  Belgian  Village "       -        -    ''     "        70 

(6)   ''  Our  Troops  on  the  March 
Through  a  Burning  Village  "     -   ''     ''        70 

X.  A  Real  Franc-Tireur   -        -        -    *'     '*        71 

XI.  A   ''Faked"   German   Postcard: 

The  Francs-Tireurs  of  Louvain    "     "        78 

XII.  A  Brussels  Newspaper  as  returned 

from  the  Censor's  Office  -        -   *'     *'        79 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN 

BELGIUM 


WHAT  IS  FORBIDDEN.    WHAT  IS 
TOLERATED 

-^.—PROHIBITED  PUBLICATIONS 

I.  The  Importation  of  Books  and  Newspapers 

During  the  first  fortnight  of  the  war,  the  population 
of  Brussels  was  enabled  to  partake  of  the  general 
excitement.  On  the  20th  of  August,  19 14,  everything 
was  changed.  In  the  morning  the  newspapers  were 
still  offered  for  sale  by  their  busy  vendors.  By  the 
evening  this  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  Germans 
were  in  the  city,  and  not  a  single  newspaper  had  ac- 
cepted their  censorship ;  moreover,  the  plant  of  certain 
printing-houses  had  been  deliberately  rendered  useless. 
The  excitement  of  the  first  days  was  followed,  with- 
out transition,  by  the  most  lugubrious  calm.  Presently 
the  German  placards  appeared,  announcing  the  success 
of  our  enemies:  the  capture  of  Namur,  the  defeat  of 
the  French  in  Luxemburg,  the  siege  of  Maubeuge,  the 
entry  of  the  Austrians  into  Serbia,  and  then  the  rapid 


2        THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

march  of  the  German  yxmies  upon  Paris,  which  the 
bodies  of  cavalry  were  to  reach  in  two  days. 

The  people  of  Brussels  naturally  refused  to  believe 
the  German  ''official  news,"  the  more  so  as  their  Burgo- 
master had  just  confronted  the  authorities  in  occupa- 
tion by  a  flat  contradiction,  which  they  were  careful 
to  disregard.^ 

For  the  rest,  their  battalions  ''on  the  way  to  Paris'* 
had  not  ceased  their  march  through  the  city,  goose- 
stepping  on  their  way,  with  music  at  their  head,  when 
audacious  persons  had  organised  a  service  of  imported 
newspapers:  Le  Matin  and  La  Metropole  from  Ant- 
werp, La  Flandre  liberale  and  Le  Bien  publique  from 
Gand.  From  the  last  days  of  August  the  secret  news- 
paper service  was  in  regular  working  order,  and  by  9 
o'clock  we  were  reading,  in  Brussels,  La  Flandre  liber- 
ate, published  the  same  morning  in  Gand.  The  first 
copies  leaving  the  press  were  brought  by  automobile  to 
a  point  close  to  the  German  outposts  at  Ninove,  Len- 
nick,  or  Hal,  at  a  distance  of  nine  miles  from  Brussels. 
There  the  parcels  were  concealed  in  baskets  of  vege- 
table, and  were  thus  brought  into  the  city.  They  were 
unpacked  in  the  back  premises  of  some  cabaret,  a  differ- 
ent house  being  chosen  every  day.  The  newsvendors 
went  to  work  immediately.  Some  took  up  their  posi- 
tion in  the  main  thoroughfares  and  at  the  street  cor- 
ners, where  they  ostensibly  sold  picture-postcards, 
patriotic  emblems,  or  newspapers  authorised  by  the 
censorship.  Selling  such  wares,  they  would  very 
quietly  inquire:     ''La  Flandre f'' — ''How  muchf'^    As 


^  See  Davignon,  La  Belgique  et  VAllemagne,  p.  29;  and 
J.  Massart,  "Belgians  under  the  German  Eagle,"  p.  233. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM        3 

a  rule  is  cost  75  centimes  in  the  forenoon,  but  later 
in  the  day  it  was  sold  for  40  or  50  centimes.  Others, 
armed  with  a  few  boxes  of  grapes,  would  repair  to  the 
suburbs;  the  fruit  was  merely  to  put  the  Germans  off 
the  scent,  and  to  enable  the  vendors  to  ring  at  the 
houses  of  their  regular  customers;  the  moment  the 
door  had  closed  upon  them,  the  newspapers  emerged 
from  the  depths  of  their  pockets. 

The  waggons  of  the  market-gardeners  brought  into 
Brussels  not  only  the  Belgian  newspapers,  but  foreign 
publications  also.  Those  most  widely  read  were:  Le 
Journal,  Le  Petit  Parisien  and  Le  MaUn  (of  Paris), 
Le  Temps,  The  Times,  The  Daily  Mail,  sometimes  De 
Tijd  and  De  Telegraaf,  and  occasionally,  but  very 
seldom,  the  Journal  de  Geneve, 

From  time  to  time  the  German  police  succeeded  in 
seizing  the  contraband  newspapers.  On  such  days  we 
received  no  news  until  the  afternoon,  when  the  papers 
were  sold  by  occasional  vendors,  acting  independently ; 
and  on  these  occasions  La  Flandre  liherale  or  La 
Metropole  would  cost  two  or  three  francs. 

This  organisation  did  its  work  in  a  normal  manner, 
despite  the  severities  of  the  Germans,  until  the  cap- 
ture of  Antwerp  and  the  occupation  of  Flanders  (with 
the  exception  of  the  loop  of  the  Yser).  From  mid- 
October  the  last  Belgian  dailies  vanished  from  occupied 
Belgium.  A  few  reappeared  elsewhere:  L'lndepen- 
dance  beige  in  London ;  La  Metropole  also  in  London, 
on  a  page  of  The  Standard;  Le  XX.^  Siecle  in  Havre. 
They  reached  us  along  with  the  French  and  English 
newspapers. 

Sometimes  we  used  to  get  one  or  another  of  the 
occasional  newspapers  which  were  published  abroad 


4        THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

by  Belgians:  L'Echo  d'Anvers  at  Bergen-op-Zoom, 
Les  Nouvelles  and  Le  Courrier  de  la  Meuse  at  Maes- 
tricht,  U£cho  beige,  Vrij  Belgie  and  the  Belgisch  Dag- 
hlad  at  The  Hague,  La  Belgique  at  Rotterdam,  De 
Vlaamsche  Stem  at  Amsterdam,  De  Stem  uit  Belgie 
and  La  Belgique  nouvelle  in  London,  Le  Franco-Beige 
at  Folkestone,  Le  Courrier  Beige  at  Derby,  La  Patrie 
Beige  and  La  Nouvelle  Belgique  in  Paris,  Le  Courrier 
de  VArmie  {De  Legerhode)  and  Het  Vaterland  at 
Havre,  0ns  Vaderland  and  De  Belgische  Standaard  at 
La  Panne  (in  free  Belgium). 

From  day  to  day  circulation  between  Holland  and 
Belgium  was  rendered  more  difficult ;  the  sentinels  had 
orders  to  fire  on  the  sellers  of  newspapers  who  sought 
to  cross  the  frontier,  and  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
do  so.  But  even  after  the  frontier  had  been  embel- 
lished by  a  circuit  of  electrified  wires,  then  by  two 
circuits,  and  finally  by  three,  and  after  a  zone  had  been 
marked  out  into  which  it  was  forbidden  to  enter,  the 
foreign  newspapers  used  still  to  find  their  way  into 
Belgium.  There  was  very  seldom  a  day  on  which  all 
the  smugglers  were  arrested  or  killed.^  Often  enough, 
however,  a  voluminous  newspaper  like  The  Times 
found  a  purchaser  at  200  francs.  But  The  Times, 
as  a  rule,  used  to  sell  for  5  francs,  and  the  French 
newspapers  for  2  to  3  francs. 

The  sale  of  newspapers  in  the  streets  has  almost 
entirely  ceased:  the  risks  are  too  great.  German  spies 
accost    the    sellers    of    censored    newspapers,    doing 

^  In  December,  19 14,  the  German  sentinels  shot  two  news- 
vendors  at  Putte  (province  of  Antwerp).  In  Jwly,  1915, 
four  persons  who  were  carrying  newspapers  and  letters  were 
killed  in  Limburg. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM        5 

their  best  to  obtain  some  prohibited  sheet.  If  the 
unkicky  newsvendor  compHes  the  German  immediately 
seizes  him  by  the  collar.  It  was  an  affair  of  this  sort 
which  cost  the  City  of  Brussels  a  fine  of  £200,000.  A 
non-commissioned  officer  in  mufti,  playing  the  spy, 
wanted  to  arrest  a  newsvendor  who  had  given  him  a 
prohibited  newspaper.  But  the  newsvendor  resisted, 
and  the  spy  began  to  belabour  him  with  all  his  might. 
Two  members  of  the  Brussels  police  force,  De  Rijcke 
and  Seghers,  unaware  of  the  fact  that  they  were  deal- 
ing with  a  spy  (for  it  had  been  understood  that  the 
German  police  would  always  display  a  distinctive  sign) 
intervened  in  favour  of  the  newsvendor,  whom  they 
supposed  to  be  unjustly  attacked  by  a  private  individ- 
ual. The  result  was  that  De  Rijcke  was  sentenced  to 
five  years'  and  Seghers  to  three  years'  imprisonment; 
moreover,  the  City  of  Brussels  was  condemned  to  pay 
a  fine  of  5,000,000  francs.^ 

H:  ^  H<  H^  :|c 

Not  only  newspapers,  but  books  and  pamphlets  are 
brought  into  Belgium.  We  are  thus  enabled  to  read 
everything  of  interest  which  is  published  abroad.  The 
number  of  copies  imported  amounts,  in  general,  to 
no  more  than  a  few  dozen,  'but  they  are  not  allowed 
to  moulder  on  the  library  shelves.  They  are  passed 
uninterruptedly  from  reader  to  reader,  until  the  day 
when  a  domiciliary  search  causes  them  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  German  police. 

While  the  prohibited  newspapers  are  the  object  of  a 
regular  trade,  which  provides  many  persons  with  a 

^  See  "Belgians  under  the  German  Eagle,"  pp.  147,  157. 


6        THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

living,  books,  on  the  other  hand,  are  introduced  at 
the  instance  of  physicians,  advocates,  professors,  ar- 
tists, etc.,  who  do  not  aim  at  making  a  profit.  Thus 
the  works  of  Bedier  {Les  Crimes  allemandes) ,  Weiss 
{La  Violation  de  la  neutralite  beige  at  luxemhour- 
geoise  par  VAllemagne)  and  Durkheim  and  Denis 
{Qui  a  voulu  la  guerre?)  have  been  sold  by  hundreds 
at  75  centimes  (instead  of  50  centimes).  At  the  same 
price  one  could  obtain  Van  den  Heuvel's  La  Neutra- 
lite beige.  ''J' accuse"  fetches  5  francs ;  Waxweiler's  La 
Belgique  neutre  et  loyale,  3  francs  50.  Even  volumi- 
nous works  are  introduced;  for  example,  Jan  Frith's 
De  Oorlog  in  Prent,  which  is  sold  for  9  francs,  and 
"King  Albert's  Book" ;  this  latter  was  at  first  5  francs, 
but  the  immense  demand  for  it  rapidly  increased 
the  price,  and  the  last  examples  found  purchasers 
at  20  francs  (the  profits  being  applied  to  charitable 
purposes). 

In  addition  to  the  pamphlets  printed  abroad  and 
partly  distributed  in  Brussels,  we  must  mention  those 
which  appeared  in  August  and  September,  19 14,  be- 
fore the  censorship  was  applied  in  all  its  severity,  but 
were  afterwards  prohibited.  Among  them  were: 
Adolphe  Max,  son  administration  du  20  aout  au  26 
septembre  19 14;  Lettre  ouverte  d'un  Hollandais  a  un 
ami  allemand;  La  Dermiere  Entrevue  du  Chancelier 
allemand  et  de  Sir  E.  Goschen;  Discours  prononcee  a 
la  Chambre  des  Communes  et  d  la  Chambre  des  de- 
putes de  France,  etc. 

2.  Reprinted  Books  and  Newspapers 

It  will  be  understood  that,  in  spite  of  the  activity 
of  those  who  introduce  foreign  books  and  newspapers 


n 


PLATE  1. 


Awft 


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Revue  Hebdomadaire 

de  la 

Presse  = 
Franpaise 


ART:riE-;    ivprp 


SOMM^IRE 

/,.::  Kt'ancc  de  !  A'^anri-  ir.i-cu-bc'gc  ii  !a  S..:r' ,  •:,-.,:  !c  if,  rnnr-, 
1916  Discoun  dc  A?  A!  H,\ens  Canon  de  Wuirt  ei 
I'muc  VanJcrveldt  -  Fn  di  .',-:  ,.r::diits  on  jm;  d, 
parcus.  enribicme'.is  —  Le  U_ust  d'A^;:,i!h  --  im  :■.; 
uur  de  ! armci' bcl^i  (Bureau  docuiniri'^iic  r.:i.;c)  -  L- 
plan  dc  carr;pas:ne  aiitrnand  Lvntrr  [a  I'linci:  -  La  ba 
taule  de  Douaumon!  riiccnttr  par  un  offincr  /raniais  <,\c 
MaisnV 


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Un  Tiii:    Cover    of    rsn:    Revne    Hehdomah 
hi   Press     /';  litCiiise.      i/.\  ^  >  ^d^ 


{b)  German     Si  amp    SrRCiiAKGi:i)    Bdncn 
Employkd  IX   Invaded  Belgium. 


PLATE  II. 


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The  First  Page  of  No.  62  of  La  Libre  Belgique.     {Reduced.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM        7 

into  Belgium,  only  a  few  privileged  persons  are  able 
to  read  them  in  the  original  text.  It  was,  however,  an 
urgent  matter  to  make  the  entire  population  immune 
to  the  German  virus,  which  would  otherwise  have 
soaked  into  men's  minds  and  would  have  sapped  their 
courage.  For  this  reason  means  were  taken  immedi- 
ately to  inform  the  people  of  Brussels  of  the  progress 
of  military  operations.  Day  by  day  numbers  of  per- 
sons buy  French  and  English  newspapers  and  copy, 
upon  the  typewriter,  the  most  significant  passages. 
These  leaflets  are  then  secretly  distributed,  either  gra- 
tuitously, or  in  return  for  a  trifling  sum  which  more 
often  than  otherwise  finds  its  way  to  the  Red  Cross  or 
the  National  Committee  for  Relief  and  Alimentation. 

News-sheets  of  this  character,  which  number  about 
fifteen,  are  incessantly  opposing  the  demoralising 
influence  of  the  German  placards.  There  is  accord- 
ingly nothing  surprising  in  the  fact  that  the  authori- 
ties do  their  utmost  to  ferret  out  all  typewriters.  Of 
course,  it  is  principally  owing  to  the  efforts  of  the 
agents  provocateurs  that  they  contrive  to  lay  hands 
on  the  editors  of  war  news.  But  to  imprison  a  patriot 
is  one  thing;  to  check  a  patriotic  propaganda  is  an- 
other; scarcely  is  one  editor  sentenced  when  another 
takes  his  place. 

In  addition  to  the  leaflets,  which  enable  readers 
day  by  day  to  follow  the  events  of  the  war,  other 
publications  reprint  chronicles,  poems,  manifestoes, 
speeches,  diplomatic  documents,  and  articles  of  every 
kind. 

One  of  these  publications  is  the  Revue  hebdomadaire 
de  la  Presse  frangaise,  which  appears  regularly  in  num- 
bers containing  sixteen  pages  (Plate  I.)    It  announces 


8        THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

that  it  is  "subjected  to  the  Royal  and  Imperial  censor- 
ship"— souniise  a  la  censure  K.  K. — and  contains,  in 
addition  to  a  few  original  articles,  extracts  from  French 
newspapers,  such  as  Le  Temps,  Le  Figaro,  Le  Matin, 
Le  Journal  des  Debats;  or  Swiss  newspapers  such  as 
Le  Journal  de  Geneve  and  La  Gazette  de  Lausanne; 
it  also  reproduces  articles  from  the  Bureau  documen- 
taire  beige,  the  Courrier  de  I'Armee  beige,  the  XX^ 
Siecle,  U£cho  beige,  and  other  Belgian  journals. 
From  time  to  time  an  issue  would  be  devoted  entirely 
to  a  single  writer.  Thus  the  Revue  reproduced  Ana- 
tole  France's  Sur  la  Voie  glorieuse,  and  a  fine  series  of 
drawings  by  Louis  Raemaekers.  (It  apologised  for 
being  unable  to  grafer  these  an  purin. )  ^ 

L'&cho  de  ce  que  les  journaux  censures  n'osent  ou 
ne  peuvent  pas  dire  appears  at  regular  intervals. 

Another  publication  of  the  same  kind.  La  Soupe, 
gives  fifty  typewritten  pages  weekly,  which  are  equiva- 
lent to  more  than  a  hundred  pages  of  an  octavo  volume. 
It  was  through  La  Soupe  that  we  learned  of  the  Rap- 
ports de  la  Commission  d'enquete  beige  (Reports  of 
the  Belgian  Commission  of  Inquiry)  ;  it  also  contained 
certain  extracts  from  the  Livre  Bleu  and  the  Livre 
Jaune,  the  French  text  of  the  "Appeal  of  the  Ninety- 
three  German  Intellectuals,"  a  dozen  replies  to  this 
manifesto,  M.  Romain  Rolland's  letter  to  Gerhart 
Hauptmann  and  the  latter's  reply,  the  poems  of  M. 
Rostand  {La  Cathedrale),  M.  Miguel  Zamacou  {La 
Cathedrale  de  Reims,  Les  Beiges),  Emile  Verhaeren 
{La  Belgique  sanglante) ,  Mgr.  Mercier's  Pastoral  Let- 

^  Graver  au  burin  =  to  engrave  with  the  burin,  Grafer 
au  purin  (which  is  how  a  German  might  speak  the  words) 
to  scrawl  in  liquid  filth. — {Tr.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM        9 

ter,  M.  Pierre  Nothomb's  La  Bclgique  tnartyre,  the 
speeches  deHvered  by  M.  Henry  Carton  de  Wiart  at 
the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  Paris,  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  at 
the  Queen's  Hall  and  by  M.  Maurice  feaeterlinck  at 
La  Scala  in  Milan,  the  letters  of  Maitre  Theodor  to 
Baron  von  Bissing,  and  the  sermons  of  R.  P.  Janvier 
and  M.  Bloch,  the  Chief  Rabbi  of  Belgium,  etc.,  etc. 

The  same  journal  also  kept  us  informed  of  the 
methods  of  the  German  propaganda.  It  enabled  us 
to  estimate  at  their  true  value,  which  is  not  great,  the 
publications  of  the  Teutonic  propagandists:  Journal 
de  la  guerre,  La  Guerre,  Die  Wahrheit  iiber  den  Krieg 
(The  Truth  about  the  War),  Sturmnacht  in  Lowen 
(A  Night  of  Alarms  in  Louvain),  etc.  These  extracts 
were  widely  circulated.  We  believe,  indeed,  thaf  it 
is  impossible  to  assist  our  propaganda  more  usefully 
than  by  giving  publicity  to  the  propagandist  pamphlets 
of  our  enemies,  in  order  to  make  it  clear  to  all  how  j 
they  distort  the  truth.  Thus  by  publishing  their  narra- 
tive Criiante  contre  im  convent^  (Brutal  attack  upon 
a  Convent),  they  rendered  us  an  inestimable  service, 
so  clumsy  and  obvious  were  the  lies  contained  therein. 
Articles  by  Captain  Bloem  ('The  Campaign  of 
Atrocities")"  and  von  Bissing,  junior  (''Belgium  under 
the  German  Administration"),  etc.,  were  translated 
and  published. 

Numbers  of  drawings  also  were  reproduced  by  the 
Belgians,  either  by  mechanical  processes,  or  by  photo- 
graphy. Let  us  mention  one  instance.  A  copy  of 
the  admirable  collection  of  drawings  by  Louis  Rae- 
maekers,  De  Toppiint  der  Beschaving,  was  smuggled 

1  See  "Belgians  under  the  German  Eagle,"  pp.  225-8. 
^  Ihid.,  pp.  104.  197. 


10      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

into  Belgium.  It  passed  rapidly  from  one  house  to 
another,  until  the  day  when  it  was  discovered  by  the 
Germans  on  the  occasion  of  a  domiciliary  search. 
Needless  to  say,  it  was  immediately  withdrawn  from 
circulation.  However,  one  of  the  first  persons  to  be 
entrusted  with  the  collection  had  taken  the  precaution 
of  photographing  all  the  plates,  and  very  soon  the 
single  example  was  replaced  by  a  host  of  copies. 

Later  on  a  special  prohibited  journal,  La  Cravache, 
distributed  Raemaekers'  drawings  all  over  the  country. 

Even  music  was  secretly  printed  and  sold  in  Brus- 
sels. "Tipperary,"  for  example,  was  to  be  obtained 
for  one  franc  (the  money  being  applied  to  charitable 
purposes)  during  the  winter  of  191 4- 15. 

***** 

So  far  we  have  spoken  principally  of  reproductions 
by  typewriting  or  by  photography.  But  such  cumbrous 
processes  are  naturally  inapplicable  to  volumes  of  any 
size.  These  are,  of  course,  reproduced  on  the  printing- 
press.  The  first  volume  which  was  thus  reproduced 
was  Waxweiler's  La  Belgique  neutre  et  loyale.  We 
had  received  a  few  copies  from  Switzerland — by  way 
of  Germany! — but  the  thickness  of  the  paper  on  which 
they  were  printed  rendered  their  distribution  a  matter 
of  difficulty.  It  was  therefore  reprinted  on  thin  paper. 
Since  then  Pierre  Nothomb's  articles  on  La  Belgique 
martyre  have  been  reprinted;  Baron  Beyen's  articles 
on  UEmpereur  Guillaimie,  La  Familie  Imperiale,  the 
Rapports  de  la  Commission  d'enquete  beige,  the  Livre 
Jaune,  and  many  other  volumes.  La  Libre  Belgique 
published  ''J'acciise"  as  a  supplement.  The  most  deli- 
cate operation  in  this  connection  was  the  translation 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       ii 

into  French  of  ''King  Albert's  Book."  Many  thou- 
sands of  examples  had  been  sold,  for  the  benefit  of 
La  Soupe  (the  name  by  which  the  National  Committee 
of  Relief  and  Alimentation  is  known  in  Brussels). 
But  a  second  edition  had  become  necessary.  Now 
just  as  this  second  edition  was  being  printed  the 
Germans  invaded  the  offices  and  seized  not  only  the 
staff,  but  the  forms  of  type,  the  paper,  the  sheets 
already  printed,  and  the  entire  plant  of  the  printing- 
office.  They  thought  they  had  finally  got  rid  of  ''King 
Albert's  Book,"  when,  to  their  profound  annoyance, 
only  a  week  later,  10,000  fresh  copies  appeared  on 
the  secret  market. 

Here  is  another  example  of  reprinting.  In  May, 
19 16,  a  "war  edition"  appeared  at  Arlon  of  M.  H. 
Grinauty's  Six  viois  de  guerre  en  Belgique,  per  un 
soldat  beige. 

3.  Original  Publications 

Let  us  now  consider  the  most  interesting  of  our  j 
publications:     the  newspapers  and  pamphlets  which  1 
contain  not  reproductions  of  books,  narratives,  poems,  / 
etc.,  written  abroad  for  foreign  consumption,  but  ar-/ 
tides  written  by  Belgians  residing  in  Belgium  for  the! 
benefit  of  their  fellow-prisoners.  — * 

The  first  place  of  all  is  occupied  by  a  newspaper, 
La  Libre  Belgique.  Between  February  ist,  191 5  and 
December  31st,  19 16,  one  hundred  numbers  of  this 
journal  were  published. 

Only  those  who  have  lived  under  a  torturing,  de- 
tested tyranny  can  understand  the  eager  curiosity  with 
which  the  reader  of  La  Libre  Belgique  awaits  his 
newspaper. 


12      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

When  will  the  next  issue  appear?  No  one  knows, 
for  the  journal  is  regularly  irregular ,  as  the  sub-title 
announces. 

How  will  it  reach  us  ?  We  do  not  know  this  either. 
Sometimes  it  is  dropped  into  the  letter-box,  enclosed 
in  an  envelope ;  sometimes  a  friend  slips  it  mysteriously 
into  your  hand ;  sometimes  it  is  found  in  a  prominent 
place  on  the  desk  or  writing-table  (it  was  thus  that 
Baron  von  Bissing  used  to  receive  it). 

Where  is  it  printed?  Mystery?  If  we  are  to  believe 
the  announcement  at  the  head  of  the  front  page,  its 
telegraphic  address  is  **Kommandantur — Brussels." 
As  for  the  publishing  and  editorial  offices,  "as  these 
cannot  be  a  very  reposeful  spot,  they  are  installed  in 
an  automobile  cellar!" 

^^Who  are  the  contributors?  The  Jesuits,  say  some; 
the  Freemasons,  so  others  assert.  One  statement  is 
as  true  as  the  other,  for  there  are  no  longer  clericals, 
nor  Socialists,  nor  Liberals,  nor  Flamingants,  nor 
Wallingants^  in  Belgium;  there  are  only  Belgians,  all 
inspired  by  the  same  ardour,  and  all,  without  distinc- 
tion, doing  their  duties  as  patriots. 

"How  many  copies  of  this  journal  are  printed?  Ten 
thousand,  so  they  say.  But  no  one  can  tell  us  precisely ; 
not  even  the  most  audacious  of  those  who  distribute 
these  copies.  The  individual  who  undertakes  to  dis- 
tribute La  Libre  Belgiqiie  receives  a  certain  number  of 
copies  of  each  issue.  Of  these  he  makes  three  or  four 
packets,  and  hands  them  to  as  many  friends;  each  of 
these  latter  once  again  divides  his  stock  among  a  small 
number  of  reliable  persons,  and  so  on,  until  at  last 

1  Members  of  the  Flemish  or  Walloon  parties. — (Tr.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       13 

the  journal  comes  into  the  hands  of  those  who  dis- 
tribute it  among  their  "customers." 

Each  distributor,  therefore,  knows  from  whom  he 
receives  the  copies  of  the  journal,  and  to  whom  he 
passes  them  on;  but  he  knows  nothing  of  the  higher 
and  lower  steps  of  the  ladder.  Each  divides  his  copies 
among  a  few  persons  with  whom  he  is  well  acquainted;/ 
so  that  he  does  not  need  to  commit  their  names  toj 
writing. 

The  advantages  of  this  method  are  obvious.  If,  on 
the  occasion  of  a  domiciliary  visit,  the  police  of  the 
Kommandantur  chance  to  lay  hands  upon  a  parcel  of 
copies  of  La  Libre  Belgiqiie — and  all  things  are  pos- 
sible— they  may  condemn  the  possessor  to  pay  a  fine 
of  several  thousand  of  marks,  if  he  is  rich,  or  sentence 
him  to  several  months'  imprisonment,  if  he  is  poor; 
but  they  will  not  be  able  to  discover  whom  the  journals 
were  intended  for,  nor,  above  all,  where  they  came 
from.  The  Belgian's  talent  for  conspiracy  has  been 
whetted  to  such  a  degree,  and  the  intermediaries  be- 
tween the  publisher  and  the  reader  are  so  numerous, 
that  when  it  is  desired  to  submit  an  idea  to  the  editors 
it  takes  ten  days  to  a  fortnight  for  the  message  to 
reach  the  "automobile  cellar,"  stage  by  stage. 

From  time  to  time  the  first  page  of  the  journal  is 
illustrated.  No.  80  shows  us  Wilhelm  II.  in  Hell, 
after  Wiertz's  well-known  picture,  ''Napoleon  en 
enfer/'  No.  52  contained  an  excellent  portrait  of 
King  Albert.  The  anniversary  number  (No.  62)  shows 
us  poor  Baron  von  Bissing  in  the  midst  of  a  mountain 
of  search-warrants,  intended  for  the  editorial  staff  of 
La  Libre  Belgique;  it  also  shows  us  the  "automobile 
cellar"  in  which  we  see  the  editorial  office  is  installed, 


14      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

that  in  which  the  printing-press  is  operating,  and  that 
in  which  the  packing  is  done ;  and,  further,  the  domi- 
ciliary search  of  a  water-closet,  and  the  arrest  of  the 
statue  of  Andre  Vesalius  (Plate  II).  No.  83,  ''cen- 
sored July  2 1st,  19 1 6,"  contains  a  drawing.  Vers  la 
gloire,  enclosed  in  a  frame  of  the  Belgian  colours,  pub- 
lished on  the  occasion  of  the  National  Festival  of  Bel- 
gium (Plate  III).  No.  81  contains  a  reproduction  of 
a  picture-postcard  which  was  sold  in  Germany,  show- 
ing the  Belgian  lion  ridden  by  a  Prussian  (Plate  IV). 

But  the  best  illustration  published  so  far  is  that 
which  appeared  in  No.  30.  It  is  a  portrait  of  the 
Governor-General,  Baron  von  Bissing,  reading  La 
Libre  Belgique.  From  this  moment  the  reward  offered 
for  denouncing  La  Libre  Belgique  was  no  longer  5,000 
francs  (£200),  but  25,000  francs  (£1,000)  and  then 
75,000  francs  (£3,000).  They  take  us  for  Germans! 
They  imagine  that  interest  will  make  us  forget  duty! 

However,  our  tyrants  did  their  very  utmost  to 
escape  from  the  nightmare  of  La  Libre  Belgique.  In 
the  spring  of  191 5  the  houses  of  all  those  who  could 
possibly  be  suspected  of  assisting  in  its  distribution 
were  turned  upside  down  by  domiciliary  visits.  We 
lived  in  a  perpetual  state  of  uncertainty ;  at  every  ring 
of  the  bell  we  asked  ourselves  if  it  did  not  announce 
a  domiciliary  visit.  After  the  war  a  list  will  be  pub- 
lished of  houses  which  were  ransacked  from  cellar  to 
loft,  although  the  police  never  recognised,  under  their 
"make-up,"  the  packets  of  La  Libre  Belgique. 

The  hunt  for  prohibited  newspapers  was  carried 
on  even  in  the  streets.  Advocates,  departmental  clerks, 
officials,  in  short  all  those  who  carried  portfolios 
were  arrested,  and  their  papers  were  turned  upside 


PLATE  III. 


KUMCQO  S3  .    l^EUXlb^r    ANVf.G  Jim  I  FT  i... 


LA  LIBRE  BELGIQUE 


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PLATE  IV. 

LA  LIBRE  BELGIttUE 

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The  First  Page  of  No.  8i  of  La  Libre  Bdgique.     {Reduced.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       15 

down  in  the  hope  of  discovering  La  Libre  Belgique 
among  them. 

The  people  of  Brussels  relate  that  on  several  occa- 
sions the  Kommandantur  received  anonymous  letters 
giving  precise  information  as  to  the  place  where  La 
Libre  Belgique  was  produced.  The  police  used  to  ar- 
rive at  the  spot  with  great  secrecy;  demanding  entry 
into  the  house,  they  would  swiftly  descend  a  stair- 
case, rush  along  the  corridors,  push  open  the  door 
indicated,  and  find  themselves  in — a  water  closet !  The 
^'theatrical  chronicle"  in  No.  39  of  La  Libre  Belgique 
relates  a  frolic  of  this  kind,  and  also  the  misadventure 
of  the  Germans  who  went  to  arrest  Andre  Vesalius, 
whose  statue  stands  in  the  Place  des  Barricades,  in 
Brussels!     (See  Plate  II.) 

Here  are  a  few  facts  which  will  give  some  idea  of 
the  desperation  with  which  La  Libre  Belgique  is  sought 
for.  A  Redemptorist  father,  the  Reverend  Father 
Verriest,  w^as  condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  4,000  marks 
for  having  helped  to  distribute  it.  By  a  judgment  of 
the  military  court  of  Antwerp,  dated  the  i8th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1916,  thirty-two  persons  were  sentenced  to 
terms  of  imprisonment  varying  from  three  to  eighteen 
months,  for  having  assisted  in  the  distribution  of 
prohibited  newspapers.  The  military  court  of  Hasslet 
condemned  a  restaurant-keeper  and  his  wife  to  pay 
fines  and  to  close  their  cafe,  In  het  Vosken,  for  six 
weeks,  for  distributing  La  Libre  Belgique.  The  tem- 
porary Burgomaster  of  Brussels,  M.  Temonnier,  had 
his  private  house  and  his  office  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
turned  upside  down ;  naturally,  nothing  was  discovered. 
M.  Temonnier  protested  against  these  proceedings  (on 
the  27th  of  December,  191 5): 


i6      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 
To  the  Governor-General. 

The  German  police  have  just  conducted  perquisitions  at 
my  office  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  in  my  private  house. 

As  a  private  person  I  should  not  think  of  complaining  of 
being  treated  like  so  many  of  my  fellow-citizens,  but  as  one 
fulfilling  the  functions  of  burgomaster,  I  must  protest  against 
this  perquisition,  which,  being  made  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  is 
a  most  serious  offence  against  the  dignity  and  authority  of 
the  first  magistrate  of  the  city,  at  a  moment  when  he  has 
need  of  all  the  prestige  which  invests  his  functions,  in  order 
to  ensure  and  maintain  order  and  public  tranquillity. 

Believe  me,  etc.. 

The  Acting  Burgomaster, 

M.  Temonnier. 

The  reply  was  worthy  of  the  German  brutality: 

Brussels,  ist  January,  1916. 

To  the  letter  of  the  27th  December,  191 5,  No.  4864,  I  have 
the  honour  to  reply  that  the  military  police  had  good  reasons 
to  make  a  domiciliary  search  in  your  private  house  and  also 
in  your  office. 

Your  protest  against  the  operations  of  search  undertaken 
in  your  official  chambers  is  without  foundation  and  without 
object,  as  you  cannot  invoke  special  privileges  for  the  official 
premises  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 

(Signed)  Frhr.  von  Bissing. 

In  June,  19 16,  the  authorities  imprisoned,  ostensibly 
for  distributing  La  Libre  Belgiqiie,  a  youth  of  sixteen, 
M.  Leon  Lenertz,  son  of  a  Director  of  Graphic  Studies 
in  the  University  of  Louvain,  who  was  shot  in  front 
of  his  house  in  the  Boulevard  de  Tirlemont,  during 
the  tragic  night  of  the  25th  of  August,  1914. 

In  September,  19 16,  seven  of  the  leading  printers 
of  Gand  were  imprisoned.     They  were  to  remain  in 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       17 

prison,  it  appeared,  until  the  editors  of  La  Libre  Bel- 
gique  should  reveal  themselves.  However,  they  were 
only  detained  for  a  month. 

Baron  von  Bissing  has  been  particularly  persistent 
in  seeking  for  the  editors  of  clandestine  journals  in 
the  convents. 

The  College  Saint-Michel,  which  is  the  principal 
Jesuit  establishment  in  Brussels,  has  on  several  occa- 
sions been  searched  and  ransacked  from  top  to  bottom ; 
and  Father  Dubar  was  sentenced  to  twelve  years'  penal 
servitude. 

Perquisitions  of  the  College  Saint-Michel. 

On  Saturday,  the  i8th  day  of  March,  early  in  the  morning, 
eighty  Prussian  bandits,  armed  to  the  teeth,  presented  them- 
selves, for  purposes  of  search,  at  the  College  Saint-Michel, 
Boulevard  Saint-Michel,  in  Brussels. 

After  all  the  pupils  had  been  dismissed  they  began  their 
exploits,  and  naturally,  since  there  was  nothing  to  seize, 
returned  as  wise  as  they  went. 

These  imbeciles  were  searching  for  .  .  .  La  Libre  Bel- 
gique. 

Once  more  Von  Bissing  has  drawn  an  empty  covert.  And 
the  elusive  automobile  still  goes  onward  .  .  .  onward. 

(Echo  de  ce  que  les  journaiix  censures  n'osent 
ou  ne  peuvent  pas  dire,  April,  1916,  p.  33.) 

On  the  4th  of  June,  19 16,  the  Governor-General 
appealed  to  Mgr.  Heylen,  Bishop  of  Namur,  request- 
ing him  to  bring  his  influence  to  bear  upon  his  clergy. 
After  remarking  how  painful  it  was  to  him  to  behave 
with  severity — but  with  justice — toward  priests,  he 
invoked  .  .  .  yes,  it  is  the  truth! — he  invoked  the 
Hague  Convention.    He  then  added: 


i8      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

If  it  is  desired  to  avoid  the  passing  of  sentences,  one  can 
expect  this  result  only  from  the  quiet  and  non-political  be- 
haviour of  the  ecclesiastics  themselves. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  address  myself  to  your  Lordship 
(Voire  Grandeur)  with  the  request  that  you  will  so  influence 
your  subordinates  that  they  shall  abstain,  in  the  exercise  of 
their  sacred  functions,  and  otherwise,  from  all  political  ac- 
tivity, much  less  render  themselves  guilty  of  serious  infringe- 
ments of  my  prescriptions.  Above  all  it  is  important  that  they 
shall  be  dissuaded  from  the  diffusion  of  inadmissible  writings, 
in  which  ecclesiastics  have  lately  played  a  considerable  part. 

May  I  beg  your  Lordship  to  inform  me  if  I  may  count  on 
his  collaboration  in  the  direction  indicated?  After  all,  I 
am  only  demanding  the  observance  of  those  guarantees  as 
to  the  good  behaviour  of  the  clergy  to  which  the  Episcopate 
has  already  subscribed. 

Here  are  a  few  passages  from  Mgr.  Heylen's  reply: 

Namur,  i^th  June,  1916. 
Excellency, 

I  am  happy  to  learn,  from  Your  Excellency's  letter,  dated 
the  4th  of  June,  that  you  are  completely  sensible  of  the 
deplorable  and  distwrbing  efifect  producd  upon  the  Belgian 
people  by  the  daily  arrests  of  ecclesiastics,  their  imprison- 
ment, the  sentences  passed  upon  them,  and  the  deportation 
of  a  certain  number  of  them  to  the  prisons  or  camps  of 
Germany. 

On  several  occasions  I  have  expressed  what  I  feel  in  this 
connection,  and  I  will  to-day  repeat  it  to  Your  Excellency, 
with  complete  freedom.  The  maintenance  of  order  in  the 
country  is  not  favoured — far  from  it ! — by  these  methods  of 
intimidation  and  violence:  it  would  be  achieved  more  effec- 
tually by  a  line  of  conduct  which  would  be  in  harmony  with 
the  temperament  of  the  Belgian  people. 


In  this  connection  the  German  authority  must  not  forget 
that  it  has  also  duties  to  fulfil,  and  we  have  as  much  right 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       19 

as  it  has  to  invoke  the  Convention  of  The  Hague.  This 
Convention  was  not  devised  solely  in  the  interest  of  the 
invader,  but  also  in  that  of  the  occupied  country;  on  behalf 
of  the  latter  it  ensures  respect  for  that  which  is  highest  and 
noblest  in  the  human  soul — the  love  of  country;  and  it 
requires  the  occupying  army  to  avoid  offering  any  insult  to 
this  patriotism;  now,  in  this  respect  we  are  being  subjected 
to  grievous  acts  of  violence,  and  it  is  this  that  we  most  bit- 
terly deplore  in  the  German  occupation. 

It  seems  as  though  there  is  everywhere  a  resolve  to  oppose, 
stifle,  and  repress  the  sense  of  patriotism,  the  maintenance  of 
which  is  nevertheless  a  right,  and  is  moreover  indispensable 
to  the  tranquillity  of  the  people.  I  will  mention  only  two 
instances.  Last  December,  on  the  occasion  of  a  despatch  of 
provisions  to  the  prisoners  from  my  diocese  interned  in  Ger- 
many, I  was  forbidden  to  express  the  wish  that  they  would 
quickly  be  restored  to  their  beloved  country;  these  words 
on  my  postcard  were  suppressed. 

One  of  my  Vicars  General,  who  about  the  same  time  was 
summoned  to  appear  before  the  secret  police,  discovered 
that  he  was  charged  with  having  delivered  an  address  in  the 
course  of  which  he  begged  his  hearers  to  pray  for  our  well- 
beloved  King  and  his  august  family. 


Moreover,  things  are  permitted  against  us  which  are  not 
tolerated  in  respect  of  the  German  Army;  on  the  one  hand 
Belgian  priests  are  forbidden  the  possession  of  publications 
which  do  not  eulogise  Germany,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
German  chaplains  and  others  are  permitted  to  disseminate 
writings  of  a  provocative  nature  and  insulting  to  our  country. 

In  connection  with  the  futile  efforts  made  by  the 
Germans  to  suppress  La  Libre  Belgique,  let  us  lay 
special  stress  on  the  ardour  with  which  the  Belgians 
busy  themselves  in  distributing  it.  Here  is  a  charac- 
teristic little  detail:    the  first  twenty  issues  of  the 


20      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

paper  were  reprinted  three  or  four  months  after  pub- 
lication. 

Other  clandestine  periodicals  make  war  upon  the  j 
German  methods:  La  Verife.  of  which  seven  issues  ! 
were  published  in  May  and  June,  191 5;  La  Beige,  1 
which  appeared  from  September  to  November,  1915;  ] 
Patrie!  which  is  in  its  second  year;  a  Flemish  paper,  1 
De  Vlaamsche  Leeuzv,  which  may  be  obtained  ''every-  | 
where  and  nowhere,"  and  whose  "editorial  office  is  ] 
situated  in  the  Kommandantur  at  Brussels,  opposite 
the  printing-press  of  La  Libre  Belgique''  (Plate  IV.) ; 
De  Vrije  Stem,  of  Antwerp  (Plate  V.),  etc.  ; 

Their  organisation  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  La 
Libre  Belgique;  we  shall  return  to  the  subject  later. 

One  word  only  as  to  another  journal,  Motus,  journal 
des  gens  occiipes,  a  satirical  sheet  which  was  sold,  not 
gratuitously  distributed.  Only  two  or  three  numbers  \ 
appeared,  for  it  had  the  ill-luck  to  be  born  just  at  the  i 
time  when  the  German  police  were  increasing  the  fre-  j 
quency  of  their  visits  to  newsagents'  stalls,  and  to  i 
booksellers'  and  stationers'  shops.  Numbers  of  pro-  I 
hibited  publications  were  seized  during  these  visits, 
but,  despite  all  the  invitations  of  the  German  authori- 
ties, no  newsagent  denounced  the  contributors  to  or 
the  printers  of  the  forbidden  newspapers,  pamphlets, 
picture  postcards,  photographs,  etc.  They  quietly  un- 
derwent their  months  of  imprisonment,  rather  than 
accept  the  reduction  of  the  penalty  which  was  offered 
to  them  in  exchange  for  a  treasonable  action.  How- 
ever, the  activity  of  the  occupying  Power  was  fatal  to 
Motus.    It  is  a  pity,  for  the  pleasantries  of  this  journal 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      21 

were  highly  amusing.  It  was  Mottis  that  informed  us 
that  the  Crown  Prince  had  just  had  a  son  born  to 
him,  "un  nouveau  p(r)ince-monseigneur";^  it  also  re- 
lated that  Wilhelm  II  was  growing  extremely  thin, 
but  that  the  newspapers  across  the  Rhine  which  took 
the  liberty  of  speaking  of  the  Emperor's  weight  were 
prosecuted  for  the  crime  of  *'Lese-majeste." 

Here  are  a  few  articles  borrow^ed  from  La  Verite  and 
La  Libre  Belgique,  which  explain  better  than  we  could 
the  part  played  by  the  prohibited  papers,  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  are  circulated  in  Belgium. 

Newspapers  from  Prussia. 

All  the  daily  papers  in  Brussels,  without  exception,  have 
ceased  publication.  From  the  beginning  of  the  occupation 
Von  der  Goltz  caused  advances  to  be  made  to  them.  These 
came  to  nothing.  It  is  not  consonant  with  the  dignity  of 
the  independent  Press  to  recognise  the  law  of  usurpation; 
it  is  unpatriotic  to  enter  the  service  of  the  enemy.  Now, 
to  publish  what  pleases  the  Prussian  censorship,  and  to  omit 
what  displeases  it;  not  to  rejoice  in  the  advantages  won 
by  the  Allied  armies,  but  to  hide  them,  shuffle  them  out  of 
sight,  and,  on  the  contrary,  to  insist  upon  the  pretended 
successes  of  the  enemy  troops;  to  insert  articles  imposed  by 
the  Prussian  bureaux,  and  to  reproduce  the  despatches  of 
the  Allies  as  they  emerge  from  the  garbling  processes  of 
Berlin ;  to  criticise  when  Belgium  takes  the  initiative,  because 
it  is  only  the  Belgian  initiative  that  the  censorship  wishes  to 
see  belittled;  to  refrain  from  pillorying  the  massacres  of 
Vise,  Dolhain,  Liege,  Aerschot,  Diest,  Louvain,  Dinant, 
Tamines,  Termonde,  etc.,  but  to  wax  indignant  over  petty 
abuses  laid  to  the  charge  of  impoverished  Belgians;  to  speak 
complacently  of  the  enemy's  work  of  organisation,  but  to 

^  A  reference  to  the  father's  proclivities  as  collector  of  bric- 
a-brac.   A  pince  monseigneiir  is  a  burglar's  jimmy. — (Tr.) 


22      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

remain  dumb  before  his  exactions:  this  is  to  cringe,  to 
trample  all  pride  underfoot,  to  set  an  example  of  feebleness, 

^  ,and  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  Germanic  aggression. 

!  Journalism  of  the  muzzled  variety  aggravates  its  case  if  it 
makes  a  great  deal  of  money.  A  weak  and  covetous  news- 
paper finds  no  readers  save  among  persons  devoid  of  moral 

These  domesticated  organs  are  opposed  by  a  Press  of  a 
different  nature,  an  emergency  Press:  this  latter  repudiates 
all  contact  with  the  enemy,  denounces  his  crimes,  and  en- 
courages the  admirable  and  unsubduable  spirit  displayed  by 
,  the  people.     Such  publications  as  La   Verite  or  La  Libre 
Belgique  are  not  offered  for  sale,  nor  do  they  contain  adver- 
,  tisements.    On  the  contrary,  money  has  to  be  spent  on  them, 
'  and  there  is  no  reward  to  be  reaped  other  than  years  of 
imprisonment  should  one  be  captured. 

Such  an  organ  has  at  its  disposal,  to  increase  its  circu- 
lation, neither  trains  nor  the  motor-cars  of  the  Prussians. 
This  is  why  our  readers  are  begged  with  the  utmost  urgency 
to  employ  their  own  for  the  purpose,  to  distribute  these  pages 
through  the  provinces.  This  is  risky  work?  So  much  the 
better !  The  action  is  therefore  more  meritorious.  The 
country  is  infested  with  emasculated  newspapers.  Let 
copies  be  made,  by  hand  or  mechanical  means,  of  those 
articles  which  are  thought  worthy  of  distribution.  Then  the 
present  publication,  small  but  proud,  poor  but  unsubjected, 
will  be  able  to  upset  the  manoeuvres  of  the  agents  of  Ger- 
many, and  bring  comfort  to  those  who  have  no  other  sources 
of  information  than  Berlin-made  placards  and  censored 
sheets,  in  which  the  despatches  are  so  distorted  as  to  distil, 
day  by  day,  disillusion  and  delusion,  platitude  and  despair. 
In  the  long  run  this  feebleness  and  perfidy  might  depress 
certain  of  our  compatriots:  it  is  for  them  that  Truth  emerges 
from  her  will ! 

(La  Verite,  No.  i,  2nd  May,  1915,  p.  i.) 

Thanks  to  all. 

We  know  that  articles  from  La  Verite,  reproduced  on  the 
typewriter,   are   circulating   in   the   country   districts.     We 


PLATE  V. 


N»  t.       JUN'I    1316 


PRIJS  VAN  HET  NUMMER     NIETS  OF  MEER 


Vcrkriijloar  :  NERGENS  EN  OVERAL 


DE  VLAAMSCHE  LEEUW 

Vaderlandsch    propag:andabl  ad 


In  dtlr  illdrn  vin  rouw  en  beproetlne.  ichtrtn  wn  oni,  Vitailngeo.  ftiOtr 
voorwiardcn  %tmtn  mci  ontr  VakUcbf  CrkXdcr^  n^n<l  onic  Bt  LGISCHE 
ORlEKLEUR  CO  ttcclcn  isci  hen,  «entcirdei  (to«a  en  OcidMc  (cvaren. 

«'i|  i(]n  ovcnulKd  dai.  wanMer  «e  rtsdiec'P'**'  >•'  bchatid  il|n    wlj  !■ 


B«ic>^  Bodfs  d^di  (tea  vrcead.a. 

PuiJi  fccn  *rerindcn  dm  In  'i^ttt. 

De  LefHwentiandaard  , 
Tee  tem  den  onb/tunnen,  Ale  »iivch  m  tol  vtttui  . 
Deo  vidowhcn  Lrcuw  iunii  tirccica  ca  uo»w<tv»i  hca  tuttl 


flecensureer''.  den   IS61ifl6 
Redaclle  ■  KOMMANDANTUR   Brussel.  reclilovW  de  Dfukkerij  van   '  LA  LIBRF  BELGIQUE  " 


Twee  iaar  Ballingschap  in 
eigen  land. 

H*t  wrk  tfcr  OuUftch-B«lg:ach«   Pcr«  I 


Het  i%  nu  ongetfecr  tui«^  Jaflr  dal  bftte  Belftische  bevot* 
king  volkomen  van  dc   bescliaifde  werttd  affle^cheiden  le^ft 


den  naocn  vjn  "  Chcvoliers  de  la  Irisl^  figure."  ( RidJers  van 
het  bedruki  wezen  )  vmden  dat  het  toch  le  lar.jj  duutt  ;  di\ 
d<f  Duitschers  toch  overal  komen  waar  zij  vgilangcn  ;  dal  onze 
bondjenooten  z>ch  lot  nu  toe,  toch  over  £een  enkel  bcUngnjIc 
wjpenftit  niogen  beroemen.  enz.  Ten  andere  slacn  zij  in  VerruU* 
kmg  voor  de  blusfsche  onderwerpmg  der  Duitsche  ^olJaicn  voor 
hiHioe  ovtrrsien  en  noemen  dii  :  luch(  !  Zi|  bcwonderen  het 
voo'heeldig  be^tuur  van  von  Hissing  en  zi)ne  kliek,  en  vitiden 
dat  "Wt)  Belgen  veel  bi(  de  Duittcher^  te  Icercn  hebben  la  eei 
wuord.  21]  toonen  itch  waardige  lexers  van    La  BcIi^i^lc 


Upper  Portion  of  the  First  Page  of  the  Flemish 
Newspaper  Z>e  Vlaamsche  Leeuw,    (Reduced.) 


PLATE  Vi 


Nr2. 


1916. 


DeVrijeStem 

Belgisch  orgaan  voor  de  provincie  Antwerpen 

Verschijnende  gedurende  de  .Duitsche   Bezetting. 


Telegraj«»5ch  adres  : 

Komiuandantur-'Annverpen-Mcchdea 

Met  gratJe  ende  fnvilegic. 


Bureelen  en  Redactie  : 

HOTEL  DER  PATRIOTTEN 

Begijnenstraat,  42. 


Open  Brief  van  Jan  Van  Rijswijck  uit  den  llemel. 

Dichter  Jan  Rijswijck  (I8l8fl869)  .stuurf  on s  van  ul(  den 
hemel  volgenden  Open  Brief,  met  verzoek  van  opname  in  «.  De 
Vrije  Stem.  »»  Wij  houden  ons  verzekerd  dat  dit  schriiven  met 
groote  voldocning  door  ons  volk  zai  gelezen  worden. 

Den  Hemel.  21'  l^^nicr,  3'  verdicp. 

^an  de  Redactie  van  «  De  Vrije  Stem  » 

Hotel  der  Patriotten,  Begijnenstraat,  42. 

Beste  Vadcrlanders. 

Door  tusschenkomsl  van  Jan  Olieslagers,  die  van  zijn  uitstnpken  om 
cemge  bommen  op  de  slcllingen  der  Duitschcrs  te  gooien,  gebruik  hcelt 

Upper  Portion  of  the  First  Page  of  the  Flemish 
Newspaper  De   Vrije  Stem.     {Reduced.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      23 

know  that  readings  of  these  have  been  organised  among 
friends.  May  this  be  continued;  may  it  occur  more  fre- 
quently and  become  general. 

{La  Vcrite,  No.  3,  20th  May,  19 15,  p.  13.) 

A  Little  Indulgence,  Please! 

A  few  readers  have  complained  of  the  disagreeable  odonr 
possessed  by  certain  of  our  newspapers;  we  beg  them  to 
excuse  us,  but  they  must  understand  that  in  time  of  war 
one  cannot  always  choose  one's  travelling  companions.  Thus 
La  Libre  Belgique  has  found  itself  compelled  to  travel  in 
company  with  red  herrings,  or  Herve  cheese,  or  carbide  of 
calcium.  We  beg  our  readers  to  extend  to  La  Libre  Belgique 
the  same  indulgence  which  they  are  forced,  for  the  time  be- 
ing, to  extend  to  certain  of  their  neighbours  in  the  tram-cars. 
However,  the  Spring  is  here,  so  we  shall  do  our  utmost  to 
give  La  Libre  Belgique  the  perfume  of  the  rose  or  the  violet. 

The  present  number  is  delayed  in  publication.  This  is 
the  explanation:  we  had  to  reprint  it.  La  Libre  Belgique 
encountered  the  enemy.  It  threw  itself  into  the  water,  in 
order  to  escape  by  swimming,  and  was  drowned ! 

Requiescat  in  pace! 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  10,  March,  1915,  p.  I,  col.  I.) 

Please  Hand  This  On! 

Our  readers  will  not  have  failed  to  remark  our  insistent 
repetition  of  this  advice.  As  prudence  does  not  permit  us 
to  increase  the  number  of  copies  printed  to  the  extent  our 
friends  would  wish,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  introduc- 
ing packages  of  too  voluminous  a  nature  into  the  capital,  we 
have,  from  the  outset,  relied  on  the  patriotism  of  our  "sub- 
scribers" to  assist  us  in  our  task.  Let  every  copy  of  our 
little  paper  pass  from  hand  to  hand.  What  matter  if  the 
owner  sees  it  return  to  him  a  trifle  soiled,  a  trifle  tattered: 
what  matter  if  it  never  returns  at  all?  He  will  console 
himself,  by  reminding  himself  that  it  has  travelled  some 
distance,  since  it  could  not  find  its  way  back.  It  will  there- 
fore have  fulfilled  the  intention  of  its  editors. 


24      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

A  hundred  copies  should  represent  at  least  a  thousand 
readers. 

Now  as  we  print  .  .  .  Tut !  We  must  be  silent :  the 
Boches  must  not  learn  how  many ! 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  21,  May,  1915,  p.  i,  col.  i.) 

Owing  to  an  accident  to  some  machinery  our  service  was 
rather  disorganised  last  week;  we  were  able  to  effect  only 
provisional  repairs,  and  if  the  appearance  of  the  paper  was 
somewhat  delayed  our  readers  will  kindly  excuse  us. 


Important  Notice  to  Our  Readers  and  Distributors. 

The  existence  of  our  publication  and  the  liberty  of  those 
who  are  concerned  in  its  production  depend,  above  all,  on  the 
discretion  of  those  who  receive  it  and  distribute  it,  Curiosity, 
even  the  most  benevolent,  may  be  as  dangerous  and  as  mis- 
chievous as  the  criminal  denunciation  which  is  naturally 
encouraged  by  our  worst  enemies.  We  therefore  urgently 
beg  all  true  Belgians,  to  whom  alone  our  paper  is  dedicated, 
to  respect  the  anonymity  of  the  contributors  to  La  Libre 
Belgique,  and  to  abstain  from  the  slightest  effort  to  learn 
their  identity.  This  curiosity  might  by  itself  become  an 
act  of  treachery,  and  might  give  rise  to  the  most  serious 
results,  the  least  of  which  would  be  the  premature  decease 
of  La  Libre  Belgique. 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  29,  June,  1915,  p.  i,  col.  i.) 


Warning  to  Our  Readers. 

If  they  receive  a  visit  from  a  respectable  ecclesiastic  who 
wants  to  talk  about  La  Libre  Belgique,  the  good  work  ac- 
complished by  the  paper,  etc.,  they  are  begged  to  take  this 
Boche  in  a  cassock  politely  by  the  arm,  and  to  turn  him  out 
of  doors  without  more  ado. 

However,  those  who  feel  that  they  ought  to  embellish  this 
eviction  by  a  good  kick  in  the  part  vulgarly  known  as  "the 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      25 

Prussian,"  are  free  to  do  so.     The  act  will  be  deserved,  if 
not  deserving. 

The  Editors. 

(La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  31,  June,  1915,  p.  i,  col.  i.) 

To  His  Excellency  Baron  von  Bissing, 
German  Governor. 
Excellency, 

You  overwhelm  us  with  attentions.  Your  agents,  public 
and  secret,  are  multiplying  their  domiciliary  visits  in  their 
search  for  La  Libre  Belgique.  You  have  even  mobilised, 
they  say,  a  special  brigade  of  detectives,  who  have  come 
from  Berlin  to  discover  its  editors,  contributors,  distributors, 
reporters,  etc. 

You  are  wasting  your  time  and  squandering  your  money 
quite  uselessly.  It  is  true  that  you  have  already  more  than 
once  laid  hands  upon  a  bundle  of  copies  of  the  newspaper 
which  is  your  nightmare,  and  that  you  have  inflicted  heavy 
fines  upon  those  who  were  in  possession  of  copies.  But 
La  Libre  Belgique  has  continued  to  appear  as  .  .  .  irregu- 
larly as  before,  and  the  size  of  its  impressions  has  not  ceased 
to  increase  .  .  .  regularly  after  each  of  your  raids. 

You  know  very  well,  moreover,  your  Excellency,  that 
although  certain  of  these  raids  have  terminated  more  or 
less  gloriously,  others  have  covered  your  agents  and  their 
officers  with  ridicule.  Once  again,  you  are  wasting  your  time, 
my  dear  Baron,  and  the  results  of  your  seizures  and  confisca- 
tions will  not  repay  you  for  the  trouble  you  are  giving  your- 
self, nor  will  it  make  up  for  the  ridicule  of  your  failure. 

The  longer  you  persist,  the  further  will  our  propaganda 
spread.  Our  automobile  printing-press,  thanks  to  your  w^ell- 
known  obligingness,  moves  from  one  point  of  the  country 
to  another  with  a  facility,  a  freedom,  an  essence'^ — pardon, 

^  There  is  here  a  play  of  words  beyond  translation.  Es- 
sence means  benzine — motor  spirit.  A  German  would  say 
essence  when  he  meant  aisancc.  Possibly  there  is  also  a 
reference  to  the  raids  upon  cabinets  d'aisances  (water- 
closets)  mentioned  on  pp.  14-15. —  (Tr.) 


26      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

I  mean  an  aisance   (that  comes  of  frequenting  the  Kom-' 
mandantur,    one    picks   up    the   accent) — an   aisance    which 
you  do  not  suspect. 

You  should  remember,  dear  Sir,  that  La  Libre  Belgique 
pledged  itself,  from  the  moment  of  its  birth,  to  appear  in 
spite  of  everything,  so  long  as  our  dear  country  is  occupied 
by  your  compatriots,  so  long  as  it  is  necessary  to  react 
against  the  Press  which  is  in  your  pay,  and  that  which,  by 
its  lies  or  its  omissions,  is  seeking  to  enfeeble  our  patriotism, 
to  wear  down  our  resistance,  to  enervate  our  characters,  to 
sow  doubt,  division  and  despair  in  our  ranks,  in  a  word,  to 
render  vain  and  useless  our  sacrifices  and  our  sufferings. 

You  forget  that  in  Belgium  a  promise  is  a  sacred  engage- 
ment, which  binds  him  who  has  made  it  as  firmly  as  an  oath, 
and  more  firmly  than  a  diplomatic  treaty.  You  make  the 
great  mistake  of  regarding  us  as  annexed.  You  may  rob  us, 
imprison  us,  shoot  us  even,  but  you  will  not  silence  us. 

We  are   not   Germans — so   do   not   measure   us   with 

YOUR  ELL. 

You  have  recently  remarked,  or  so  we  have  been  informed, 
that  the  Belgians  are  intractable.^  This  word,  which  is 
too  reminiscent  of  the  souvenirs  which  your  officers  have 
everywhere  left  behind  them  in  our  houses  and  our  chateaux, 
should  have  scorched  your  lips;  but  it  is,  none  the  less, 
the  unfortunate  expression  of  a  true  idea:  the  Belgians 
are  Indomitable. 

As  for  killing  La  Libre  Belgique,  do  not  count  upon  it; 
it  is  impossible.  It  is  unseizable,  because  it  is  nowhere. 
It  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  which  issues  from  the  graves  of  those 
whom  your  countrymen  massacred  in  Louvain,  Tamines, 
and  Dinant,  and  which  is  pursuing  you.  But  it  is  also  the 
will-o'-the-wisp  which  issues  from  the  graves  of  the  German 
soldiers  who  fell  at  Liege,  at  Walheim,  on  the  Yser.    These 

^  Indecrottable  means  uncleanable,  unpolishable,  rude, 
incorrigible,  unteachable,  intractable.  Crotter  means  to 
dirty,  to  dtionly  crottin  is  dung.  The  play  of  words,  which 
is  untranslatable,  refers  to  the  peculiar  stercoral  relics  de- 
posited by  German  officers  in  houses  which  have  given  them 
shelter. — {Tr.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM   27 

latter  now  perceive  for  what  a  wretched  scheme  of  domina- 
tion they  were  sacrificed  to  the  Moloch  of  war,  under  the 
pretext  of  defending  the  Fatherland;  finally,  it  is  the  voice 
of  all  the  mothers,  the  voice  of  all  the  widows  and  orphans 
who  are  mourning  those  they  have  lost.  This  voice  is  daily 
gaining  power;  its  echoes  are  heard  over  all  our  provinces 
and  reach  beyond  our  frontiers.  It  will  be  silent  only  when 
the  last  of  your  soldiers  and  your  policemen  have  ceased  to 
oppress  our  invaded  soil  in  defiance  of  all  justice. 

Do  not  believe,  my  dear  Baron,  that  we  are  so  simple  as 
to  believe  that  you  will  take  our  advice  and  abandon  the 
hope  that  your  shady^  Sherlock  Holmeses  will  discover  us. 
We  know  that  nothing  stops  a  German  once  he  has  entered 
upon  an  evil  course — neither  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  nor 
any  scruple,  nor  the  consciousness  of  final  defeat.  This, 
Excellency,  is  why,  in. respect  of  your  past,  present,  and 
future  miscalculations,  we  approach  you  with  the  expression 
of  our  very  sincere  and  entirely  disrespectful  condolences. 

'  La  Libre  Belgique. 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  49,  October,  1915,  p.  i,  col.  i.) 


In  the  incessant  conflict  which  the  Belgians, 
prisoners  in  their  own  country,  are  sustaining  against 
the  German  domination,  the  newspapers  are  supported 
by  numerous  pamphlets.  Let  us  mention  a  few  of 
these,  simply  to  give  some  idea  of  their  diversity. 

Necrologe  dinantais,  August,  19 14. — This  pamphlet 
contains,  first  of  all,  an  account  of  the  massacres  and 
the  incendiarism;  then  the  "Official  List  of  the  Civil- 
ians shot  at  Dinant  on  the  23rd  and  24th  of  August, 
19 14,  by  order  of  the  German  military  authority,  with- 


^  Another  play  on  words  in  the  original.  Sherlock  Holmes 
de  contrehande  might  mean  "Sherlock  Holmeses  for  the 
detection  of  smuggled  goods,"  or  Sherlock  Holmeses  who 
were  also  "black  sheep." — {Tr.) 


28      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

out  any  previous  trial."  The  list  contains  the  names  of 
606  dead,  with  their  professions,  their  places  of  resi- 
dence, and  their  ages.  Then  it  continues:  "This  list 
is  incomplete;  it  does  not  contain  the  names  of  all 
those  whose  bodies  could  not  be  identified,  or  who 
died  in  the  hospitals  as  a  result  of  their  wounds." 

The  Necrologe  dinantais  was  preceded  by  another 
printed  list,  which  was  implacably  hunted  down  by 
the  Germans  in  Dinant  itself.^ 

Pages  du  Livre  des  Douleurs  de  la  Belgique. — Ob- 
jective narratives  by  eye-witnesses  of  some  of  the  hor- 
rors committed  in  Belgium  by  the  German  Army. 

La  Violation  de  la  Neutralite  beige. — A  very  simple 
account  of  the  German  perfidy,  published  in  January, 

1915. 

Cominent  VYser  n'a  pas  ete  franchi:  Yser,  Nieuport, 

Inondations. — Maps  and  photographs  of  the  district; 
accounts  of  the  battles  and  floods. 

Le  Manifeste  des  intelle duels  allemands  et  les  Re- 
ponses  des  neutres. — A  French  translation  of  the 
Manifesto,  and  some  of  the  replies  to  it. 

La  Sozialdemokratie  et  la  Guerre.  Le  Crime  des 
Socialistes  allemands.  Petit  dossier  documentaire. — 
This  contains,  in  particular,  an  account  of  the  visits 
paid  to  the  Brussels  Maison  du  Peuple  by  various 
German  militants:  Wendel,  Liebknecht,  Koster  and 
Noske. 

La  Franc-Mag onnerie  beige  et  les  Loges  allemandes. 
— A  reproduction  of  M.  Charles  Magnette's  appeal  to 
the  nine  German  lodges,  asking  for  an  impartial  inquiry 
into  what  had  happened  in  Belgium ;  the  refusal  of  the 

^  '^  See  Davignon,  Belgique  et  Allemagne,  p.  66. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      29 

only  two  lodges  which  replied;  M.  Magnette's  reply; 
and  documentary  evidence  of  German  origin. 

Patriotisme  et  Endurance. — This  is  Mgr.  Mercier's 
well-known  Pastoral  Letter,  which  produced  so  great 
an  impression.  The  original  edition,  printed  by  Des- 
sain  at  Malines,  was  in  part  seized  by  the  German 
authorities.  But  a  dozen  editions  were  printed  in 
French,  and  three  in  Flemish;  it  was  also  distributed 
by  means  of  typewriting.  Numerous  impressions 
were  made  of  each  edition.  At  the  establishment  of 
a  single  printer  in  Brussels  the  German  police  con- 
fiscated 35,000  pamphlets.  But  so  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  copies  were  printed  that  every  house  in 
Belgium  contains  at  least  one  copy. 

Antoiir  de  la  Lettre  cardinalice — A  reproduction  of 
the  principal  correspondence  exchanged  between  the 
German  authorities  and  the  Belgian  clergy  in  connec- 
tion with  the  proscription  of  the  pastoral  letter. 


The  anti-German  propaganda  is  also  being  carried 
on  by  means  of  picture  postcards,  representing  the 
King,  the  Queen,  Prince  Leopold,  M.  Max,  Mgr.  Mer- 
cier.  Miss  Cavell  and  Ph.  Baucq,  etc. 

The  prohibited  postcard  which  must  have  annoyed 
the  Germans  most  profoundly  is  that  which  reproduces 
the  portraits  of  their  spies.  Thirty  of  these  gentry 
had  the  brilliant  idea  of  getting  photographed  in  a 
body.  A  week  had  not  elapsed  before  the  Belgians 
had  obtained  possession  of  a  print  and  had  reproduced 
it  as  a  picture  postcard.  Directly  one  of  these  con- 
genial informers  entered  a  tram  everybody  stared  at 
him  with  significant  insistence. 


30      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

Although  the  taking  of  photographs  is  prohibited, 
many  amateurs  brave  the  rigours  of  German  "justice" 
and  take  photographs  of  the  ruins  of  Louvain,  Dinant, 
Termonde,  Vise,  the  villages  of  Luxemburg,  etc. 

4.  German  Regulations  Affecting  the  Press 

On  the  one  hand  are  the  Germans,  the  wielders  of 
authority,  determined  to  abuse  it  without  the  slightest 
scruple,  seeking  only  to  demoralise  us  in  order  to  crush 
us  more  readily  under  their  heel;  on  the  other  hand 
are  the  Belgians,  abandoned  to  their  o^Nn  resources, 
exposed  to  all  the  severities  of  the  courts-martial 
whenever  they  make  an  effort  to  escape  from  under 
the  extinguisher.  In  this  struggle,  so  unequal  that 
the  Belgians  seem  conquered  beforehand,  it  is  never- 
theless the  Belgians  who  are  uppermost;  and  nothing 
proves  the  victory  of  our  countrymen,  and  the  impo- 
tent rage  of  our  enemies,  than  the  more  and  more 
excessive  penalties  threatened  by  the  decrees  relating 
to  the  Press. 

A  warning  published  by  the  military  government 
of  Brussels,  on  the  22nd  of  November,  19 14,  spoke  of 
long  terms  of  imprisonment. 

Notice. 

I  remind  the  population  of  Brussels  and  the  suburbs  that 
it  is  strictly  forbidden  to  sell  or  distribute  newspapers  which 
are  not  expressly  authorised  by  the  German  military  gover- 
nor. Contraventions  involve  immediate  arrest  of  the  vendors 
and  the  infliction  of  long  terms  of  imprisonment. 

Brussels,  the  22nd  September,  1914. 

The  Military  Governor, 

Baron  von  Luttwitz. 
(General.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      31 

The  decree  of  the  13th  of  October,  1914,  signed  by- 
Baron  von  der  Goltz,  threatened  with  a  punishment 
"conformable  with  the  martial  law,  the  distributors  of 
non-censored  writings." 

A  notice  dated  the  9th  of  November,  19 14,  also 
signed  by  Baron  von  der  Goltz,  stated  that  offenders 
would  be  ''punished  by  long  terms  of  imprisonment." 

Sentences  were  actually  passed  at  their  period;  for 
example,  Louis  Frost  was  condemned  to  six  months' 
imprisonment  "for  having  distributed  copies  of  un- 
truthful news  of  the  war,  reproduced  by  typewriting." 

But  the  severities  of  the  Germans  did  not  prevent 
the  introduction  of  foreign  newspapers,  nor  the  crea- 
tion of  clandestine  journals.  In  an  official  communique, 
reproduced  by  the  censored  journals,  dated  the  14th 
of  June,  191 5,  Herr  Baron  von  Bissing,  Governor- 
General  in  Belgium,  complained  of  this  situation. 

A  few  days  later  a  fresh  communique  entered  into 
details:  offenders  would  be  punished  with  imprison- 
ment varying  in  duration  from  one  day  to  three  years, 
and  would  be  condemned  to  pay  a  maximum  fine  of 
3,000  marks. 

A  decree  of  the  Governor's,  dated  the  25th  of  June, 
191 5,  states: 

The  actions  and  omissions  prohibited  by  the  decree  of 
the  13th  October,  1914,  and  the  Notice  of  the  4th  Novem- 
ber, 1914,  concerning  the  censorship  of  printed  matter,  reci- 
tations, etc.,  and  the  Notice  dated  the  15th  November,  1914, 
concerning  the  carrying  of  letters,  writings,  etc.,  are  punish- 
able by  imprisonment  varying  in  duration  from  one  day  to 
three  years  and  a  maximum  fine  of  3,000  marks,  or  by  one 
of  these  penalties  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  unless  other 
laws  or  decrees  prescribe  an  increased  penalty. 

Attempts    to    commit    the    above-mentioned    actions    and 


32      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

omissions  are  punishable;  the  objects  concealed  from  the 
censorship  will  be  confiscated. 

Infractions  will  be  tried  by  the  courts-martial,  or,  in  the 
case  of  contraventions  not  of  a  very  serious  nature,  by  the 
military  authorities. 

The  present  order  will  come  into  force  on  the  day  of 
publication. 

(U£cho  de  la  Presse  Internationale ^  5th  July,  1915.). 

But  no  threat  affects  the  patriotism  of  the  Belgians. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  Governor-General  gave  vent  to 
fresh  lamentations  in  January,  19 16.  In  these  he 
admitted — at  last! — that  the  people  of  Brussels  were 
still  implacably  hostile  to  the  occupying  forces.  This 
little  fit  of  sincerity  clashes  with  the  interviews  which 
he  granted,  early  in  191 5,  to  the  German  newspapers, 
notably  to  the  Norddentsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung;  in 
these  he  invariably  stated  that  the  relations  between 
the  people  of  Brussels  and  the  Germans  had  improved. 
Here  is  his  lament  of  January,  19 16: 

The  attitude  of  the  population  of  Brussels  towards  the 
German  garrison  betrays,  in  every  walk  of  life,  an  unjustified 
hostility.  Not  only  are  insulting  writings  continually  and 
eagerly  distributed  and  purchased  in  the  city,  writings  of  an 
obscene  character  attacking  the  German  Administration — 
and  this  under  the  eyes  of  the  city  police;  not  only  have 
German  officers  been  insulted  in  the  open  streets  (as,  for 
example,  in  the  case  of  Joseph),  but  the  population  of 
Brussels  has  often  contrived  to  lend  active  assistance  to  the 
enemy's  intelligence  department,  furnishing  it  with  informa- 
tion as  to  the  military  situation  in  the  city,  for  example, 
or  the  temporary  occupation  of  the  aeroplane  hangars,  and 
has  thus  rendered  possible  hostile  actions  against  the  Ger- 
man garrison  established  within  its  walls.  It  is  regrettable 
that  even  the  communal  employees  have  not  been  ashamed 
to  participate  in  these  hostile  actions,  and  to  assist  in  their 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      33 

accomplishment,  as  spies,  or  by  concealing  explosives. 
Further,  in  spite  of  the  repeated  warnings,  with  the  threat 
of  severe  penalties,  issued  by  the  general  Government,  the 
population  of  Brussls  has  kept  weapons  in  concealment,  and 
this  on  a  large  scale,  and  has  thus  indicated  its  intention  of 
keeping  itself  armed  in  view  of  a  rising. 

Similarly,  in  the  matter  of  billets  the  hostile  attitude  of 
the  people  of  Brussels  has  been  openly  displayed.  Not  only 
have  all  sorts  of  difficulties  been  created  for  German  officers 
and  employees,  in  the  matter  of  letting  suitable  apartments, 
but  the  few  lessors  who,  to  gain  a  legitimate  living,  have 
let  apartments  to  German  officers  or  employees,  have  been 
subjected,  by  their  fellow  citizens,  to  continual  persecution, 
threats,  and  humiliations.  In  this  way  the  question  of  find- 
ing lodgings  has  become,  for  German  officers  and  employees, 
particularly  embarrassing. 

(Signed)  Von  Bissing. 


A  few  days  later,  on  the  nth  of  January,  19 16, 
ere  came  a  threateni 
General's  complaints: 


there  came  a  threatening  confirmation  of  the  Governor- 


It  is  Decreed. 

Art.  2. — (a)  Whosoever,  in  the  territory  of  the  general 
Government,  shall  have  published  or  consciously  caused  to 
circulate  false  reports  as  to  the  number,  the  advance,  or 
the  pretended  victories  of  the  enemy  forces,  which  might  lead 
the  civil  or  military  authorities  astray  as  to  the  measures  to 

be     taken     by     them 

will  be  punished  by  a  term  of  imprisonment  of  not  more 
than  five  years'  duration,  unless  the  laws  and  regulations 
in  force  prescribe  the  application  of  a  longer  term  of  im- 
prisonment. 

Art.  3. — Infractions  of  the  present  decree  are  within  the 
competence  of  the  German  military  tribunals. 

Brussels,  nth  January,  1916. 

Von  Bissing. 
Von  Sauberzweig. 


34      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

So  far  only  those  who  busied  themselves  in  dis- 
tributing "provocative  writings"  were  exposed  to  the 
severities  of  the  military  courts.  From  the  5th  of 
February,  19 16,  it  was  equally  criminal  to  receive  or 
retain  them. 

Those  who  found  La  Libre  Belgique  in  their  letter- 
boxes were  therefore  bound  to  burn  it  immediately! 

^  It  is  Decreed. 

Whosoever  possesses  printed  matter  which,  contrary  to  the 
regulation  in  force,  has  not  been  subjected  to  examination 
by  the  censorship,  will  be  punished  either  by  a  term  of 
imprisonment  not  exceeding  three  years  in  duration,  and  a 
fine  which  may  amount  to  3,000  marks,  or  one  of  these 
penalties  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  unless  circumstances 
prove  that  the  possessor  is  not  guilty. 

The  printed  matter  constituting  the  object  of  the  in- 
fractions will  be  confiscated. 

These  infractions  are  within  the  competence  of  the  Ger- 
man military  authorities  or  tribunals. 

Brussels,  5th  February,  1916. 

No  doubt  it  was  in  pursuance  of  this  decree  that 
the  proprietor  of  a  cafe  in  Liege  was  sentenced: 

Liege. — M.  Adam  Quaden,  the  proprietor  of  the  Taverne 
Britannique,  Place  Verte,  has  just  been  sentenced  by  the 
Boche  courts  to  four  months'  imprisonment  for  the  follow- 
ing reason: 

The  Taverne  Britannique,  a  meeting-place  for  all  true 
citizens  of  Liege,  was  visited  one  day  by  some  Germans,  who 
proceeded  to  make  a  minute  search.  In  the  porter's  lodge 
were  discovered  a  few  numbers  of  La  Libre  Belgique,  which 
the  porter  remembered  having  picked  up  from  a  table  where 
an  unknown  person  had  placed  them.^ 

^  One  may  ask  who  was  this  unknown  person  ?  Was  he 
perhaps  an  agent  provocateur^    Do  not  forget  that  in  Liege 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      35 

M.  Quaden  was  arrested  as  responsible,  although  innocent ; 
and  was  sentenced. 

{Le  Courrier  de  VArmee,  No.  243, 
30th  March,  1916,  p.  4,  col.  i.) 

Later,  in  June,  19 16,  M.  Preherbu,  justice  of  peace 
at  Schaerbeck,  was  suspended  from  the  performance 
of  his  functions,  having  been  found  in  possession  of  a 
copy  of  the  detested  newspaper. 

Two  remarks  on  the  subject  of  these  arrests:  (a) 
In  the  domain,  essentially  civil,  of  Press  offences,  only 
the  military  authorities  or  the  military  tribunals  are 
competent  and  pass  sentences  "conformably  with  the 
martial  law"  ;^  which  means  that  the  trials  are  not  con- 
ducted in  public,  and  there  is  no  appeal  against  the  de- 
cisions of  the  courts.  What  of  ''the  respect  for  the 
laws  in  force  in  the  occupied  country"  required  by 
Article  43  of  the  Appendix  to  The  Hague  Convention, 
that  "scrap  of  paper"  which  is  partly  the  work  of 
German  jurists,  and  which  bears  their  signature? 

(&)  Each  new  decree  threatens  heavier  penaltiesT^ 
How  singular  is  the  German  psychology!  Evidently 
they  believe  that  the  Belgians,  who  were  not  intimi-  \ 
dated  by  six  months'  imprisonment,  would  shrink  from 
five  years!  One  may  compare  with  this  the  reward 
of  £200,  then  of  £1,000,  and  finally  of  £3,000,  which 
is  said  to  have  been  offered  for  the  betrayal  of  the 
authors  of  La  Libre  Belgiqice. 

itself,  in  December,  1914,  numbers  of  persons  were  sentenced 
because  German  informers  had  placed  the  Maestricht 
Courrier  de  la  Meiise  in  their  letter-boxes. 

^  We  need  not  be  surprised  that  the  rnilitary  courts  should 
try  Press  offences;  in  Antwerp  restaurant-keepers  guilty  of 
serving  their  customers  with  peeled  potatoes  are  arraigned 
before  the  military  tribunals  1 


36      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

In  the  country  districts  the  same  measures  were 
taken  against  uncensored  writings.  It  will  suffice  to 
refer  to  a  few  decrees  already  published  in  Comment 
les  Beiges  resistent,  at  Spa  (p.  6),  Louvain  (p.  7), 
Namur  (p.  8),  and  Antwerp  (p.  17). 

We  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  reproduce  in 
these  pages  the  delightful  placard  which  was  posted 
up  in  Liege,  on  the  loth  of  September,  191 5,  when  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne  was  at  its  height: 

To  the  Population  of  Li€ge  and  District. 

In  view  of  the  increasing  successes  of  the  German  troops, 
it  is  impossible  to  understand  how  the  people  of  Liege  can 
be  still  sufficiently  credulous  to  believe  the  absurd  and 
frivolous  news  propagated  by  the  manufactories  of  lies  in- 
stalled in  Liege.  Those  who  occupy  themselves  in  propagat- 
ing such  news  expose  themselves  to  rigorous  punishment. 
They  are  playing  a  dangerous  game  in  abusing  the  credulity 
of  their  fellow-citizens  and  urging  them  to  thoughtless  acts. 
The  reasonable  population  of  Liege  will  of  its  own  accord 
oppose  all  attempts  of  this  nature. 

Otherwise  it  runs  the  risk  not  only  of  the  most  serious 
disappointment,  but  also  of  becoming  ridiculous  in  the  eyes 
of  intelligent  people. 

VON    KOLEWE. 

Lieutenant-General  and 
German  Governor  of  the  Fortress  of  Liege. 

It  is  forbidden  to  remove  this  placard  or  to  post  another 
over  it. 

5.  The  Aerial  Supplement  of  La  Libre  Belgique, 

Since  the  spring  of  1916  the  Belgians  have  been 
utilizing  a  new  means  of  transport  in  the  distribution 
of  prohibited  publications:  the  aeroplane. 

Small  "flying"  leaflets  {Le  Clarion  du  Roi,  supple- 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM   37 

ment  aerien  de  La  Libre  Belgique)  are  printed  abroad 
and  dropped  upon  the  Belgian  towns  by  our  aviators. 
They  give,  month  by  month,  in  French  and  in  Flemish, 
news  of  the  war.  Needless  to  say,  the  Germans  do 
their  very  utmost  to  prevent  our  compatriots  from 
picking  up  and  handing  on  these  communiques.  Thus 
the  aeroplane  which  flew  over  the  Antwerp  and  Saint- 
Nicolas  region  at  the  end  of  June,  19 16,  scattered 
quantities  of  small  leaflets;  and  for  days  German 
cavalry  patrols  were  scouring  the  countryside,  arrest- 
ing and  searching  all  those  who  could  be  suspected  of 
carrying  the  news  which  had  fallen  from  the  skies. 

On  Wednesday  the  6th  of  September,  19 16,  Lieu- 
tenant C and  Adjutant  M shed  a  beneficent 

rain  of  aerial  supplements  of  La  Libre  Belgique  upon 
the  strollers  at  the  Porte  de  Namur  and  in  the  Grand 
Place,  Brussels. 

As  a  result  of  this  visit  the  inhabitants  of  the  boule- 
vards near  the  Porte  de  Namur  wxre  punished;  they 
had  to  be  within  doors  by  8.30  p.m.,  and  remain  in 
their  own  homes,  without  light.  As  this  prospect 
might  not  have  been  disagreeable  enough  to  prevent 
the  people  of  Brussels  from  picking  up  the  papers 
distributed  by  aviators,  the  Germans  hit  on  a  more 
radical  system.  They  fired  at  the  aeroplane  shrapnel 
which  did  not  burst  in  the  air,  but  on  falling,  close 
to  the  ground.  Numbers  of  curious  persons  were 
killed  and  wounded  in  this  way  at  the  time  of  the 
raid  of  the  27th  September,  1916. 

6.  Counterfeit  Prohibited  Newspapers 

Perceiving  that  neither  brutal  intimidation  or  cor- 
ruption was  preventing  our  countrymen  from  pur- 


38      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

chasing  foreign  newspapers  and  distributing  the 
products  of  the  clandestine  Press,  the  German  authori- 
ties employed  our  own  weapon :  they  printed  imitations 
of  prohibited  newspapers. 

As  early  as  January,  191 5,  a  pamphlet  was  circulated 
in  Brussels  which  spoke  in  an  insulting  manner  of  the 
civil  authorities  of  Antwerp  in  connection  with  the 
entrance  of  the  German  troops  into  that  city.  This 
affair  has  not  as  yet  been  thoroughly  cleared  up;  the 
complicity  of  the  Germans  has  not  been  actually 
proved;  but  at  all  events  the  Germans  have  admitted, 
through  the  medium  of  Baron  von  Bissing,  junior, 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Munich,  that  they  have 
done  their  utmost  to  profit  by  the  dissensions  which 
they  have  attempted  to  sow.^ 

At  the  end  of  July,  191 5,  a  "Proclamation  of  King 
Albert  on  the  occasion  of  the  National  Festival  of  the 
2 1  St  July"  was  on  sale  iii  Brussels.  This  was  a  tissue 
of  ineptitudes  mingled.j,v|ith  venomous  attacks  upon 
the  Allies.  The  pseudo-proclamation  was  reprinted 
by  the  German  Press.  The  fraud  was  so  clumsy  that 
we  had  no  need  of  the  notice  in  No.  42  of  La  Libre 
Belgique  in  order  to  see  daylight. 

Their  finest  invention  was  the  publication  of  a  news- 
paper, Le  Fouet,  which  was  distributed  secretly.  In 
addition  to  feeble  jests  about  "Beastman  (Beteman, 
German  pun  on  Bethmann),  the  Chandelier  of  the 
Empire,"  No.  i  contained  a  violent  attack  upon  the 
"clerical   Government"   of   Belgium  and  the   "flam- 


^  See  Belgien  unter  deutscher  Verwaltung,  in  the  Sud- 
deutsche  Monatshefte,  April,  1915  (p.  31  of  the  Supplement), 
and  "Belgians  under  the  German  Eagle,"  p.  238. 


<^ 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM   39 

ingants."  This  was  an  unmistakable  trademark,  for 
there  is  not  a  single  Belgian  who  has  not  to-day  for- 
gotten our  intestine  quarrels. 

On  several  occasions  counterfeits  of  foreign  news- 
papers have  been  sold  in  Brussels;  either  of  Dunkirk 
newspapers,  or  of  newspapers  published  in  Holland  by- 
Belgians.  These  imitations  were  sold  at  30  centimes 
to  I  franc,  whereas  the  genuine  publications  cost  at 
least  twice  as  much.  They  exhibited  this  peculiarity 
— that  they  announced  astounding  victories  won  by 
the  Allies.  Were  they  the  work  of  some  printer  eager 
to  make  money,  or  did  the  Germans  have  a  hand  in 
them?  It  is  difficult  to  say.  At  the  same  time,  let 
us  remember  that  during  the  siege  of  Paris,  Bismarck 
took  pains  to  ensure  that  fabricated  newspapers  should 
from  time  to  time  reach  the  Parisians,  containing  ac- 
counts of  pretended  French  victories;  for  he  knew 
that  nothing  more  surely  leads  a  population  to  despair 
than  the  destruction  of  illusions. 

B.  AUTHORISED  PUBLICATIONS 

We  have  just  shown  what  efforts  the  Belgians  make 
to  publish  the  truth  despite  all  obstacles.  Let  us  now 
describe  the  manner  in  which  the  German  authorities 
keep  our  populations  informed  of  the  news. 

The  documents  placed  at  our  disposal  may  be  di- 
vided into  four  groups: 

1.  The  gratuitous  information  provided  by 
the  German  authority  and  by  private  individ- 
uals. 

2.  Printed  matter  of  German  origin  which  may 
be  botight  in  Belgium. 


40      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

3.  Newspapers  and  pamphlets,  supposedly  Bel- 
\    gian,  which  are  submitted  to  the  censorship. 

4.  Dutch  newspapers  tolerated  by  the  censor- 
ship. 

I.  Gratuitous  Information 

r~ 

In  the  first  place  there  are  the  official  announce- 
ments. These,  in  the  first  place,  were  worded  in  Ger- 
man, French,  and  Flemish,  but  since  October,  19 14, 
they  have  been  worded  in  German,  Flemish  and  French. 
They  are  supposed  to  keep  us  informed  of  the  military 
operations.  Here  is  an  article  from  La  Verite,  which 
leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  their  sincerity. 

The  Arsenal  of  Untruth. 

//  is  truly  criminal  to  deceive  the  Belgian  population  by 
spreading  false  news. 

The  Governor-General. 

In  the  whole  of  the  German  military  machine,  which  the 
Allies  are  demolishing  piece  by  piece,  the  portion  which 
still  works  best  is  the  arsenal  of  untruth  established  in 
Berlin,  with  a  branch  in  Vienna. 

Do  you  wish  to  discover  the  secrets  of  their  system  of 
"faked"  information  ?  Pass  along  the  Rue  de  la  Chancellerie 
near  Saint-Gudule,  in  Brussels,  or  the  Rue  des  Paroissiens, 
at  a  few  paces'  distance.  It  is  in  my  quarter  of  the  city; 
every  day  I  note  an  old  placard  which  was  posted  on  the 
15th  of  September,  and  which  expresses  itself  in  these  terms: 
"Berlin,  14th  September  {Official.) — In  the  western  theatre 
of  the  war  (France)  operations  have  taken  place  the  details 
of  which  cannot  as  yet  be  made  public,  and  which  led  to  a 
battle  which  has  gone  in  our  favour.  All  the  news  relating 
to  this  subject  published  by  all  sorts  of  -means  by  the  enemy, 
and  representing  the  situation  as  unfavourable  to  us,  is 
false/*    Now  this  battle,  which  commenced  two  days  earlier, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      41 

was  the  great  French  victory  of  the  Marne  which  finally- 
arrested  the  invasion.^  Berlin  knew  the  truth  then,  and 
published  a  lie !  Whenever  a  victorious  despatch  comes 
from  Berlin,  let  us  remember  the  official  despatch  of  the 
14th  of  September,  in  which  there  are  as  many  falsehoods  as 
words,  and  in  which  the  opposite  side  is  accused  by  spreading 
falsehoods !     The  whole  German  method  is  there ! 

Another  example:  If  we  refer  to  the  news  which  the 
enemy  was  publishing  in  the  second  half  of  October,  the 
Belgian  Army,  decimated,  dismembered,  was  in  the  act  of 
re-forming  itself  in  the  north  of  France.  Now,  the  Belgians 
were  then  accomplishing  wonderful  exploits,  between  Nieu- 
port  and  Dixmude:  they  were  occupying  the  Yser;  face  to 
face  with  an  army  superior  in  men  and  guns,  fighting  day 
and  night,  they  inflicted  a  decisive  defeat  upon  the  Bar- 
barians !  We  shall  later  on  relate  an  episode  of  this  action. 
Well !  it  was  months  before  the  truth  was  known  about  these 
glorious  days  of  our  campaign,  for  the  lies  of  Berlin  con- 
trived to  conceal  from  us  their  brilliant  refulgence. 

This  is  not  all.  Recently  a  German  placard  informed  us 
of  the  destruction  of  an  Italian  dirigible.  But  neither  the 
placard  nor  the  Brussels  newspapers  of  Prussian  origin 
breathed  a  word  of  the  destruction  of  two  Zeppelins,  one  at 
Evere-lez-Bruxelles,  the  other  at  Saint-Amand-lez-Gand, 
losses  suffered  three  days  earlier. 

On  the  loth  of  June  Berlin  admitted  that  the  German 
troops  had  "abandoned"  (hum!)  the  last  houses  of  Neuville, 
"which  has  been  in  the  possession  of  the  French  since  the 
9th  of  May."  Now  this  victory  had  been  accomplished  a  full 
month  before,  but  Berlin  had  until  then  omitted  to  inform 
us  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Berlin  had  not  ceased  to  assure 
us  that  the  offensive  north  of  Arras  was  obtaining  no  success. 

Here  are  a  few  typical  examples  of  the  method  of  informa- 

^  This  defeat,  which  the  Germans  never  reported,  cost 
them,  in  addition  to  their  dead  and  wounded,  65,000 
prisoners,  345  guns,  and  more  than  3,000  vehicles,  with  5,000 
horses.  The  battle  lasted  from  the  6th  to  the  12th  of 
September.  It  was  fought  by  1,500,000  Germans,  and  1,250,- 
000  French,  reinforced  by  60,000  English. 


42      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

tion  followed  in  Berlin:  (i)  A  great  French  victory  is 
denied,  the  French  being  accused  of  falsifying  the  real  facts; 

(2)  the  Belgian  Army  is  declared  non-existent  at  the  very 
moment  when   it   is   offering  an   unconquerable   resistance; 

(3)  facts  unfavourable  to  the  Germans,  of  which  thousands 
of  Belgians  are  the  delighted  witnesses,  are  passed  over  in 
silence;  (4)  it  takes  the  Germans  a  month  to  admit  a  check, 
after  first  attributing  it  to  the  enemy.  .  .  . 

There  is  a  "Bureau  for  the  Diffusion  of  German  News 
Abroad,"  which  is  situated  in  Diisseldorf.  It  has  established 
in  this  country  offices  where  all  may  read  the  style  of  the 
laboratory :  Buro  su  Verhseitung  von  deutschen  Nachrichten 
im  Auslande.  With  such  an  organisation — and  the  official 
Wolff  Agency — not  forgetting  the  subservient  Press — we  are 
stuffed  with  lies  and  propagandist  paragraphs.  .  .  . 

The  fellow-citizens  of  Manneken-Pis  spit  upon  these  filthy 
tricks — and  all  Belgium  does  the  same. 

(Lo  Verite,  K[o.  6,  p.  i,  21st  June,  1915.) 

The  accounts  of  the  battles  in  Champagne,  in  Feb- 
ruary, 191 5,  were  of  the  same  quality,  as  will  be  seen 
from  the  following  extract  from  an  article  in  La  Libre 
Belgique. 

German  Lies. 

On  large  blue  placards,  posted  on  the  walls  of  the  city, 
and  relating  to  the  battles  which  have  been  fought  in  Cham- 
pagne, the  Germans  particularly  emphasised  the  statement 
that  two  weak  divisions  of  Rhinelanders  fought  against  six 
French  army  corps.  Now,  this  is  what  we  learn  from  the 
French  official  communique :  "The  military  operations  in 
Champagne  have  resulted,  since  the  i6th  of  February,  in 
enabling  us  to  advance  to  a  depth  of  2^  kilometres  over  a 
front  of  7  kilometres." 

"The  enemy  employed  four  to  five  and  a  half  army  corps. 
Ten  thousand  corpses  were  found  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
we  made  two  thousand  prisoners." 

According  to  this  communique^  the  two  weak  divisions ! ! 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      43 

...  of  Rhinelanders  were  composed  of  119  battalions,  thirty- 
one  squadrons,  sixty-four  field  batteries,  and  twenty  heavy 
batteries.  Up  to  the  3rd  of  March  the  Germans  had  further 
brought  up  twenty  battalions,  among  them  six  battalions  of 
the  Guard,  one  of  field  artillery,  and  two  heavy  batteries. 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  9,  March,  191 5, 

p.  4,  col.  I.) 

The  official  German  news  attained  the  summit  of 
veracity  at  the  time  of  the  attacks  delivered  in  October 
and  November,  19 14,  in  the  region  of  Ypres.  La 
Soupe  indulged  itself  in  the  pleasure  of  copying  the 
German  placards  verbatim  and  publishing  them. 

These  official  placards  are  not  content  with  over- 
whelming us  with  authentic  news  as  to  the  military 
operations.  They  are  also  careful  to  inform  us  of 
public  opinion  abroad.  That  these  newspaper  cuttings 
are  sincere  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say.  Let  us  give 
a  single  example,  that  of  the  very  first  placard  which 
is  of  direct  interest  to  us. 

Up  to  the  13th  of  September,  1914,  the  placards 
posted  in  Brussels  had  merely  summarised  articles  in 
the  newspapers  relating  to  France  and  England.  On 
the  14th  of  September  we  were  enabled  to  peruse  two 
extracts  relating  to  our  own  country: 

News  Published  by  the  German  Government. 

Cologne,  12th  September. 

The  Kdlnische  Zeitung  having,  in  its  issue  of  Tuesday, 
reprinted  an  article  from  the  Corriere  delta  Sera,  according 
to  which  the  Belgian  Cardinal  Mercier  is  stated  to  have 
expressed  an  unfavourable  opinion  of  the  Germans,  describ- 
ing them  as  barbarians.  Cardinal  von  Hartmann,  Archbishop 
of  Cologne,  writes  to  the  Kdlnische  Zeitung  as  follows: 

"I   hasten   to   inform  you,   with   reference  to   the   article 


44      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

bearing  the  title  'Cardinal  Mercier  as  Accuser,'  No.  loii  of 
the  (Kolnische  Zeitung)  that  during  his  recent  stay  in  Rome 
he  was  interviewed  by  the  correspondent  of  the  Corriere 
della  Sera.  When  this  interview  appeared  in  the  newspaper  the 
Cardinal  immediately  denied,  in  the  most  energetic  fashion, 
that  he  had  expressed  himself  as  the  Corriere  pretends.  More- 
over, he  immediately  sent  to  the  Prussian  Minister  at  the 
Vatican,  and  also  to  the  Abt.  von  Stotzingen,  through  me,  a 
protest  which  was  to  be  published  in  the  Osservatore  Romano. 
"I  shall  be  greatly  obliged  to  you.  Sir,  if  you  will  be  so 
good,  in  the  interest  of  the  truth,  as  to  publish  this  declara- 
tion in  the  Kolnische  Zeitung." 

Frankfort,  12th  September.   •= 

The  Frankfurter  Zeitung  learns  from  Stockholm:  The 
truth  as  to  Louvain  is  beginning  to  find  its  way  even  into 
England.  In  the  Westminster  Gazette,  an  ex-member  of 
Parliament  writes:  "When  the  population  of  the  city  sud- 
denly fired  from  the  houses  on  the  German  troops,  this  act 
of  madness  was  bound  to  involve  the  just  consequences. 
Field-Marshal  Lord  Roberts  caused  the  farms  of  the  Boers 
to  be  burned  for  similar  actions." 

The  German  Military  Government. 

Let  us  first  of  all  consider  the  extract  dated  from 
Cologne,  which  states  that  Mgr.  Mercier  granted  an 
interview  to  a  writer  on  the  staff  of  the  Corriere  della 
Sera.  This  is  false;  it  was  not  with  a  contributor  to 
the  Corriere  della  Sera,  which  is  a  journal  of  Liberal 
tendencies,  that  Mgr.  Mercier  had  an  interview  while 
in  Rome,  but  with  a  contributor  to  the  Corriere 
d'ltalia,  which  is  frankly  Catholic. 

The  second  extract  is  even  more  ingeniously  garbled. 
An  ex-Member  of  Parliament  (English)  is  said  to 
have  asserted  that  the  population  of  Louvain  fired  on 
the  German  troops.  Now  this  gentleman  is  simply 
repeating — as  he  himself  expressly  declares — the  Ger- 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      45 

man  assertions.  The  only  thing  which  he  himself  re- 
marks is  that  German  troops  were  defeated  near 
Malines  and  that  they  fled  toward  Louvain. 

Here  is  the  original  article  from  the  Westminster 
Gazette.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  first  part  repeats  a 
nonsensical  tale  about  a  pretended  menace  of  aggres- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  people  of  Brussels.  We,  w^ho  did 
not  leave  Brussels  for  a  moment  during  the  months  of 
August  and  September,  19 14,  can  certify  the  fact  that 
there  is  not  a  glimmer  of  truth  in  this  story.  How- 
ever, false  or  true,  it  does  not  affect  the  deliberate 
falsification  by  the  German  censorship  of  the  only 
passage  which  is  summarised  in  the  placard.  Let  us 
add  that  the  Germans  did  not  breathe  a  word  about 
the  first  part  of  the  article;  so  well  did  they  realise 
that  they  would  cover  themselves  with  ridicule  by  re- 
peating such  a  story  to  the  people  of  Brussels: 

The  Truth  about  Louvain. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Westminster  Gazette. 

Sir, — In  all  British  fairness  some  prominence  might  be 
given  to  the  very  narrow  escape  Brussels  had  from  the  ter- 
rible fate  of  Louvain,  as  described  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  by 
its  capable  correspondent,  Mr.  Gerald  Morgan.  He  stated 
that,  "accompanied  by  Richard  Harding  Davis,"  he  was 
"permitted  by  the  Germans  to  follow"  this  Army.  A  battle 
near  Waterloo  was  expected,  but  it  did  not  come  off.  Mr. 
Morgan  and  his  friend  returned  to  Brussels  and — I  quote  his 
exact  words,  as  given  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette — he  "found 
the  town  on  the  verge  of  a  turmoil.  This  was  owing  to  Gen- 
eral von  Jarodzky's  stupidity,  and  very  nearly  involved  the 
town  in  the  same  fate  which  afterwards  overwhelmed  Lou- 
vain. He  was  left  in  the  city  with  5,000  men.  He  moved  3,000 
of  these  suddenly  outside  the  city,  and  then  as  suddenly 
became  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  the  remainder  among  so 


46      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

large  a  hostile  population.  He  therefore  marched  the  3,000 
camped  outside  hastily  back  again.  It  was  reported  that 
the  Germans  had  been  completely  defeated  at  Waterloo  and 
were  fleeing  in  confusion.  The  inhabitants  of  Brussels 
wished  to  take  up  arms  and  finish  off  Jarodzky  and  any  sur- 
vivors, but  fortunately  the  error  was  discovered  in  time." 

Now,  this  is  exactly  what  the  German  generals  declare  to 
have  happened  at  Louvain.  We  know  as  a  certainty  that  a 
small  German  force  was  actually  defeated  outside  Malines, 
and  actually  fled  into  Louvain  on  the  very  evening  it  was 
burned  and  devastated.  The  Germans  allege  that  the  towns- 
folk immediately  started  "to  finish  off  the  survivors,"  firing 
from  the  windows  and  house-tops.  This  insane  act  would 
rouse  the  devil  in  any  soldiery,  and  may  explain  how,  after 
a  twenty-four  hours'  struggle,  the  unhappy  town  was  a  heap 
of  ruins.  Lord  Roberts,  the  justest  and  gentlest  of  con- 
querors, most  properly  ordered  widespread  farm-burning  in 
South  Africa  for  the  same  offence.  If  you  shoot  without 
blame  a  soldier  who  tries  to  shoot  you  from  in  front,  should 
you  do  less  to  an  armed  civilian  who  shoots  you  in  the  back? 

Yours,  etc., 

A  Liberal  Ex-M.P. 

(Westminster  Gazette,  5th  September,  1914.) 

One  sees  immediately  that  the  whole  interest  of 
the  German  placard  disappears  if  the  first  word  of 
the  quotation  is  incorrect:  'When  the  population  of 
the  city.  .  .  ." 

Now  leaflet  3  of  the  Bureau  des  deutschen  Handel- 
stages,  Berlin,  received  by  a  number  of  commercial 
houses  in  Brussels  (see  p.  57)  also  reproduces  the  ex- 
tract from  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  but  instead  of 
reading  'When  the  population  of  the  city"  .  .  .  the 
propagandist  leaflet  reads:  '7/  the  population  of  Lou- 
vain .  .  ."  Neither  quotation  accords  with  the  Eng- 
lish text,  which  states,  ''The  Germans  allege  that  the 
townsfolk  ..."  etc. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      47 

Generally  speaking,  the  untruthfulness  of  the  Ger- 
man placards  is  not  demonstrated,  in  Belgium,  until 
long  after  their  publication.  But  another  of  their 
qualities — their  foolishness — strikes  the  Belgian  reader 
immediately. 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  copy  of  a  placard  which  the 
people  of  Brussels  read  with  amusement  on  the  nth 
of  September,  1914: 

News  Published  by  the  German  Government. 

Berlin,  6th  September. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  Embassy  publishes  the  following 
telegram  which  was  forwarded  by  the  Foreign  Office  in 
Vienna : 

"The  Russian  account  of  the  battle  of  Lemberg  and  the 
triumphant  capture  of  that  city  is  a  lie.  The  open  town  of 
Lemberg  has  been  abandoned  by  us,  without  fighting,  for 
strategical  and  humanitarian  motives." 

Berlin,  Sth  September. 

The  Prince  Imperial,  who  was  latterly  in  command  of  a 
division  of  the  Guard,  with  the  rank  of  Colonel,  has  been 
promoted  by  the  Emperor  to  the  rank  of  Lieutenant-General. 

London,  Sth  September. 

{Renter's  Agency.) 

A  German  squadron,  consisting  of  two  cruisers  and  four 
torpedo-boats,  has  captured  fifteen  English  fishing-vessels 
in  the  North  Sea,  and  has  taken  numerous  prisoners  to 
Wilhelmshaven. 

The  Times  announces  that  the  German  cruiser  Dresden 
has  sunk  a  British  collier  off  the  Brazilian  coast.  Further,  two 
British  merchant  vessels  are  reported  to  have  struck  mines. 

According  to  information  received  from  Vienna,  two 
British  cruisers,  seriously  damaged,  are  in  harbour  at  Alex- 
andria; both  display  plentiful  marks  of  having  been  under  fire. 


48      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

Rome,  Sth  September. 

Cardinal  Mercier,  Archbishop  of  Malines,  who  has  been 
here,  left  for  Belgium  with  a  safe-conduct,  passing  through 
the  German  troops.  This  protection  was  obtained  for  the 
Cardinal  by  the  Prussian  Minister  at  the  Vatican.  News 
to  the  contrary  published  by  the  French,  English,  and  Bel- 
gian Press  is  therefore  contrary  to  the  truth. 

Breslau,  gth  September. 

The  commandant-general  of  the  Breslau  Army  Corps 
announces : 

"The  Silesian  landwehr  yesterday  fought  a  victorious 
battle  against  the  Imperial  Guard  of  the  3rd  Caucasian  Army 
Corps;  we  took  17  officers  and  1,000  men  prisoners. 

Vienna,  gth  September. 

{^Official  communique.) 

We  learn,  in  connection  with  the  recent  battles  already 
described  as  having  been  fought  by  the  Austrian  (Dankl) 
Army,  against  which  the  enemy  (the  Russians)  had  brought 
up  considerable  reinforcements  by  railway,  that  the  army 
commanded  by  Lieutenant-Field-Marshal  Kestranck  has  re- 
pulsed a  strong  Russian  attack  with  sanguinary  losses.  On 
this  occasion  600  further  prisoners  were  taken.  Apart  from 
this,  comparative  quiet  prevailed  yesterday  in  the  Russo- 
Austrian  theatre  of  the  war. 

The  German  Military  Government. 

The  "humanitarian  motives"  of  the  Austrian  Army, 
which  found  such  eloquent  expression  in  Serbia,  and 
the  activity  of  the  German  squadron,  which  "captured 
fifteen  fishing-vessels,"  are  matters  that  give  one  food 
for  meditation.  It  is  even  pleasanter  to  learn  that 
"in  spite  of  statements  to  the  contrary  published  by 
the  French,  English,  and  Belgian  Press,"  Cardinal 
Mercier  has  returned  from  Rome  "passing  through  the 
German  troops."   As  if  we  had  not  all  read  the  text, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      49 

secretly  printed  and  distributed,  of  the  sermon  which 
the  Cardinal  preached  at  Havre  during  this  return 
journey!  Yet  Havre  is  not  on  the  way  from  Rome 
to  Malines  if  one  ''passes  through  the  German  troops." 

Lastly,  it  is  amusing  to  see  that  this  placard  does 
not  breathe  a  word  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne,  whose 
vicissitudes  were  known  to  us,  thanks  to  the  French 
newspapers  smuggled  into  the  country. 

As  much  for  what  it  tells  as  for  what  it  conceals, 
this  placard  is  a  good  example  of  the  statements  with 
which  the  German  authorities  placard  our  walls. 
What  opinion  can  the  rulers  of  Germany  have  of  the 
intelligence  of  their  own  citizens,  if  they  think  they 
can  lead  us  astray  by  such  ineptitudes? 

When  these  placards  are  not  merely  foolish  it  is, 
as  a  rule,  because  they  are  impudent;  as  that  in  which 
Hindenburg  declares  that  "the  more  cruelly  the  war 
is  conducted  the  less  cruel  will  it  be  in  reality,  because 
it  will  be  over  the  sooner"  (20th  November,  19 14),  or 
that  in  which  Mr.  Fox  states  that  he  has  not  remarked 
any  ''needless  cruelty"   (26th  April,  191 5): 

Phew  !  ! ! 

We  must  do  the  Germans  this  justice — that  certain  of  them 
are  beginning  to  feel  ashamed  of  the  atrocities  committed  by 
the  army  of  ''Kultur.'*  They  give  themselves  incredible 
trouble  to  deny  them  or  excuse  them.  They  are  annoyed  to 
see  that  all  the  world,  save  their  Allies,  the  butchers  of  the 
Armenians,  is  placing  them  outside  the  pale  of  society.  What  ? 
A  "Kultur"  so  enviable,  so  highly  vaunted,  so  superior,  to 
produce  such  fruits !  No,  no  ! — one  must  not  weary  of  lying 
and  contradicting !  All  the  evidence  tending  to  exculpate  the 
Germans,  however  daring  it  may  be,  must  be  carefully  col- 
lected and  published.  Here  is  what  the  Freiherr  von  Bissing, 
Governor-General  of  Belgium,  who  is  nevertheless  familiar 


50      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

with  the  cruelties  of  Gott  mit  Uns,  has  lately  had  the  im- 
pudence to  have  posted  on  the  walls  of  our  capital : 

"A  certain  Edward  Fox,  an  American  journalist,  a  sincere 
man  (extremely  so!)  who  has  covered  the  battle-fronts, 
East  and  West,  was  unable,  in  spite  of  his  thorough  investi- 
gations, to  discover  a  single  act  of  useless  cruelty  committed 
by  the  Germans." 

This  worthy  man  may  boast  that  he  is  a  reporter  of  the 
very  highest  rank !  On  the  other  hand,  he  asserts  that  the 
Russians  have  assassinated,  violated  and  burned  on  every 
hand,  in  a  fashion  impossible  to  describe.  What?  A  man 
who  has  such  good  eyes  where  the  Russians  are  concerned 
is  blind  as  a  mole  when  the  Germans  are  in  question?  By 
what  miracle  of  optical  illusion  have  we  Belgians  managed 
to  believe  that  our  cities  have  been  burned,  our  farms  de- 
stroyed, our  wives,  our  daughters,  our  holy  women  violated, 
and  our  houses  pillaged?  No  doubt  we  have  seen  awry,  for 
this  Fox,  a  sharp-sighted  animal,  has  noticed  nothing  of  the 
sort !  Let  Freiherr  von  Bissing  post  up  his  lying  placards  in 
Germany  and  the  neutral  countries;  it  may  be  he  will  there 
find  someone  to  believe  him;  but  here,  in  Belgium,  in  Vise, 
Dinant,  Andenne,  Battice,  Tamines,  Termonde,  Aerschot, 
Louvain,  and  many  another  place,  witnesses  of  the  crimes 
oiKultur!    Come,  come ! 

The  Freiherr  is  aware  of  this.  Knowing  well  that  he  can- 
not persuade  us  to  believe  him,  he  adds,  as  a  qualification,  to 
the  word  "cruelties,"  the  word  "useless."  So  these  are  useful 
cruelties.  To  his  mind  this  word  saves  the  day.  Do  you  com- 
plain of  atrocities?  My  dear  Sir,  they  were  useful.  The  Gott 
mit  Uns  have  assassinated  men,  women,  and  inoffensive  old 
men :  these  were  useful  cruelties.  They  have  violated  women 
and  young  girls.  Useful  cruelties !  They  have  seized  inno- 
cent civilians,  have  brutally  led  them  into  captivity,  where 
they  have  been  inhumanly  treated:  useful  cruelties! 

What  would  you  say,  Herr  Baron  von  Bissing,  if,  in  1916, 
our  soldiers  were  to  bear  the  torch  through  Germany? 
Would  you  call  these  reprisals  "useful  cruelties?" 

{La  Libre  Bclgique,  No.  21,  May,  1915), 
p.  4,  col.  I.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      51 

Other  placards  are  doubly  instructive,  inasmuch  as 
they  reveal  the  existence  of  books  whose  importation 
is  prohibited.  We  then  hasten  to  procure  them  sur- 
reptitiously. Thus,  that  of  the  21st  June,  191 5,  an- 
nounced the  appearance  of  the  book.  La  Guerre  alle- 
mande  et  le  Catholicisnie: 

News  Published  by  the  General  German  Government. 

Cologne,  2ist  June. 

The  Kolnische  Volksneitung  has  received  the  following: 
The  German  Cardinals  von  Bettinger  (Munich),  and  von 
Hartmann  (Cologne)  have  addressed  the  following  telegram 
to  the  Emperor:  "Revolted  by  the  defamation  of  which  the 
German  Fatherland  and  its  glorious  army  are  the  object  in 
the  book:  La  Guerre  allemande  et  le  Catholicisme,  we  feel 
obliged  to  express  to  Your  Majesty  the  painful  indignation 
of  the  entire  German  episcopate.  We  shall  not  fail  to  ad- 
dress a  complaint  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff."  The  Arch- 
bishop of  Cologne  has  received  the  following  reply:  "I 
thank  you  heartily,  you  and  Cardinal  Bettinger,  for  the  feel- 
ings of  indignation  which  you  have  expressed  to  me  in 
the  name  of  the  German  Episcopate  on  the  subject  of  the 
shameful  calumnies  which  certain  writers  are  propagating 
concerning  the  German  army  and  people.  These  attacks 
also  will  shatter  themselves  against  the  moral  strength  and 
the  clear  conscience  of  the  German  people  defending  the  just 
cause,  and  return  upon  their  authors/' 

The  General  Government  in  Belgium. 

La  Libre  Belgiqiie  commented  upon  this  placard 
thus: 

A  Book. 

A  book  has  appeared,  entitled  La  Guerre  allemande  et  le 
Catholicisme. 

We  knew  nothing  of  it. 

We  learned  of  it  on  facing  the  wall — ^you  know  the  wall, 


52      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

everyone  has  his  own  wall  in  his  own  neighbourhood — on 
which  the  military  Government,  which  is  really  too  kind, 
pastes  every  morning  news  which  is  skilfully  doctored  with 
the  sole  object  of  amazing,  first  of  all  the  Germans,  then 
the  Flemings,  and  finally  the  Walloons. 

Well,  then,  a  book  has  appeared,  which  has  made  two 
German  Cardinals  fly  into  a  rage,  and  the  Kaiser  into  the 
bargain. 

I  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  have  that  book.  The 
libraries,  too,  would  like  it,  but  they  have  not  got  it,  for  we 
are  living  under  the  delightful  rule  of  an  incomparable  liberty. 

Well,  who  knows !  Perhaps  this  elderly  Excellency  von 
Bissing  is  thinking  of  placing  it  on  sale,  this  book  which 
has  troubled  Munich,  Cologne  and  Berlin.  Our  Governor  is 
installing,  evidently  at  his  own  expense,  at  every  cross-roads, 
in  every  corner,  in  all  the  squares  of  Brussels,  kiosks  of  an 
elegance  wholy  Teutonic,  wherein  are  displayed  caricatures 
of  colossal  wit,  Austro-Gothic  newspapers,  little  books,  and 
picture  postcards  for  the  use  of  a  special  public  which  has 
plenty  of  kultur  and  not  many  marks. 

We  shall  wait,  then,  until  the  famous  book  reaches  ms  by 
the  hierarchical  route;  for  everybody  knows  that  we  cannot 
obtain  either  pamphlets  or  newspapers,  not  even  Ma  Jeanette. 
We  have  the  Germans,  and  that  ought  to  be  enough  for  us. 

But  this  book  !    This  book  ! 

What  can  it  have  said  to  upset  Cardinals  von  Bettinger 
and  von  Hartmann,  who  hastened  to  telegraph  to  this  most 
Lutheran  Majesty  that  the  volume  overwhelmed  them  with 
grief,  and  that  they  were  going  to  complain  to  the  sovereign 
Pontiff? 

Evidently  the  revelations  contained  in  this  book  must  be 
monstrous ;  monstrous  firstly  to  have  succeeded  in  making  the 
Germans  blush;  monstrous,  above  all,  to  have  been  able  to 
make  that  sanest  of  the  sane,  the  Kaiser,  indignant. 

At  bottom,  as  everybody  knows,  the  Emperor  cares  not  a 
jot  for  Catholics  or  Catholicism,  since,  being  the  incarnation 
of  his  God  upon  earth,  he  has  no  dealings  with  our  God, 
whom  he  does  not  know.  But  if  he  cares  little  for  the  Catho- 
lics, as  Catholics,  he  thinks  a  good  deal  of  them  as  cannon- 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      53 

fodder.  And  as  there  are  not  a  few  tons  of  this  in  the 
Empire,  this  counts  for  something ! 

Now  all  the  Germans,  higgledy-piggledy,  are  at  war.  The 
author  of  the  book  in  question  has  reason  to  complain  of  the 
manner  in  which  this  soldiery  makes  war,  not  from  the  tech- 
nical point  of  view,  but  because  of  the  barbarity  of  their 
treatment  of  Catholics.  If  the  writer  has  cast  his  protest  upon 
all  the  winds,  it  is  because  he  had  serious  reasons  for  doing  so. 

What  can  he  have  said?  Let  us  consider.  Do  not  let 
us  speak  of  France ;  we  have,  alas !  enough  and  too  much 
to  say  concerning  what  the  gentle  subjects  of  the  gentlest  of 
sovereigns  have  done  in  Belgium. 

Systematically,  they  sought  to  demolish  the  metropolitan 
church  of  Saint-Rombaud  at  Malines.  It  is  not  their  fault 
that  we  have  not  to  mourn  above  its  ruins.  Once  the  thing 
was  done  they  tried  hard  to  say  that  it  was  the  Belgians  who 
had  bombarded  the  cathedral.  Since  then  they  have  avowed 
their  noble  exploit  in  No.  6  of  the  Illustrierter  Kriegskurier 
(yet  another  magnificent  specimen  of  high  kultur,  this!) 
Indeed,  they  printed  in  this  paper  this  delightful  gibberish: 
"Our  view  shows  the  cathedral  from  the  direction  of  Brus- 
sels, therefore  the  side  which  has  been  exposed  to  the  bom- 
bardment of  the  German  shells.  As  may  be  seen,  the  cathe- 
dral has  remained  almost  intact." 

Almost  intact!     Is  this  regret?     Or  irony? 

These,  alas !  are  not  almost  intact — the  collegiate  church 
of  Saint-Pierre  at  Louvain,  the  many  poor,  pretty  churches 
of  our  countrysides.  Strategy  did  not  call  for  their  dis- 
appearance. They  were  so  humble.  .  .  .  Yet  they  were  vio- 
lated, defiled,  spoliated,  finally  burned,  by  flames  whose  vio- 
lence was  multiplied  tenfold  by  the  incendiary  oils  which 
the  soldiers  "with  clear  consciences"  cast  upon  the  walls. 

Who  shall  say  what  has  become  of  the  sacred  vessels, 
some  of  which  served  to  drink  champagne  out  of,  and  others 
to  receive  .  .  .  alas,  we  do  not  continue,  for  this  paper  would 
blush ! 

Who  shall  say  what  became  of  the  consecrated  Hosts, 
cast  upon  the  pavement,  ground  and  trampled  underfoot, 
panis  angelicus,  non  mittendus  canihiisf 


54      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

Who  shall  tell  the  martyrdom  of  the  murdered  priests: 
of  the  gentle  cure  of  Herent,  of  the  priests  of  Surice,  Latour, 
£talle,  etc.;  of  that  quiet  scholar  of  the  Company  of  Jesus, 
struck  down  because  he  had  written  in  his  diary :  "We 
behold  again  the  invasions  of  the  barbarians";  of  my  best 
friend,  a  holy  man,  a  country  cure,  dead  as  a  result  of 
the  brutalities  inflicted  upon  him  by  butchers  stinking  of 
alcohol.  .  .  . 

And  those  priests,  forced  to  walk  naked  before  their 
parishioners,  who  had,  under  pain  of  death,  to  spit  in  their 
faces.  And  those  who  were  forced  to  gallop  through  the 
market-place  wearing  the  harness  of  horses.  .  .  . 

And,  ruling  over  this  martyred  clergy,  our  venerable  and 
beloved  Archbishop,  whom  they  would  gladly  have  struck 
in  the  face  had  they  dared — for  with  the  German  every- 
thing is  calculation  and  premeditation — had  they  not  feared 
lest  the  fall  of  this  venerable  man  should  be  noised  abroad 
in  both  hemispheres.  .  .  . 

To  insult  God,  our  God,  Who  is  also  yours,  your  Emi- 
nences of  Munich  and  Cologne;  to  defile  temples,  to  as- 
sassinate their  ministers — these  are  abominable  things;  yet 
they  almost  pale,  if  I  dare  say  it,  when  we  remember  with 
what  perverse  fury  the  German  troopers  have  outraged 
women,  lowly  nuns  who  to-day  hold  up  to  heaven,  while 
lowering  in  disgust  the  eyes  of  profaned  virginity,  the  living 
fruit,  the  horrible  proof  of  a  baffling  bestiality.  ... 

Was  it  because  of  all  this  that  the  Cardinals  von  Bettinger 
and  von  Hartmann  blushed? 

Is  it  of  these  things  that  they  are  about  to  complain  to 
the  common  Father  of  the  faithful? 

Surely ! 

But  no — they  are  "showing  off"  before  Wilhelm  II.,  I.R. ! 

Then  what  do  they  want?  That  the  book  should  be 
placed  on  the  Index,  in  odium  auctoris? 

Come,  your  Eminences  !    Here  is  a  good  move ! 

Come  to  Belgium,  yourselves;  you  are  in  your  own  home 
here !  The  motor-cars  of  the  Kommandantur  will  carry 
you.  Our  great  Cardinal  shall  go  afoot.  You  will  have  the 
goodness  to  wait  for  him,  will  you  not  ? — this  sage,  this  saint, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      55 

this  scholar,  this  ardent  patriot,  whom  a  Prussian  quill- 
driver,  installed  in  the  Ministry  of  Justice,  has  dared  to  call 
a  scamp,  a  gamin! 

He  will  lead  you,  step  by  step,  where  crimes  have  been 
committed  that  are  nameless,  debauches  and  outrages  with- 
out precedent;  he  will  give  you  names  and  dates;  he  will 
give  you  so  many,  and  before  so  many  witnesses — lapides 
clamahunt ! — that  in  the  end  you  will  be  forced  to  abuse 
your  faces,  and  you  will  find  yourselves  murmuring,  with 
trembling  lips,  the  prayer  which  you  repeat  every  morning 
at  the  foot  of  the  altar: 

Judica  me,  Dens,  et  discerne  causam  nieam  de  gente  non 
sancta:  ah  homine  iniquo  et  doloso  erue  me! 

Judge  me,  Lord,  and  confound  not  my  cause  with  that  of 
the  ivicked:  deliver  me  from  the  unjust  and  the  cunning! 

Alas !  in  German  the  translation  of  'The  Truth  before 
all"  is  Deutschland  iiber  alles! 

Nevertheless,  Most  Eminent  Lordships,  if  you  should 
decide  to  come  do  not  don  your  red  robes.  There  is  no 
need.  One  black  robe  under  your  mantle  will  suffice.  When 
you  shall  have  walked  for  a  few  hours  your  cassocks  will 
be  red,  soaked  in  the  blood  of  our  martyrs.  .  .  . 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  perhaps,  you  will  come  in  full  uniform, 
helmet  on  head,  revolver  at  belt,  like  your  chaplains.  .  .  . 
It  is  an  idea. 

But  then  Mgr.  Mercier  will  not  care  to  walk  beside  you.  .  .  . 
Inquiries  are  not  conducted  in  that  fashion  in  our  country. 

FiDELIS. 

(La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  34,  July,  1915,  p.  2,  col.  2.) 

They  did  not  exhibit  the  products  of  the  Wolff 
Agency  only.  From  time  to  time  they  sought  to  un- 
dermine our  courage  by  personal  inventions. 

A  Calumny. 

Many  thousands  of  small  placards  have  been  posted  on 
the  walls  of  Brussels.  These  placards  must  have  been  printed 


56      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

in  Germany,  for  the  Belgian  printers  do  not  possess  neo- 
Gothic  characters  of  the  kind  which  has  been  employed  in 
printing  them: 

Here  is  the  text  of  these  placards: 

Wcj  Belgian  mothers  and  wives,  are  telling  ourselves: 
Enough  of  slaughter,  enough  of  the  innocent  blood  of 
our  husbands,  our  sons,  has  been  shed  for  foreign  na- 
tions. The  honour  of  Belgium  is  saved.  We  have  no 
tears  left.     We  demand  peace  or  an  armistice. 

In  the  name  of  Belgian  women  we  protest.  Not  one  of 
them  regrets  the  sacrifices  she  has  made.  Those  who  weep 
are  weeping  for  the  beloved  one  who  has  vanished  for  ever, 
but  their  tears  are  not  tempered  by  any  shameful  regret  such 
as  the  author  of  this  infamous  leaflet  would  attribute  to 
them,  no  regret  such  as  he  would  fain  insinuate  into  their 
hearts.  No,  the  Belgian  women  know  that  their  husbands 
and  sons  and  sweethearts  have  not  fought  for  the  foreigner. 
The  first  impulse,  the  first  cry  of  every  Belgian  was  this: 
"Honour  demands  that  we  oppose  our  weakness  to  the  brutal 
force  of  the  traitor  who  is  attacking  us,  although  he  had 
sworn  to  protect  us.  We  know  how  to  keep  an  oath,  even 
though  it  cost  us  our  lives." 

But  if  it  was  possible  at  that  moment  to  delude  ourselves, 
if  we  could  then  believe  that  only  honour  was  at  stake,  and 
that  it  bade  us  make  heroic  sacrifices,  how  can  one  speak 
of  "fighting  for  foreign  nations,"  now  that  the  whole  country 
is  invaded,  and  except  upon  a  few  acres  of  our  soil,  the  bar- 
barous invader  is  oppressing  us  and  depriving  us  of  every 
liberty?  Yes,  our  soldiers  are  fighting  for  their  own  country, 
but  as  that  which  gave  them  twofold  strength  and  courage 
in  the  first  months  of  the  conflict  was  the  feeling  that  honour 
must  be  kept  intact,  that  injustice  must  be  avenged,  so  that 
which  inspires  them  now  is  a  sentiment  of  equal  nobihty,  a 
sentiment,  if  possible,  even  nobler  than  patriotism;  it  is  the 
conviction  that  they  are  serving,  with  the  nations  whose 
Allies  they  are,  the  sublime  cause  of  Justice  and  Civilisation. 

Let  us  once  again  repeat  what  we  have  already  said: 
there  are  no  longer  Belgians,  or  Frenchmen,  or  Englishmen, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      57 

or  Russians,  or  Serbs;  there  are  only  Allies.  The  Belgians 
who  are  incorporated  in  the  Canadian  or  Australian  con- 
tingents, those  who  are  serving  in  the  French  or  the  British 
Army,  those  who  are  working  in  the  munition  factories, 
those  who  wished  to  take  part  in  the  expedition  to  the 
Dardanelles,  have  fully  realised  this.  They  have  realised 
that  without  these  Allies  our  poor  country  would  long  ago 
have  been  crushed.  As  for  the  promises  made  by  Germany 
in  her  ultimatum,  no  one  would  willingly  disgrace  himself 
even  by  considering  them.  One  does  not  argue  with  honour ; 
it  commands,  and  one  obeys. 

Liber. 

(La  Libre  Belgiqne,  No.  35,  July,  191 5,  p.  3,  col.  i.) 

Lest  these  placards  should  not  suffice  to  convince 
us,  Germany  enlightens  us  further,  still  gratuitously, 
in  three  other  fashions: 

(a)  The  Imperial  Government  distributes  pam- 
phlets in  German,  Flemish,  and  French,  which  are 
printed  in  Brussels  on  the  presses  of  the  Moniteur 
Beige.  Among  those  we  find  Conventions  Anglo- 
beiges  and  the  Discoiirs  du  chancelier  a  la  seance 
du  Reichstag,  le  2  decenibre,  19 14. 

(b)  We  are  not  confined  to  the  official  publica- 
tions. A  number  of  German  organisations  print 
in  several  languages  propagandist  leaflets  which 
are  slipped  into  business  letters.  The  Belgian  firms 
in  particular  have  received  leaflets  in  French  from 
the  Bureau  des  deutschen  Handelstages,  Berlin 
and  the  Kriegs-Auschtiss  der  deutschen  Industrie, 
Berlin.  In  the  majority  of  the  leaflets  which  were 
sent  to  us  during  the  first  year  of  the  war  the 
subjects  dealt  with  were  the  violation  of  Belgian 
neutrality  and  the  burning  of  Louvain.  One  sees 
at  once  where  the  shoe  pinches  them. 


58      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

(c)  Lastly,  there  is  not  a  Belgian  having  family 
relations  with  Germany,  or  even  business  rela- 
tions, who  does  not  receive  numerous  letters  which 
are  intended  to  convey  conviction  to  his  mind. 
All  these  missives  repeat  the  same  things,  like  a 
lesson  learned  by  heart ;  but,  precisely  in  order  to 
avoid  all  suspicion  on  this  point,  the  correspon- 
dents are  careful  to  point  out  the  fact  that  they 
are  expressing  their  personal  feelings. 

Leczyza,  Sth  January,  1915. 
Dear  R , 

What  a  change  since  we  last  saw  one  another !  The  Ger- 
mans in  Belgium;  myself,  as  a  soldier,  in  Poland!  How  do 
you  find  yourself  under  the  German  rule?  I  hope  you  like 
the  new  government.  We  are  certain  that  we  shall  win, 
and  that  Belgium  will  remain  German. 

Dear  R ,  write  to  me  soon  at  the  above  address.     I 

shall  be  so  pleased  to  hear  good  news  of  you.  What  a  pity 
that  your  poor  beautiful  country  should  have  suffered  so 
in  the  war !  Louvain,  Malines,  Anvers,  Bruges,  have  suf- 
fered so  greatly!  What  a  pity!  If  Belgium  had  followed 
the  example  of  Luxemburg!  I  hope  you  are  well,  and  also 
your   dear  parents. 

Letter  from  a  German  Niece  to  her  Belgian  Uncle. 

^ist  December,  1914. 

This  disastrous  year  is  approaching  its  end,  and  we  will 
hope  that  the  new  year  will  restore  peace;  and  for  you, 
for  Jeanne,  and  for  your  little  children,  my  husband  and  I 
wish  all  sorts  of  happiness  in  the  year  to  come.  You  would 
not  believe  how  sorry  we  Germans  are  for  poor  Belgium, 
and  the  Belgians  will  now  assuredly  see  what  a  mistake 
they  made  in  becoming  the  tributaries  of  England.  If 
Belgium  had  remained  the  friend  of  Germany  not  the 
slightest  harm  would  have  happened  to  her.    And  the  terrible 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       59 

fate  which  has  fallen  to  her  lot  she  owes  to  the  brutal 
participation  of  the  people,  and  even  of  women  and  children, 
in  the  war. 

Of  this  we  (ourselves)  have  many  proofs  in  the  narratives 
of  German  officers  and  soldiers.  How  wise  the  people  of 
Brussels  are  to  remain  quiet.  We  will  hope  that  this  state 
of  affairs  will  last. 

A  soldier  who  was  billeted  with  us  writes  to  us  from 
Staden,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Yser  Canal,  that  the 
Belgian  people  do  not  desire  the  return  of  the  French  and 
English,  for  their  behaviour  was  inexpressibly  shameful. 

They  will  not  return,  for  Germany  is  invincible,  and  you 
cannot  imagine  how  many  military  reserves  we  still  possess. 
In  any  case,  the  fact  that  owing  to  greed  and  jealousy  an 
attempt  has  been  made  to  annihilate  a  people  which  has 
attained  the  summit  of  civilisation,  forming  a  wealthy  and 
flourishing  State,  is  without  precedent  in  history.^ 

Yes,  England  has  succeeded  in  turning  the  nations  against 
us  by  means  of  her  newspapers. 

England  can  outdo  us  in  one  thing  only :  she  can  lie 
better. 

And  what  a  wretched  opinion  they  must  form  of  her,  the 
readers  of  her  articles,  who  often  believe  in  all  her  lies  and 
absurdities !  One  would  not  dare  to  relate  such  foolish 
stories  to  German  readers ! 

How  often  has  not  our  splendid  Emperor  offered  France 
the  hand  of  reconciliation?  But  she  has  repulsed  it,  from 
a  blind  and  foolish  sentiment  of  vengeance.  The  French 
and  Belgians  are  not  antipathetic  to  us.  Why  do  they  not 
ally  themselves  with  us  against  greedy,  cunning,  faithless, 
perfidious  England,  who  wants  to  subjugate  the  whole  world? 
We  still  do  not  understand  how  it  is  that  this  is  not  realised 
in  France.  That  is  to  say,  there  are  those  who  realise  it, 
but  they  dare  not  admit  it,  because  they  are  afraid  of — 
what,  I  don't  know. 

Dear  uncle,  I  beg  you  to  excuse  my  having  dwelt  too  much 


^  The  young  person  is  referring  not  to   Belgium,  but  to 
Germany. — {Tr.) 


6o      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

on  the  war,  in  telling  you  of  my  opinion,  but  all  this  means 
so  much  to  me. 

We  are  delighted  to  hear  that  you,  Jeanne,  and  the  children 
are  well,  and  that  the  latter  are  so  zealous  in  aiding  the 
indigent. 

Germany  is  still  far  from  perishing  of  starvation.  We 
have  plenty  of  bread,  potatoes,  etc.,  till  next  harvest;  our 
stock  of  cattle  is  considerable. 

You  would  do  well  to  make  the  French  and  English  under- 
stand this,  so  that  they  may  abandon  their  stupid  illusions. 

In  France  and  England  the  people  do  not  know  this, 
owing  to  the  suppression  of  the  German  newspapers. 

Now  I  must  end.  We  hope  you  will  receive  this  letter, 
and  we  shall  be  delighted  to  have  news  of  you,  and  Jeanne. 

Friendly  greetings  also  from  my  husband. 

Your  niece, 

Elza. 


Extract  from  a  Private  Letter  from  Miles.  Y —  and  Z — . 

I2th  February  J  191 5. 

.  .  .  We  admit  that  we  were  surprised  that  in  spite  of 
reading  the  pamphlet  Die  Wahrheit  uber  den  Krieg,  which 
we  sent  you,  you  should  nevertheless  hold  a  different  opinion 
from  ours.  You  ought,  however,  to  remember  that  from  all 
time  the  predominant  qualities  of  the  Germans  have  always 
been:  truth  and  sincerity.  You  may  therefore  have  absolute 
confidence  in  the  account  contained  in  the  pamphlet  in 
question,  and  in  the  German  White  Book,  and  may  put  your 
faith  in  it.  After  the  conclusion  of  this  war — a  war  forced 
upon  us  in  a  blackguardly  fashion — you,  too,  will  receive 
enlightenment  as  to  the  points  which  are  still  obscure  to  you, 
and  you  will  admit  the  truth. 

.  .  .  We  feel  absolutely  how  much  you  must  miss  the 
usual  white  bread;  so  the  last  wheat  harvest  has  been  so 
bad  with  you?  In  this  connection  we  lack  absolutely  nothing 
in  Germany,  neither  does  one  find  that  anything  is  dearer, 
which  is  a  great  blessing.  .  .  . 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      6i 
Postcard  Received  in  Brussels  in  January,  191 7. 


Dear 


How  are  you?  Well,  I  hope.  My  husband  is  going  on 
well  too;  he  was  wounded  in  the  leg  by  a  bullet,  but  he  is 
on  the  way  to  recovery.  In  Brussels,  no  doubt,  all  is  quiet. 
In  Belgium,  the  English  have  sold  and  betrayed  you.  They 
are  evil  geniuses.  It  is  to  King  Albert  you  owe  that.  Why 
did  he  not  allow  the  Germans  to  pass?  Leopold  would  have 
arranged  it  differently.  Do  not  be  afraid,  the  Germans  do 
no  harm  to  any;  unless  it  is  just. 

My  friendly  greetings  to  your  people. 


2.  German  Publications  Sold  in  Belgium 

No  one  any  longer  has  the  slightest  doubt  as  to  the 
precise  documentary  value  of  the  German  newspapers ; 
they  are  known  to  be  under  the  thumb  of  the  censor- 
ship, which  is  saying  everything.  However,  there  is 
one  point  which  is  not  generally  understood :  namely, 
that  certain  of  these  journals  publish  two  separate  im- 
pressions, one  for  the  Eastern  front  and  one  for  the 
Western  front.  La  Libre  Belgiquc  has  reproduced  in 
facsimile  the  headlines  of  the  two  editions  of  the  Di'is- 
seldorfer  General  Anzeigcr  for  the  14th  of  July,  191 5. 

Their  Journalistic  Methods. 

Same  date,  same  edition  (Abend-Ausgabe) .  The  second, 
third,  and  fourth  pages  of  the  two  impressions  are  identical. 
Only  the  first  page  differs  according  to  the  public  for  which 
the  journal  is  intended. 

The  impression  to  be  sent  to  the  Western  front  bears  as 
a  headline:  "Russia  Ripening  for  Peace."  It  contains  news 
relating  to  Russia  which  the  other  does  not  print. 


62      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

T~ — 

The  impression  intended  for  the  Russian  front  bears  the 
legend:     "Fresh  German  Advance  in  the  Argonne." 

i  :|(  4c  H^  4^  H< 

It  was  owing  to  an  error  of  the  postal  service  that  a  bundle 
of  the  second  impression  went  astray  into  Belgium, 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  41,  August,  19 15,  p.  4.) 

Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  it.  There  were  really 
two  distinct  impressions  (at  least,  as  regards  the  first 
page),  and  not,  as  one  might  suppose,  impressions 
which  were  simply  ante-dated  for  one  of  the  fronts. 
We  were  able  to  assure  ourselves  that  the  articles 
Friedenspropaganda  in  England  and  Der  Bergar- 
beiterstriek  in  Wales  on  page  i  of  No.  314  as  sent  to 
the  Russian  front  never  appeared  in  those  on  sale  in 
Belgium. 

The  railway  bookstalls  and  the  newspaper  kiosks 
in  all  the  public  places  in  Brussels  offer  illustrated 
newspapers  for  sale.  The  two  best  known  are  Die 
Woche  and  the  Berliner  Illnstrierte  Zeitung.  The 
photographs  reproduced  in  Plates  VII.  and  VIII.  show 
the  sort  of  information  they  provide  us  with. 

Die  Woche,  for  example,  shows  us  the  fires  lit  by  the 
German  Army  at  Liege  (Plate  VII.).  We  learn  that 
on  the  20th  of  August,  19 14,  there  were  400  Russian 
students,  armed  with  rifles,  who  fired  from  the  houses 
facing  the  University,  when  the  latter  was  occupied  by 
German  troops.  What  a  stupid  action,  was  it  not,  on 
the  part  of  these  students!  It  is  true  that  Germany 
was  obliged,  later,  oflicially  to  recognise  that  these 
400  franc s-tireurs  were  invented  owing  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  case.  No  Russian,  in  fact,  figures  on  the 
list  of  those  shot  at  Liege,  a  proof  that  the  Russians 


PLATE  VII. 


"  German  Justice  in  Louvain:  The  Ruins  of  the  Buildings 
Destroyed  on  the  Place  de  l'Universite,  from  which  400 
Russian  Students  Fired  on  our  Soldiers." 

(From  Die  Woche,  No.  36,  1914.) 


PLATE  VIII. 


^*  Armed  Guard  of  the  Representatives  of  a  Belgian  Locality 
IN  WHICH  Telegraphic  Messages  were  Tapped." 

(From  Die  Woche,  No.  19,  191 6.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      63 

cannot  have  been  under  the  slightest  suspicion  of  hav- 
ing taken  part  in  the  pretended  aggression  of  francs- 
tireurs.  Better  still:  a  few  days  later  the  following 
placard  was  posted  in  the  city  (we  reproduce  it  from 
G.  Somville's  Vers  Liege:  le  chemin  de  crime,  aout 
1914,  p.  272):' 

Six  hundred  Russian  students,  who  hitherto  have  been  a 
burden  upon  the  population  of  Liege,  to  which  they  have 
caused  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  have  been  arrested  and  sent 
back  by  me. 

The  Lieiitenant-General  Governor. 

If  it  had  been  possible  to  accuse  these  students  of 
having  fired  on  the  German  troops,  the  placard  would 
have  said  as  much  in  large  type,  and  they  would  not 
have  escaped  with  internment  in  the  Miinster  camp. 

The  same  journal  informed  the  people  of  Brussels 
that  hostages  had  been  taken  at  Woluwe  (Plate  VIII.), 
a  suburban  neighbourhood  whence  the  milkwomen 
daily  come  into  the  city  with  their  dog-carts.  They 
had  never  mentioned  anv  incident  of  the  kind ! 

If  the  poor  peasants,  flying  from  their  burned  and 
decimated  villages,  had  not  painted  for  us  the  ferocity 
of  the  German  soldiers,  the  Berliner  Illustrierte  Zei- 
tung,  in  the  very  first  number  which  was  sold  in  Brus- 
sels, would  have  enlightened  us  (Plate  IX.).  It  shows 
us  the  women  of  a  village  being  led  away  as  prisoners. 
Were  the  men  already  shot? 

Having  massacred  more  than  five  thousand  of  our 
compatriots,  and  burned  26,000  houses,  under  the 
pretext   that   the    Belgians    had    organised    bands    of 


1  Translated  by  B.  Miall:  'The  Road  to  Liege:  The  Path 
of  Crime."    1916.    See  p.  234.     (Hodder  &  Stoughton.) 


64      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

francs-tireurs,^  Germany  took  pains  to  give  us  ocular 
evidence  of  the  manner  in  which  her  Austro-Hungarian 
Allies  arm  the  Ruthenian  peasants.  The  Berliner 
Illustrierte  Zeitiing  of  the  i6th  of  May,  19 15,  re- 
produced a  photograph  of  an  officer  giving  instructions 
to  an  armed  peasant  (Plate  X.).  The  Kultured  na- 
tions may  do  these  things ! 

After  the  cynical,  the  ridiculous.  In  this  connec- 
tion the  palm  cannot  reasonably  be  refused  to  the 
Illustrierter  Kriegskiirier,  a  semi-official  newspaper 
whose  sixteen  pages  cost  only  five  centimes;  the  com- 
ments are  given  in  Gennan,  Flemish,  and  French.  A 
single  example  will  suffice.  In  No.  3  there  are  three 
illustrations  representing  "The  entry  of  the  Division 
of  German  Marines  into  Antwerp."  Hardly  was  the 
journal  offered  for  sale  than  all  Brussels  was  laugh- 
ing; people  took  up  their  stand,  with  the  newspaper 
in  their  hands,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  and 
the  Rue  Royale,  in  order  to  demonstrate  to  the  passers- 
by  that  the  photographs  had  been  taken  there,  not 
in  Antwerp. 

The  German  newspaper-stalls  sell  books  as  well  as 
newspapers.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  narratives  of 
war;  for  example,  the  works  of  F.  von  Zobelitz,  P. 
Hocker,  von  Gottberg,  H.  Osman,  W.  von  Trotha,  etc. 
There  are  also  propagandist  volumes:  Die  Eroherung 
Belgiens,  Luttich,  Antwerpen,  etc. 

^  Organised  bands  of  francs-tireurs  are  perfectly  lawful  in 
an  invaded  country.  See  the  Hague  Convention  and  the 
German  military  laws.  In  cases  of  sudden  invasion  they 
need  not  even  organise  themselves,  beyond  appointing  officers. 
So  that  even  had  there  been  a  guerrilla  defence  the  Germans 
would  have  had  no  cause  of  complaint,  nor  any  excuse  for 
treating  prisoners  other  than  as  ordinary  prisoners  of  war. — 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      65 

The  following  instance  will  show  how  truthful  these 
volumes  are: 


A  Leipzig  publisher  has  recently  published  a  book  in 
which  the  clumsy  accusations  of  atrocities  directed  against 
our  country,  since  the  beginning  of  the  conflict,  by  the 
Teutonic  Press,  were  repeated  and  ampHfied.  A  special 
chapter  of  this  volume  was  devoted  to  the  city  of  Antwerp. 
The  population  was  accused  of  giving  itself  over  to  serious 
assaults,  of  having  thrown  women  and  children  out  of 
windows,  etc.  The  author  even  added  the  precise  detail  that 
no  less  than  thirty  German  corpses  had  been  picked  up  in 
the  Avenue  de  Keyser ! 

Justly  incensed  by  the  publicity  given  to  such  tales,  and 
anxious  at  the  same  time  once  for  all  to  make  an  example 
of  the  calumniation  of  Belgium,  the  City  of  Antwerp  decided 
to  bring  an  action  for  100,000  francs  damages  and  costs 
against  the  publisher  of  the  libel. 

But  the  German  authorities  were  on  the  alert.  .  .  . 
Warned  of  the  intentions  of  the  City,  and  fearing  the  sensa- 
tion which  the  evidence  given  at  such  a  trial — a  trial  in 
which  the  vileness  of  the  methods  dear  to  the  German 
calumniator  would  be  thoroughly  exposed — could  not  fail 
to  produce  abroad,  the  authorities  addressed  to  the  Com- 
munal Administration  of  the  capital  a  letter  in  which  they 
forbade  it,  for  political  reasons,  to  bring  such  a  case. 

They  could  not  have  admitted  their  offence  with  greater 
thoughtlessness   and  ingenuousness. 

{La  Libre  Belgiqtte,   No.   80,  quoted  by  the 
Courrier  de  VArmee,  No.  229,  3rd  August,  191 6.) 


In  Belgium,  too,  are  sold  German  replies  (but  pub- 
lished in  French)  to  the  books  which  w^e  can  obtain 
only  surreptitiously;  for  example,  the  works  of  M. 
Waxweiler  (see  pp.  6  and  10),  and  Mgr.  Baudrillart. 


66      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

Guilty  Belgium. 

Under  this  title  a  pamphlet  has  just  appeared  in  Berlin, 
under  the  signature  of  Herr  Grasshoff,  in  reply  to  M.  Wax- 
weiler's  La  Belgique  neutre  et  loyale. 

Since  our  excellent  Governor  is  so  kind  as  to  permit  the 
reply  to  M.  Waxweiler  to  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Belgians,  it  seems  to  us  that  it  would  only  be  an  act  of  strict 
justice  to  allow  us  to  read  the  book  itself.  Hitherto  only  a 
few  privileged  persons  have  been  able  to  obtain  it,  at  the  price 
of  God  knows  what  ruses  and  what  peril.  Knowing  the  ex- 
treme sense  of  fairness  of  the  government  which  rules  over 
us,  we  feel  confident  that  in  a  few  days  we  shall  see  the  two 
books  displayed  side  by  side  in  the  booksellers'  windows. 

In  the  meantime  we  are  wondering  if  it  was  not  a  very  bad 
speculation  on  the  author's  part  to  have  his  book  translated 
into  French.  For  although  his  arguments  may,  perhaps, 
possess  some  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  German,  we  doubt  if 
they  can  possess  any  for  Belgians,  who  have  seen  with  their 
own  eyes  what  happened  when  the  country  was  invaded. 

Inhabitants  of  Louvain,  Dinant,  Tamines,  and  Aerschot, 
and  all  you  Belgians — for  who  is  there  that  does  not  number 
among  his  kinsfolk  at  least  one  victim  of  the  barbarians? — 
read  these  extracts  from  the  accounts  given  by  German  sol- 
diers, and  tell  me  if,  after  reading  them,  you  are  not  stupefied 
and  filled  with  indignation  by  the  audacity  of  such  falsehoods: 

I.  Louvain. 

"It  is  untrue  that  an  arbitrary  selection  of  the  persons 
accused  determined  the  fate  of  those  who  were  shot.  Strict 
legality,  on  the  contrary,  was  observed  at  the  inquiries.  / 
was  instructed  to  search  the  people,  to  see  if  they  carried 
arms,  and  I  found  a  great  many  did.  I  was  also  instructed 
to  discover  whether  the  persons  accused  were  Belgian  sol- 
diers in  disguise,  a  thing  easily  proved  by  the  identification- 
plate.  On  a  great  number  of  the  prisoners  I  found  the  mili- 
tary identification-plate  in  the  pocket  of  the  purse.  Captain 
Albrecht,  who  directed  the  inquiry,  proceeded  in  such  a  way 
that  he  ordered  those  prisoners  who  were  found  to  be  carry- 
ing a  weapon  or  a  military  identification-plate  to  be  shot, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      dy 

or  those  concerning  whom  it  was  attested  by  at  least  two 
witnesses,  either  that  they  themselves  had  fired  upon  the 
German  troops,  or  that  they  had  been  captured  in  a  house 
whence  the  troops  had  been  fired  upon.  It  is  my  firm 
conviction  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  that  completely 
innocent  persons  could  thus  have  lost  their  lives." 

2.  Andenne. 

"On  our  arrival  in  this  place  a  signal  was  given  by  the 
church  bell,  at  6.30  p.  m.,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  iron 
shutters  of  all  the  houses  were  lowered:  the  inhabitants, 
who  had  hitherto  been  standing  in  the  street,  disappeared, 
and  my  troops  were  fired  on  from  all  directions,  but  particu- 
larly from  the  gratings  of  cellars  and  holes  made  in  the 
roofs  by  removing  the  tiles.  Moreover,  from  a  large  nmnber 
of  houses  boiling  water  was  poured  upon  our  soldiers.  As 
a  result  of  this  ambush,  which  the  conduct  of  my  men  in 
nowise  justified,  there  was  a  desperate  battle  in  the  streets 
between  them  and  the  civil  population.  The  proof  that  this 
was  assuredly  a  plan  executed  in  advance,  in  which  almost 
the  entire  population  of  Andenne  and  the  suburbs  took  part, 
is  that  100 — one  hundred — of  my  men  were  wounded  merely 
by  the  scalds  produced  by  boiling  water." 

3.    DiNANT. 

"Some  parents,  according  to  an  inhabitant  of  the  town, 
placed  revolvers  in  the  hands  of  children  of  ten  to  twelve 
years,  that  they  might  fire  on  the  German  troops.  One  little 
boy,  arrested,  then  released  on  account  of  his  youth,  boasted 
himself  of  having  shot  down  five  Germans." 

No  comment  is  needed. 

As  for  pillage,  please  understand  it  was  wholly  the  work 
of  the  Belgians,  the  French,  and  (above  all)  of  the  English. 

People  of  Tongres,  you  are  completely  mistaken.  I  think 
you  must  have  been  dreaming  when  you  thought  you  beheld 
your  silver  plate  methodically  sorted  and  arranged  on  the 
pavement  in  front  of  your  houses,  before  being  packed  and 
sent  away.  It  was  to  get  you  and  your  children  to  take  an 
open-air  cure,  a  very  healthy  proceeding,  that  you  were  made 
to  spend  two  nights  in  the  open.    And  although  on  your  re- 


68      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

turn  you  found  your  houses  more  or  less  pillaged,  the  German 
soldiery  had  nothing  to  do  with  this:  you  must  blame  the 
bands  of  thieves  which  swarm  throughout  Belgium. 

Herr  Grasshoff  does  not  inform  us  how  these  thieves  were 
able  to  remain  in  the  town,  or  to  get  into  it,  when  all  the 
inhabitants  had  been  driven  out,  and  the  Germans  kept  a 
careful  watch  to  see  that  no  one  entered  it.  He  forgets  to 
explain  this  detail.  However,  he  forgets  to  mention  Tongres 
when  speaking  of  pillage,  and  he  forgets  Malines  also.  This 
chapter  of  his  book  is  a  trifle  confused  and  incomplete.  It  is 
true  that  he  has  forgotten  a  great  many  things,  among  others 
to  reply  to  M.  Waxweiler  in  respect  of  the  Military  Code  of 
the  General  Staff,  and  the  commentaries  upon  this  code  made 
by  German  jurists.  Yet  this  point  constitutes  one  of  the  bases 
of  M.  Waxweiler's  argument,  in  which  he  proves  that  the 
German  cruelties  and  massacres  are  merely  the  logical  ap- 
lication  of  the  principles  of  this  code.  Thus  he  proves  that,  un- 
like the  excesses  and  abuses  which  may,  as  exceptions,  occur 
in  any  arm^y,  the  German  atrocities  were  committed  to  order. 

But  is  it  really  certain,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  Herr 
Grasshoff  has  read  M.  Waxweiler's  book?  We  wonder;  he 
has  failed  to  throw  light  on  so  many  important  points. 

He  H:  9k  ^  H: 

La  Belgique  coupahle  is  evidently  intended  to  enlighten  us 
concerning  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality.  Here  we  must 
admit  that  the  author  has,  after  the  lapse  of  a  year,  some- 
thing new  and  really  sensational.  We  knew  that  all  the  Ger- 
mans (they  alone,  of  course)  were  convinced,  or  pretended  to 
be  convinced,  that  aeroplanes  had  flown  over  Belgium,  and 
that  French  soldiers  were  hidden  in  the  forts  of  Liege.  Well, 
here  is  something  better  than  that :  8,000  men,  two  regiments 
of  dragoons,  and  some  batteries,  were  at  Bouillon  and  in  the 
neighbourhood  on  the  Sist  of  July.  No  one  saw  them,  but  it 
was  so,  since  two  prisoners  say  it  was  so ;  they  even  say 
that  the  Belgian  population  gave  them  an  excellent  welcome. 
How  was  the  evidence  of  these  prisoners  obtained?  That  is 
the  question  which  neutral  readers  will  possibly  ask  them- 
selves. Here,  in  Belgium,  we  can  form  some  conjecture:  we 
are  familiar,  by  experience,  with  the  inquiry  at  the  muzzle 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      69 

of  the  revolver,  the  interrogatory  with  the  menace  of  death, 
or  after  exhaustion  by  starvation.  We  all  know  these  pretty 
expedients  of  "Boche  justice."  Another  proof  of  violation: 
It  seems  that  someone  saw,  in  Brussels,  on  the  26th  of  July — 
please  listen  carefully — two  French  officers  and  an  English 
officer,  in  uniform.  Obviously  these  gentlemen  could  not 
have  come  here  except  to  confer  with  our  General  Staff. 
Only,  Messieurs  our  Allies-before-the-event,  why  did  you 
come  here  in  uniform  on  a  secret  mission?  Frankly,  how 
thoughtless !     It  is  easy  to  see  that  you  are  not  Germans. 

And  now,  dear  readers,  if  you  are  not  convinced  that  the 
French  and  English  were  the  first  to  violate  our  neutrality, 
and  that  we  ought  to  have  welcomed  the  Germans  with  open 
arms,  it  is  because  you  are  an  argumentative  person.  Under 
the  new  government  your  mind  will  be  taught  to  form  its 
convictions  according  to  discipline. 

Before  closing  this  chapter  let  us  mention  yet  another 
instance  of  "forgetfulness"  on  the  part  of  our  author:  he 
does  not  breathe  a  word  of  the  Chancellor's  admission. 

Yet  this  admission  is  not  without  a  certain  importance, 
when  it  comes  to  discussing  the  question  of  the  violation  of 
Belgian  neutrality.  But  he  does  not  forget  to  serve  up  yet 
again  the  story  of  the  famous  Anglo-Belgian  conventions. 
We  shall  not  weary  our  readers  by  refuting  it  afresh. 

La  Belgique  coupable  teaches  us  yet  another  new  thing. 
You  have  not  failed  to  hear  some  mention  of  the  war  of 
francs-tireurs,  the  national  war,  as  Herr  Grasshoff  calls  it,  the 
great  stalking-horse  of  the  enemies  of  our  country  when  they 
wish  to  excuse  the  massacres  committed  by  their  army. 

But  you  were  not,  perhaps,  aware  that  this  war  of  francs- 
tireurs  was  foreseen  and  prepared  for  by  our  Government,^ 
as  was  also  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  the  violation  of 
the  law  of  nations,  and  the  campaign  of  "calumnies"  against 
the  German  Army.  It  may  even  be — but  of  this  Herr  Grass- 
hoff is  not  quite  sure — that  the  Anglo-Belgian  conventions 
had  already  made  provision  for  this  defensive  organisation 
of  the  Belgian  nation.   As  he  is  doubtful,  our  author  is  gene- 

^  In  which  case  no  military  jurist  would  have  raised  any 
objection  to  it. — {Tr.) 


70      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

rously  willing  to  acquit  England  of  responsibility  in  this  affair, 
and  to  hold  the  Belgian  Government  wholly  responsible. 

He  sees  a  proof  of  his  theory  in  all  the  circulars  on  the 
subject  of  the  Civic  Guard.  For  him  the  non-active  Civic 
Guard  and  the  franc-tireur  are  the  same,  or  almost  the  same. 
Yet,  as  M.  Waxweiler  has  so  clearly  demonstrated,  had  this 
Civic  Guard  of  the  countryside  fired  on  the  enemy — as  it 
did  not — it  would  merely  have  exercised  the  rights  conferred 
upon  it  by  the  Hague  Conventions. 

But  even  the  circular  addressed  by  the  Minister,  M. 
Berryer,  to  the  communal  administrations,  that  circular 
which  so  admirably  recapitulates  their  duty  toward  the 
occupying  authority  as  well  as  toward  the  lawful  authority, 
is  regarded  as  of  criminal  intent.  Why  will  not  Herr  Grass- 
hoff  permit  the  King's  Government  to  be  called  the  "only 
lawful"  authority?  We  have  re-examined  this  circular,  and 
the  phrases  underlined  with  intention  by  Herr  Grasshoff 
merely  convince  us  once  more  of  the  Government's  desire  to 
observe,  and  to  cause  others  to  observe,  a  strict  legality,  and 
to  remind  the  authorities  of  their  duties. 

There  is  also  the  little  placard,  which  was  pasted  up  every- 
where and  reproduced  by  all  the  newspapers,  recommending 
the  population  to  remain  quiescent.  You  will  doubtless  re- 
member this  phrase:  "An  act  of  violence  committed  by  a 
single  civilian  would  be  a  veritable  crime,  which  is  punish- 
able by  law,  etc."  Now  this  is  what  the  imagination  of 
Herr  Grasshoff  extracts  from  this: 

"The  term  a  single  civilian  employed  in  this  proclamation 
strikes  one  immediately,  owing  to  the  twofold  interpretation 
which  may  be  placed  upon  it.  This  single  civilian  who  is 
forbidden  to  fire  readily  gives  rise,  in  the  brain  of  a  simple 
man,  to  the  idea  that  it  is  permissible  to  fire  if  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together." 

Peremptory,  isn't  it?     This  literally  dumbfounds  one. 

As  for  the  Commission  of  Inquiry,  it  appears — again  on 
the  authority  of  Herr  Grasshoff — that  "its  invitation  to  re- 
port instances  of  German  brutality  antedated  the  material 
possibility  of  their  accomplishment." 

The  truth  is  that  the  Commission  was  founded  on  the  8th, 


PLATE   IX. 


(a)  "  Removal  of  the  Inhabitants  of  a  Belgian  Village, 
which  had  to  be  destroyed  because  of  the  infamous 

Deeds  of  Inhabitants." 


(b)  *'  Our  Troops  on  the  March  through  a  Burning 

Village." 

[From  the  Berliner  Illustrierte  Zeitung,  6th  September,   1914.) 


PLATE  X. 


A  Real  Franc-Tireur. 

"  From  the   Carpathian   Front — Ruthenian   Peasant   as   Armed 
Railway  and  Telegraph  Guard  with  the  Austro-Hungarian 

Army." 

(Frora  the  Berliner  Illustrierte  Zeitung,  i6th  May,  1916.) 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       71 

and  we  know  with  what  barbarity  and  readiness  the  laws 
of  warfare  were  violated  by  the  German  troops  between  the 
4th  and  7th  of  August,  on  the  frontier. 

Sff  -f£  ^  3|C  3|C 

It  is  superfluous  to  remark  that  we  have  not  been  able  to 
mention  here  all  the  errors  and  falsehoods  contained  in  Herr 
Grasshoff's  work.  We  have  endeavoured  merely  to  show  the 
value  of  his  arguments  and  the  evidence  which  he  invokes.  In 
this  connection  we  venture — very  humbly,  since  we  are  not 
a  doctor  of  German  law,  nor  of  German  philosophy — to  call 
his  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  logical  to  attribute  so 
much  importance,  when  the  question  of  francs-tireurs  is  at 
issue,  to  the  tales  of  neutrals  founded  on — among  other 
things — mere  remarks  overheard  in  the  tram-cars,  for  it  has 
just  been  proved,  in  connection  with  the  German  atrocities, 
how  far  one  can  depend  on  tales  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth. 
We  will  also  observe  that  it  is  not  becoming  for  a  German  to 
deride  the  errors  of  the  enemy  Press,  when  one  knows  what 
colossal  fabrications  have  been  spread  abroad  by  the  Boche 
newspapers :  witness,  to  mention  only  one  instance,  the  story 
of  the  taking  of  Brussels  after  a  bitterly  contested  battle 
and  a  desperate  resistance  lasting  for  several  days ! 

It  was  in  one  of  those  tales  of  neutrals,  of  which  we  have 
just  spoken,  that  we  found  this  detail — otherwise  of  no 
importance — which  forced  us  to  smile :  "At  Nieuport,  in  a 
villa  occupied  by  Belgian  soldiers,  the  water-closets  were 
choked."  Horror !  !  !  W^ell,  we  readily  admit  that  German 
soldiers  would  not  have  done  such  a  thing  as  that;  they 
have  too  much  respect — and  their  officers  also — for  this  little 
spot.  They  respect  it  to  such  a  point  that  they  dare  not 
cross  its  threshold,  and  prefer  to  reserve,  for  such  purposes, 
valuable  china,  glassware,  quilts,  beds  and  carpets,  or  even 
the  boxes  in  which  provisions  are  stored. 


We  cannot  bring  this  article  to  a  close  better  than  by 
reproducing  some  of  the  conclusions  contained  in  Herr 
Grasshoff's  v/ork: 

''Two  hundred  and  thirty-five  localities,  whose  geographical 


^2      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

position  may  readily  be  found,  served  as  lairs  of  francs-tireurs; 
to  these  we  must  add  forty-six  other  localities  whose  position 
we  have  been  unable  to  find  on  the  maps  at  our  disposal,  as  a 
rule  because  of  defective  writing.  The  passage  of  the  German 
Army  through  Belgium  has  been  a  positive  Calvary,  over  which 
only  a  discipline  superior  to  any  trial  could  have  triumphed." 


et' 


'There  is  not  in  the  whole  world  a  single  army  which  is  in 
a  condition  to  employ  gentler  measures  than  those  we  have 
employed.  Their  employment  has  saved  Central  Belgium  and 
Western  Belgium  from  the  inevitable  destruction  which 
street-fighting  would  necessarily  have  involved." 

*  *  sJf  *  * 

"One  is  amazed,  on  reading  the  records  of  German  jus- 
tice in  the  occupied  territories,  by  the  predominance  of  the 
number  of  acquittals;  the  misdemeanours  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  territories  in  question  are  tried  with  the  strict  im- 
partiality of  the  German  mind." 

:|c  4c  :);  4c  ^ 

"We  are  now  at  the  close  of  this  survey.  Let  us  turn  our 
gaze  from  the  past  to  consider  the  future.  The  spring  has 
once  again  returned.  Behind  the  front  where  the  armies  are 
contending,  the  sinewy  hand  of  the  German  soldier  guides  the 
plough  in  the  fields  of  Belgium,  to  furnish  bread,  not  to  his 
own  family,  but  to  the  Belgian  people,  unworthily  betrayed 
by  its  own  Government  and  abandoned  to  the  horrors  of 
famine  by  its  good  friends  of  England.  In  all  directions 
German  assiduity  is  endeavouring  to  arouse  the  drowsy  Bel- 
gian spirit  and  to  kindle  it  by  its  breath  to  what  it  was  before 
the  war.  We  do  not  greatly  trouble  ourselves  as  to  the 
continual  squallings  with  which  the  Echo  Beige  makes  its 
columns  resound,  filled  with  the  everlasting  crimes  of  the 
Barbarians.  They  cannot  disturb  our  task.  We  bear  within 
us  the  sense  of  duty  which,  according  to  Kant,  constitutes 
the  sole  human  ideal,  the  only  proper  worth  of  mankind. 
This  war,  to  which  we  have  been  constrained,  imposes  upon 
us  the  duty  of  realising  the  liberty  of  the  Fatherland,  the 
liberty  of  the  human  family.    This  duty  we  shall  fulfil ! 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      73 

"Will  M.  Waxweiler  be  able  to  tear  himself  from  his  re- 
pose and  participate  in  the  heavy  task  of  restoring  her  pros- 
perity to  Belgium?  The  day  is  coming  when  this  poor  people, 
so  ill-governed,  will  emerge  from  its  ignorance,  and  will  at 
last  distinguish  the  good  grain  from  the  tares  among  those 
who  flatter  themselves  that  they  preside  over  its  destinies : 

"For  Germany  there  is  only  one  motto : 


^Sit  ut  est  aut  non  sit.     Erit  in  aevum!'" 

But  one  is  left  musing,  wondering  what  degree  of  ignor- 
ance of  the  truth  sitU  characterises  the  German  nation,  that 
it  is  able  to  swallow  such  monstrous  lies. 

B.  A.  R.  F. 

(^La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  46,  September,  1915,  p.  2,  col.  I.) 


The  Widowhood  of  Truth. 

The  German  authorities  are  purposely  distributing 
throughout  the  country  a  French  edition  of  the  reply  of 
the  German  Catholics  to  the  manifesto  of  the  French  Catho- 
lics, a  reply  drafted,  as  is  known,  by  Abt.  Rosenberg,  and 
countersigned  by  a  regiment  of  notabilities  who  have  not 
read  it.  With  that  obtuse  naivete  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
their  bragging  and  their  cynicism,  our  masters  imagine,  ap- 
parently, that  this  statement,  intended  to  deceive  foreigners, 
is  going  to  deceive  us,  and  make  us  forget  the  testimony  of 
our  consciousness  and  our  eyes.  Like  a  malefactor  whom 
the  habit  of  lying,  pushed  to  mental  aberration,  should  impel 
to  indoctrinate  his  very  victim.  To  Belgian  readers  this 
lamentable  plea  does  not  call  for  any  sort  of  refutation. 
But  it  will  be  a  genuine  relief  to  many  of  them  to  learn 
that  this  defamatory  apology  has  already  received  its  punish- 
ment. A  German-speaking  neutral,  M.  Emile  Priim,  Burgo- 
master of  Clervaux  (Grand-Duchy  of  Luxemburg)  has  re- 
futed it  in  a  masterly  and  vengeful  fashion  in  a  little  book 
entitled  Der  Witwenstand  der  Wahrhcit  ("The  Widowhood 
of  Truth").  This  is  the  very  expression  which  a  German 
writer  has  employed  to  characterise  the  facility  with  which 
a  lie  gains  acceptance  in  these  days.    Original  or  otherwise. 


74      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

their  sentimental  metaphor  is  only  too  just  in  reference 
to  Germany:  the  truth  is  widowed  there;  further,  she  is 
denied  by  her  children  ! 

M.  Priim  is  a  militant  Catholic.  His  courageous  pamphlet, 
intended  for  the  Catholics  of  all  countries,  is  addressed  in  the 
first  place  to  his  compatriots,  who,  like  himself,  were  united 
by  close  and  numerous  ties  to  the  German  Centre :  it  is  there- 
fore written  from  the  very  point  of  view  which  those  whom 
it  refutes  sought  to  adopt,  which,  in  the  case  at  issue,  is  a 
circumstance  that  greatly  aggravates  their  evil  act.  In  this 
respect  it  is  of  interest  to  all  Belgians  irrespective  of  their 
opinions.  They  will  be  delighted  to  see  to  what  a  point  Abt. 
Rosenberg  and  his  co-signatories  have  succeeded  in  disgust- 
ing one  of  their  best  friends.  As  for  the  German  authorities, 
they,  we  are  assured,  have  made  M.  Priim  a  reply  worthy  of 
him  and  of  themselves:  they  have  thrown  him  into  prison 
on  a  charge  of  seditious  publication.  "Brigadier,  you  are 
right !  .  .  .  "  But  this  will  not  resuscitate  the  defunct  for 
whom  the  German  Truth  is  wearing  mourning ! 

Belga. 

La  Libre  Belgique, 

(quoted  by  U£cho  Beige,  13th  March,  1916.) 

The  most  perfidious  of  these  books  and  pamphlets 
are  those  which  profess  to  be  written  by  good  Bel- 
gians, but  which  are  without  doubt  the  work  of  Ger- 
mans in  disguise. 

Teutonic  Tartuferie. 

We  have  had  the  courage  to  read  through  to  the  end  three 
little  works  by  a  Teuton,  concealed  behind  the  mask  of  a 
philanthropist,  despite  the  nausea  we  suffered  in  reading 
these  lines,  distilling  gall  and  venom.  These  compositions 
are  entitled :  "An  Open  Letter  to  the  Belgian  People."  The 
writer,  who  courageously  remains  anonymous,  warns  the 
reader  that  he  will  close  his  ears  and  let  people  bawl  if  they 
will.   So  be  it:   it  is  his  right,  just  as  the  Belgians  who  read 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      75 

these  lucubrations  may  stop  their  noses,  for  they  give  off 
such  a  stench  that  it  is  as  well  to  have  recourse  to  an  anti- 
septic after  one  has  perused  them. 

We  will  reproduce  two  or  three  phrases,  in  order  to  show 
just  how  far  cerebral  decomposition  may  proceed  in  certain 
individuals,  before  the  specialists  in  insanity  and  the  health 
department  trouble  them. 

He  {our  King)  ought  to  insist  on  peace  with  Germany. 
Enough  Belgian  blood;  husbands,  zvives,  mothers,  brothers, 
sisters,  sweethearts,  friends,  I  implore  you,  in  the  name  of 
humanity,  to  insist  upon  peace;  or  at  least  insist  that  you 
shall  be  allowed  to  address,  to  the  commander-in-chief  of 
his  armies,  a  prayer  that  an  armistice  be  arranged.  .  .  .  Let 
us  offer  the  Congo  as  the  ransom  of  our  independence  .  .  . 
who  knows  whether,  on  the  conclusion  of  peace,  this  attitude 
will  not  procure  for  us  favourable  treatment ;  it  may  be  that 
he  (Attila)  will  take  our  submission  into  account,  etc. 

This  passage  is  selected  from  among  the  less  foolish  and 
ignoble,  for  there  are  some  which  we  should  not,  out  of 
respect  for  our  readers,  venture  to  transcribe. 

But  there  is  only  one  thing  in  all  this  which  disconcerts 
us;  it  is  that  this  anonymous  writer — as  to  whose  nationality 
we  are  not  left  in  the  slightest  doubt — should  have  been  able 
to  find  a  printer. 

One  of  two  things  must  have  happened:  either  the  printer 
was  forced  to  comply,  or  he  acted  willingly,  and  in  the  latter 
case  there  is  only  one  verdict  to  be  given,  which  is,  that  he 
is  a  worthy  fellow  to  the  "philanthropist." 

{La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  39,  August,  1915,  p.  3,  col.  2.) 

La  Libre  Belgique  did  not  know  who  had  printed 
this  pamphlet.     M.  Passelecq  informs  us: 

Among  these  pamphlets  let  us  mention  a  series  of  three 
"Open  Letters  to  the  Belgian  People,"  by  "A  Philanthropist," 
bearing,  as  the  publisher's  imprint,  "Van  Moer,  rue  Euphrasie 
{sic)  Beernaert,  Ostende."  Now  there  is  no  printer  of  this 
name  in  the  Rue  Euphrosine-Beernaert,  Ostend.  The  German 
forgers  had  therefore  borrowed  a  Belgian  name  in  order  to 


76      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

deceive  the  public.  From  an  inquiry  made  by  the  Brussels 
Bar,  it  appears  that  the  pamphlets  in  question  were  printed 
by  one  Herr  Kropp,  a  German,  Rue  de  Ruysdael,  at  Molen- 
beck-Saint-Jean  (Brussels),  who  before  the  war  published 
the  Brussele  Zeitung,  a  German  weekly;  he  is  at  present 
the  official  publisher  to  the  Kommandantur,  and  prints, 
among  other  suspect  publications,  the  German-Flemish  news- 
paper, Gazet  van  Brussel. 

(Passelecq,  Pour  teutoniser  la  Belgique,  p.  41,  note. 

Paris:   Bloud  et  Gay,  1916.) 

Lastly,  there  are  the  picture-postcards.  In  addition 
to  numerous  sentimental  compositions  (of  that  fatuous 
sentimentality  peculiar  to  Germany),  there  are  some 
which  aspire  to  be  regarded  as  documentary  records. 
They  show  us,  for  example,  ''The  Uhlans  before 
Paris,"  gazing  at  the  Eiffel  Tower,  or  ''The  Assault 
on  the  Fortress  of  Liege"  (Liege  being  an  open  town, 
with  neither  ramparts  nor  fortifications).  Let  us  also 
mention  the  card  representing  the  "battles  in  the 
streets  of  Louvain,"  in  which  we  perceive  the  frantic 
attack  of  the  francs-tireurs  (Plate  XII).  This  card 
resulted  in  a  sentence  for  a  Brussels  magistrate,  M. 
Ernst. 

The  Painful  Adventure  of  a  Brussels  Magistrate. 

Readers,  friends  of  La  Libre  Belgique,  listen,  for  your  di- 
version, to  this  adventure,  of  which  one  of  the  most  congenial 
of  our  Brussels  magistrates  was  at  once  the  hero  and  the 
victim.  The  adventure  is,  for  the  rest,  suggestive,  in  several 
respects;  it  shows  us  what  a  cat-o'-nine-tails  sort  of  govern- 
ment the  Germans  would  subject  us  to  if  they  could  only 
indulge  themselves  to  their  heart's  content;  it  also  shows 
how  far  they  excel  in  the  ingenious  art  of  inventing  accusa- 
tions and  coining  money  out  of  imaginary  misdemeanours. 

J^ow,  some  little  time  ago,  strolling  along  the  Boulevard 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      ^^ 

du  Nord,  our  magistrate  discovered  in  the  window  of  a 
Deutsche  Buchhandlung  a  postcard  representing  the  sack  of 
Louvain.  With  the  exactitude  (?)  of  the  photographic  docu- 
ment, the  card  showed  the  civilians  of  Liege  in  ambush  at 
every  street-corner,  and  treacherously  firing  upon  the  brave 
German  soldiers.  Assuredly  a  document  by  which  the  Herren 
Professoren  will  profit  in  order  to  justify  and  whitewash  Ger- 
many, the  appointed  champion  of  the  rights  of  humanity  and 
knightly  honour.  But,  sceptical  by  profession  and  well  aware 
of  the  ''fakes"  of  the  photographer,  our  magistrate  wisely  re- 
flected that  it  was  hardly  probable  that  a  photographer  should 
have  been  posted  at  that  exact  point  on  the  25th  of  August, 
and  he  suspected  a  fraud.  His  judgment  was  correct.  A  more 
careful  examination  enabled  him  to  perceive  that  the  fraud 
was  glaringly  visible,  and  in  his  indiscreet  zeal  for  the  truth 
our  magistrate  divulged  his  discovery  to  the  bookseller. 

Do  you  suppose  the  honest  shopkeeper  bowed  his  thanks? 
By  no  means:  he  was  annoyed.  And  as  the  magistrate 
apparently  intended  to  persist  in  his  remonstrances,  he  hailed 
some  German  soldiers  who  were  passing,  and  had  the  magis- 
trate arrested.  The  magistrate  was  not  too  greatly  con- 
cerned about  this  adventure,  but  he  wondered  what  would 
be  the  result  of  it. 

The  result  was  a  commitment  on  the  charge  of — mark 
it  well — violation  of  domicile  (trespass)  !  !  !  the  case  being 
sent  before  the  military  tribunal !  The  accusation  was  ludi- 
crous, but  the  German  tribunals  are  not  particular  in  this 
respect:  they  partake  of  the  German  mentality,  which  does 
everything  to  order,  and  they  condemned  our  magistrate  to 
pay  a  fine  of  300  marks. 

Our  magistrate  replied:  "I,  pay  300  marks  fine?  I  have 
not  got  them !" 

"You  have  not  got  them?  That  is  very  improbable," 
was  the  opinion  of  the  German  authorities.  And  on  the 
following  day,  at  dawn,  a  non-commissioned  ofiicer,  flanked 
by  four  marauders,  with  fixed  bayonets,  presented  himself 
at  the  dwelling-house  of  the  delinquent.  The  non-com- 
missioned officer,  who  in  civil  life  must  have  been  something 
of  an  expert  in  furniture,  proceeded  to  make  a  rapid  valua- 


78      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

tion,  and  had  soon  made  his  selection.  "Take  that  bronze," 
he  told  his  men,  "that  set  of  mantel  ornaments,  this  bit  of 
Sevres.  .  .  ."  His  men  complied  with  the  readiness  of  pro- 
fessional furniture-removers ;  indeed  they  were  depriving  the 
magistrate  of  nearly  ten  times  the  value  of  the  fine  inflicted. 
Seeing  this,  the  magistrate  was  forced  to  capitulate.  He 
found  the  300  marks  and  paid  them. 

German  justice  was  thus  satisfied. 

Perhaps.  It  is  quite  capable  of  discovering  that  the  capit- 
ulation of  the  Brussels  magistrate  was  a  bad  stroke  of 
business  as  far  as  it  was  concerned. 

(La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  38,  August,  1915,  p.  2,  col.  2.) 

3.  Newspapers  which  Profess  to  be  Belgian 

In  Brussels  all  the  newspapers  without  exception 
refused  to  submit  to  German  control.  After  a  fort- 
night had  elapsed  new  journals  appeared.  These  were 
subject  to  the  censorship. 

To  begin  with,  these  newspapers  did  not  publish  the 
official  communiques  of  the  Allies.  But  after  some 
weeks  had  passed  the  censorship  allowed  them  to  re- 
produce a  few  passages  of  these  communiques.  Not 
always,  however,  as  we  learn  from  the  following  para- 
graph: 

The  French  Communiques. 

Our  readers  may  perhaps  find  it  strange  that  we  do  not 
publish  the  official  French  communiques  with  greater  regu- 
larity. The  reason  for  this  is  very  simple.  There  are  no 
longer  any  such  communiques,  or  hardly  any. 

The  utmost  the  Government  does  is  to  publish  a  few  lines 
from  time  to  time. 

The  pretext  given  is  that  it  does  not  wish  to  provide  the 
Germans  with  any  indication  as  to  the  positions  of  the  Allied 
troops,  but  wishes  to  conceal  the  movements  of  the  latter. 

(La  Bruxellois,  26th  October,  1914.) 


PLATE  XI. 


StraBenkampfe 
iri:  Lowen 


A  "  Faked  "  German  Postcard:  The  Franxs-Tireurs  of  Loitv'ain. 


PLATE  XIl. 


»=*    ■TTi-rr-TisJ 


,-} 


iniiM  oiM  Rae^d. 


1  ifiiii  iffioniBi!  '    EisiiaoIIiii  Mm 

?liyifi«iHiitsMii  urn  limmmum^lm^mmm   k'^im^im  f^m^' 


Siir  !6  frsfit  d'Ypfti  a  Sgissons   . 
fa  pamlt  est  i  t'artilleflt.     ■  1 


^mations 

on  offlcialles 


ppi.-'-T- T-*#SU^?-^  r 


:^   M; 


4.- 


.:,r>.e' 


'fit.?  dSiCte  5a  t;;i:;    ■»j"^'a-'~i^  ■al^'jarn  j'angit] 
„„ — rfHrt^nr*^ — .d^—Ht^iJ  !-i.raBtwrt*g*ittyf  j 


^■^?"''    '■     ;  'rfu:..-*  -     N  .-^ft  irtiUfri*  ft 

gc,    ;"s"i'in  -."-Li  u-'ji  Ic  .'lui.n  sts  »«jvri^c»  tie  {)♦ 

'  }f-!>-,i- endfl.iaG:i'i:«  par   jcf   ^;!yin.|Kif*u 


*:'iCtE.P 


v'.i.,   .J, 


'^    ••^j'.'-^.',^" 


,   ,      U«rt-.  i«.!r»  -tf^gT'    TPWilHfj.    Tlv^- 


A  Brussels  Newspaper  as  Returned  from  the  Censor's  Office. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM       79 

Here  Is  a  little  quotation  from  Le  Temps  which 
enables  us  to  test  this  assertion.  Let  us  add  that  it 
is  not  stated  in  any  of  the  French  communiques  that 
the  Government  wishes  to  hide  the  movements  of  the 
troops: 

Number  of  lines  in  the  French  official  communiques  pub- 
lished by  Le  Temps. 

The  communiques  of  the — 

15th  of  October,  1914,  contained  25  lines. 


1 6th 

)) 

)) 

» 

12 

}} 

17th 

jf 

» 

a 

18 

it 

1 8th 

ij 

» 

it 

18 

tt 

19th 

» 

ff 

a 

30 

it 

20th 

}f 

}f 

if 

29 

it 

2ISt 

}y 

)) 

ft 

16 

tt 

22nd 

)f 

ii 

ti 

24 

it 

23rd 

if 

if 

it 

43 

it 

later 

the 

a 

official 

commiim 

<qiies 

\ 

were  once 
more  tolerated. 

Unfortunately  for  the  Germans  we  still  obtain 
French  newspapers  which  have  not  been  mutilated, 
which  enable  us  to  restore  the  original  text  of  the 
communiques  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  expose  the  im- 
position practised  by  the  journals  subjected  to  the 
censorship.  It  must  be  supposed  that  the  occupying 
Government  realised  the  uselessness  of  its  mutilations, 
for  from  July  to  August,  191 5,  the  Allies'  communi- 
ques usually  appeared  in  their  complete  form  in  the 
Brussels  Press.  What  is  more,  the  Kolnische  Zeitung 
itself  gives  the  text  of  these  communiques  in  a  form 
almost  free  from  falsification. 

Nevertheless,  numerous  articles  are  in  every  issue 
curtailed  by  the  scissors  of  the  censorship.     At  first 


8o      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

the  newspapers  used  simply  to  leave  blank  spaces  in 
place  of  the  mutilations.  But  the  reader  was  thereby 
warned  of  the  omission,  a  thing  the  Germans  could 
not  allow.  They  therefore  had  published  in  Brussels, 
for  the  use  of  the  muzzled  dailies,  two  typewritten 
journals:  Le  Courrier  beige,  "all  of  whose  articles 
have  passed  the  censorship,"  and  the  Hollando- 
Belge  (sic),  which  enjoys  the  same  prerogatives. 
The  emasculated  newspapers  are  required  to  cut 
plasters  from  these  of  an  area  sufficient  to  hide  the 
amputation. 

Here  is  another  example  of  what  is  left  of  a  text 
after  the  censorship  has  run  amuck  through  it: 

German  Science. 

Gonus  mendacio  natum 

One  would  never  make  an  end  of  unmasking  the  system 
of  reticence  and  falsehoods  by  which  the  German  Govern- 
ment endeavours  to  mislead  Belgian  opinion.  The  system 
is  always  undergoing  development,  and  occasionally,  alas, 
finds  a  lamentable  complicity  among  those  who  yesterday 
called  themselves  our  countrymen. 

Here  is  a  fresh  example:  I  have  before  me  two  yellow- 
covered  volumes  printed  at  No.  32,  Rue  Van-Schoor, 
Brussels,  and  entitled:  "History  of  the  War  of  1914-1915, 
from  the  official  documents." 

Such  a  title  is  a  promise,  a  pledge  of  honour  ...  in  coun- 
tries devoid  of  Kultiir.  But  the  book  is  authorised  by  the 
Imperial  Government,  and  who  says  "German  censorship" 
says  "falsification."  The  documents  of  the  Central  Powers 
are  reproduced  faithfully  and  completely  (at  least,  we  sup- 
pose so).  As  for  the  documents  of  the  Allies,  let  the  reader 
judge,  from  this  example,  taken  from  among  a  hundred, 
what  happens  to  them  in  such  a  publication. 

We   have   here   the   well-known   report    of    Sir   Edward 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      8i 

Goschen,  one  of  the  most  important  diplomatic  documents 
of  the  war.    Let  us  compare  it  with  the  garbled  version : 


The  Garbled  Text. 


The  Authentic  Text. 


(Historic  de  la  Guerre, 
I.,  p.  206,  et  seq.) 


I     found    the    Chancellor 
visibly  disturbed. 


His  Excellency  said  the 
decision  of  His  Britannic 
Majesty  was  terrible. 


England  is  kindling  war 
between  two  sister  nations 
which  at  bottom  could  only 
desire  to  live  at  peace.  All 
our  efforts  have  been  in 
vain. 


What  you  are  doing  is  un- 
imaginable; you  are  like  a 
man  who  attacks  from  behind 
one  who  is  already  struggling 
with  two  assailants. 

I  protested  vigorously 
against  his  arguments. 


I  found  the  Chancellor  very 
agitated.  His  Excellency  at 
once  began  a  harangue,  which 
lasted  for  about  twenty  min- 
utes. He  said  that  the  step 
taken  by  His  Majesty's  Gov- 
ernment was  terrible  to  a  de- 
gree ;  just  for  a  word — "neu- 
trality," a  word  which  in  war 
time  had  so  often  been  disre- 
garded— just  for  a  scrap  of 
paper,  Great  Britain  was  go- 
ing to  make  war  on  a  kindred 
nation  who  desired  nothing 
better  than  to  be  friends  with 
her.  All  his  efforts  in  that  di- 
rection had  been  rendered  use- 
less by  this  last  terrible  step, 
and  the  policy  to  which,  as  I 
knew,  he  had  devoted  himself 
since  his  accession  to  office 
had  tumbled  down  like  a 
house  of  cards.  What  we  had 
done  was  unthinkable ;  it  was 
like  striking  a  man  from  be- 
hind while  he  was  fighting  for 
his  life  against  two  assailants. 

I  protested  strongly  against 
that  statement,  and  said  that, 
in  the  same  way  as  he  and 


82      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

Herr  von  Jagow  wished  me 
to  understand  that  for  strate- 
gical reasons  it  was  a  matter 
of  life  and  death  to  Germany 
to  advance  through  Belgium 
and  violate  the  latter's  neu- 
trality, so  I  would  wish  him 
to  understand  that  it  was,  so 
to  speak,  a  matter  of  ''life 
and  death"  for  the  honour  of 
Great  Britain  that  she  should 
keep  her  solemn  engagement 
to  do  her  utmost  to  defend 
Belgium's  neutrality  if  at- 
tacked. That  solemn  compact 
simply  had  to  be  kept,  or  what 
confidence  coidd  any  have  in 
engagements  given  by  Great 
Britain  in  the  future  f  The 
Chancellor  said:  "But  at 
what  price  will  that  compact 
have  been  kept?  Has  the 
British  Government  thought 
of  that?"  I  hinted  to  his  Ex- 
cellency as  plainly  as  I  could 
that  fear  of  consequences 
could  hardly  be  regarded  as 
an  excuse  for  breaking 
solemn  engagements,  but  his 
Excellency  was  so  excited,  so 
evidently  overcome  by  the 
news  of  our  action,  and  so 
little  disposed  to  hear  reason 
that  I  refrained  from  adding 
fuel  to  the  flame  by  further 
argument. 

The  rest  of  the  account  of  the  interview  is  in  keeping 
with  this,  but — and  here  there  is  a  descent  into  the  ridiculous 
— although  Sir  Edward  Goschen's  story  of  the  scrap  of  paper 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      83 

is  omitted,  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg's  miserable  attempt 
at  refutation  is  reproduced  in  extenso,  on  p.  465  of  the  second 
volume. 

And  this  is  how,  during  the  last  thirteen  months,  the 
"final"  history  of  the  war  is  being  written  across  the  Rhine. 
Falsification,  like  everything  else,  is  organised  in  military 
fashion.  Does  a  document  deserve  any  more  consideration 
than  a  treaty? 

(Lo  Libre  Belgique,  No.  49,  October,  19 15, 

p.  2,  col.  I.) 

How  do  the  ''Belgian"  newspapers  bear  the  muzzle? 
An  article  from  La  Belgique  (a  censored  paper  pub- 
lished in  Brussels)  reproduced  and  commented  upon 
by  URclio  beige,  of  The  Hague,  will  inform  us: 

One  Ray  Nyst,  a  journalist  by  profession,  publishes  in  a 
daily  paper  printed  in  the  occupied  country  some  facts  relat- 
ing to  the  censorship.  It  will  be  as  well  not  to  forget  these  in 
the  hour  of  victory.  We  shall  not,  of  course,  take  the 
trouble  to  discuss  M.  Nyst's  opinion,  but  it  is  as  well  that 
our  readers  should  take  note  of  it: 

"The  censorship !  A  terrific  business  !  From  a  distance, 
what  a  bugbear !  Close  at  hand,  it  is  nothing.  Have  you 
never  had  in  your  hands  any  of  those  debauched  (sic)  and 
pseudo-patriotic  lampoons  which  are  published  under  a 
cloak?  These  writings  which  circulate  dangerous  and  provo- 
cative appeals  (is  it  to  La  Libre  Belgique  that  M.  Nyst  is 
addressing  himself?)  contrary  to  all  sentiments  of  rectitude, 
and  which  are  the  very  negative  of  the  evolution  of  justice 
and  of  the  Hague  Conference?  These  are  the  newspapers 
which  would  have  reason  to  fear  the  censorship ! 

"In  the  case  of  an  honest  sheet  which  dares  to  come  into 
the  open,  the  German  censorship  follows  the  rules  of  all 
censorship,  national  or  foreign.  The  Government,  voluntary 
or  imposed,  is  always  the  judge  of  the  expediency  of  allow- 
ing this  or  that  item  of  news  of  a  political  or  military  order 
to  be  known  or  otherwise.  International  law  and  the  con- 
ferences are  agreed  upon  this  point.     And  common  sense, 


84      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

too !  The  censorship  does  not  create  newspapers  nor  scien- 
tific treatises;  the  censorship  imposes  nothing;  it  erases,  sup- 
presses; it  modifies  nothing,  corrects  nothing,  adds  nothing. 
The  censorship  constitutes  part  of  the  machinery  of  public 
order,  whose  occupant  is  obliged  to  keep  on  the  alert,  in 
conformity  with  the  Hague  Conferences." 

And  further  on: 

"This  question  of  the  censorship  is  in  reality  of  wider 
significance  than  the  letter  which  raises  it.  My  desire  is 
not  to  defend  the  censorship.  I  have  sought  to  show  that  a 
press  and  editors  possessed  of  judgment,  equity,  education, 
and  the  ability  to  control  their  tongues  retain  a  sufficiency  of 
independence  under  the  censorship  system." 

"Give  me  a  line  from  no  matter  what  article,"  said  Machin, 
"and  I  will  undertake  to  get  its  author  condemned!" 

Here  are  more  than  thirty  lines  of  M.  Ray  Nyst's.  They 
are  enough  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  his  neutrality!  and  to 
judge  is  to  condemn ! 

(U^cho  beige,  i6th  October,  1915.) 


The  same  M.  Ray  Nyst  published  in  the  Brussels 
La  Belgique  for  September,  191 5,  a  series  of  articles 
urging  the  Belgian  workers  to  place  themselves  at  the 
service  of  the  German  Army.  One  can  hardly  believe 
that  a  Belgian  could  propria  motii  write  such  enormi- 
ties; so  let  us  be  generous  to  M.  Nyst,  and  suppose 
that  he  allowed  his  hand  to  be  forced. 

Our  enemies,  for  that  matter,  do  not  scruple  to 
insist  upon  the  insertion  of  articles  in  newspapers  of 
doubtful  repute.  One  cannot  doubt,  for  example,  that 
the  dithyrambics  addressed  to  the  Military  Governor 
of  Namur  were  forced  upon  UAmi  de  VOrdre,  a 
Namur  newspaper  which  is  also  sold  in  Brussels. 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      85 

How  the  Emboches^  Newspapers  are  Useful  to  the 

Germans. 

"UAmi  de  VOrdre"  pays  its  respects  to  His  Excellency  von 
Hirschberg. 

L'Ami  de  VOrdre,  which  continues  to  appear  at  Namur 
under  the  control  of  the  German  authorities,  published,  a 
few  days  ago,  the  following  paragraph: 

"His  Excellency  Baron  von  Hirschberg,  Military  Governor 
of  the  fortified  place  and  province  of  Namur,  to-day  enters 
upon  his  sixty-first  year. 

"Our  mutual  positions  do  not  permit  us  to  address  the 
fitting  good  wishes  and  congratulations  to  the  representative 
of  the  occupying  authority,  but  we  do  not  think  that  we  are 
failing  in  any  of  our  duties  or  any  of  our  convictions  in 
recognising  that  to  the  exercise  of  the  high  office  which  he 
has  filled  here  for  more  than  a  year,  he  has  brought  good- 
will, tact,  and  delicacy.  Under  his  government  those  sensa- 
tional incidents  which  has  disturbed  other  provinces  have  in 
our  district  been  few  and  far  between. 

"We  hope  that  the  present  situation  will  come  to  an  end 
as  soon  as  possible,  but  as  long  as  it  lasts  we  shall  hope  that 
Herr  Baron  von  Hirschberg  will  still  continue,  in  the  future, 
a  system  of  justice  and  tolerance  in  our  city  and  our  province, 
which  have  suffered  so  greatly  in  the  horrible  world-war." 

One  must  read  and  re-read  this  passage  in  order  to  ap- 
preciate its  unspeakable  platitude.  What  delicious  wording, 
what  delightful  euphemisms !  His  Excellency — our  mutual 
position — high  office — good-will,  tact,  delicacy — sensational 
incidents — system  of  justice  and  tolerance — everything  is 
genuinely  touching  in  this  masterpiece,  which  does  not  even 
utter  the  name  of  Germany. 

We  ask  ourselves  if  we  are  dreaming  when  we  reflect  that 
the  journal  which  wreathes  garlands  for  the  representative 
of  the  Kaiser  is  published  at  Namur,  at  a  distance  of  a  few 
paces  from  the  ruins  heaped  up  by  the  Boches,  at  a  distance 

^  An  untranslatable  pun  Emhoche  means,  of  course,  Ger- 
manised; embauche  means  hired,  tampered  with,  enticed 
away,  enlisted. — (^r.) 


86      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

of  a  few  miles  from  Dinant,  Andenne,  and  Tamines,  three 
towns  which  by  themselves  witnessed  the  massacre  of  more 
than  a  thousand  inoffensive,  when  one  remembers  that  this 
paper  owes  its  past  prosperity  to  a  clergy  thirty  members  of 
which  were  shot  and  more  than  two  hundred  maltreated,  as 
their  Bishop  has  testified. 

This  is  what  is  printed  in  UAmi  de  VOrdre,  imposed  as  the 
official  gazette  upon  all  the  communes  of  the  horribly-ravaged 
provinces  of  Namur  and  Luxemburg. 

Reproduced  in  the  German  Press,  articles  like  these  will 
serve  as  an  argument  against  the  unfortunate  inhabitants 
of  the  Namur  district,  and  against  all  the  Belgians.  For  we 
have  not  learned  that  Namur  has  escaped  the  fresh  monthly 
contribution  of  40,000,000  francs  which  has  been  imposed 
upon  Belgium;  on  the  contrary,  we  reproduced,  the  other 
day,  three  long  columns  of  penalties  inflicted  for  the  most 
futile  reasons — or  the  most  patriotic — upon  a  host  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Namur  district. 

All  this  does  not  prevent  the  editors  of  UAmi  de  VOrdre 
from  proclaiming  that  the  government  under  which  the 
province  of  Namur  is  existing  is  a  system  of  justice  and 
toleration.  .  .,  . 

The  rare  Belgian  newspapers  which  have  reappeared  under 
the  German  censorship  had  to  justify  themselves  by  declar- 
ing that  they  were  necessary  to  cheer  and  encourage  the 
population,  and  that  they  would  never  write  a  line  which 
could  injure  the  Belgian  cause. 

We  see,  by  the  example  of  UAmi  de  VOrdre — and  many 
other  examples  might  be  mentioned — how  the  K.  K.  journals 
conform  with  this  programme.  If  they  praise  the  German 
authorities  so  highly,  it  is  because  they  have  need  of  protection 
against  the  popular  indignation.  We  are  not  very  confident 
that  they  are  so  anxious  as  they  profess  "that  the  present 
situation  should  come  to  an  end  as  quickly  as  possible." 

{Le  XX^  Siecle,  30th  January,  1916.) 

Despite  the  severity  of  the  censorship,  facetious  per- 
sons succeed  in  inserting  in  the  "Belgian"  newspapers 
articles   whose   significance  is   not   perceived  by  the 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      87 

Germans.     Here  is  an  acrostic  which  surreptitiously 
found  its  way  into  the  pages  of  UAmi  de  I'Ordre: 

La  Guerre.^ 

Ma  soeur,  vous  souvient-il  qu'aux  jours  de  notre  enfance, 

En  lisant  les  hauts  faits  de  I'histoire  de  France, 

Remplis  d'admiration  pour  nos  freres  gaulois, 

Des  generaux  fameux  nous  vantions  les  exploits? 

En  nos  Ames  d'enfants,  les  seuls  noms  de  victoires 

Prenaient  un  sens  mystique,  evocateur  des  gloires; 

On  ne  revait  qu'assauts,  et  combats :  a  nos  yeux 

Un  general  vainqueur  etait  I'egal  des  dieux. 

Rien  ne  semblait  ternir  Teclat  de  ces  conquetes; 

Les  batailles  prenaient  des  allures  de  fetes, 

Et  nous  ne  songions  pas  qu'aux  hourras  triomphants, 

Se  melaient  les  sanglots  des  meres,  des  enfants. 

Ah !  nous  les  connaissons,  helas,  I'horrible  guerre, 

Le  fleau  qui  punit  les  crimes  de  la  terre, 

Le  mot  qui  fait  trembler  les  meres  a  genoux, 

Et  qui  seme  le  deuil  et  la  mort  armi  nous. 

Mais  otl  sont  les  lauriers  que  reserve  I'Histoire 

A  celui  qui  demain  forcera  la  victoire? 

Nul  ne  les  cuillera:  les  lauriers  sont  fletris: 

Seul  un  cypres  s'eleve  aux  tombes  de  nos  fils. 

{UAmi  de  I'Ordre,  29th  November,  1914.) 

The  consequences  were  grotesque.  Read  the  notice 
posted  on  the  walls  by  order  of  the  gentle  Baron  von 
Hirschberg: 

Warning  to  the  Public. 

UAmi  de  VOrdre,  the  only  newspaper  which  has  received 
the  authorisation  to  appear  in  Namur,  has  dared  to  publish, 

^  The  solution  of  the  acrostic — Merde  pour  les  Allemans — 
may  be  translated  "Blow  the  Germans !"  This  is  an  inter- 
pretation which  will  not  bring  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  the 
schoolgirl,  being,  in  fact,  that  given  by  the  school  diction- 
aries.— (Tr.) 


88      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

in  its  edition  of  the  29th  November,  on  the  first  page,  and 
precisely  in  the  spot  reserved  for  the  communications  of  the 
German  authority,  a  poem  which  is  an  insult  and  an  outrage 
to  the  German  nation. 

I  express  my  indignation,  and  confronted  by  sentiments 
as  craven  as  they  are  scandalous,  I  order: 

1.  That  the  publication  of  L'Ami  de  VOrdre  is  sus- 
pended. 

2.  That  the  issue  in  question  must  be  destroyed;  who- 
soever shall  be  found  in  possession  of  a  copy  will  be 
prosecuted. 

3.  That  the  manager  and  editor  be  arrested. 

4.  Judicial  proceedings  are  being  taken;  the  guilty 
will  suffer  the  severest  penalties  in  conformity  with 
martial  law. 

5.  It  is  forbidden  until  a  further  date  to  distribute  or 
sell  non-German  newspapers,  and  this  applies  to  the 
entire  fortified  position  of  'Hamur. 

6.  I  require  the  whole  population  of  Namur  to  de- 
nounce to  me  the  guilty  persons,  and  to  bring  to  my 
knowledge  any  serious  suspicion,  such  as  might  lead  to 
the  arrest  of  the  guilty  persons  who  place  a  whole  popu- 
lation in  danger. 

Baron  von  Hirschberg, 
Lieut enant-General  and  Governor  of  the  fortified  posi- 
tion of  Namur. 
(Posted  at  Namur,  the  3rd  of  December,  1914.) 

But  on  the  8th  of  December,  L'Ami  de  VOrdre  was 
authorised  to  reappear;  the  Germans  had  too  great 
a  need  of  this  journal,  which  enabled  them  to  spread 
false  news  amid  the  population  of  Namur.  When  we 
say  that  the  Germans  permitted  it  to  reappear  we  are 
doubtless  making  a  mistake;  we  ought  to  say  that 
they  forced  it  to  reappear,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  editors  of  this  journal  published  it  under  constraint. 
They  themselves  admitted  as  much  only  in  the  issues 
for  the  7th  of  October  and  the  6th  of  November, 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      89 

1914.^  However  this  may  be,  in  the  issue  which  fol- 
lowed suspension  UAmi  de  I'Ordre  humiliated  itself 
with  all  desirable  compunction. 

The  reader  need  not  be  surprised  that  the  Germans 
should  force  the  Belgian  newspapers  to  appear.  Here, 
says  La  Metro  pole,  quoted  by  La  Belgique  (of  Rotter- 
dam), is  what  happened  at  Ostend: 

On  the  25th  of  May,  MM.  Elleboudt  and  Verbeeck,  di- 
rectors respectively  of  the  newspapers  Le  Littoral  (Catholic) 
and  L'Rcho  d'Ostende  (Liberal),  who  had  been  invited  to 
republish  their  journals  under  the  German  censorship,  but 
had  firmly  refused,  were  sentenced  for  insubordination  to  the 
German  authority,  M.  Elleboudt  to  three  months'  and  M. 
Verbeeck  to  two  months'  imprisonment. 

{La  Belgique,  Rotterdam,  27th  June,  1916,  p.  2,  col.  2.) 

Nothing  better  demonstrates  the  crawling  servility 
of  these  journals  than  their  attacks  upon  those  who 
permit  themselves  to  differ  from  them  in  opinion.  It 
will  be  enough  to  quote  an  article  which  appeared 
in  Le  Bruxellois  (an  ''independent  daily")  as  the  sub- 
title informs  us. 

Our  Pseudo-Patriots. 

A  certain  pseudo-patriot  is  spreading  certain  calumnies 
in  the  district  of  Dinant  respecting  Le  Bruxellois  and  its 
correspondent.  The  hypocrite  bases  his  criticism  simply 
upon  this:  The  newspapers  now  appearing  in  Belgium  are 
all  sold  to  the  enemy  {sic)  .  .  .  and  I  am  acting  as  corre- 
spondent to  these  "lying"  sheets   {resic).  .  .  . 

Is  this  enlightened  "patriot"  certain  that  he  has  nothing 
upon  his  conscience?  For  the  rest,  he  is  alone  in  "thinking" 
in  this  fashion;  for  the  whole  population  of  Dinant,  since  the 

^  See  "Belgians  under  the  German  Eagle,"  p.  15. 


90      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

commencement  of  the  occupation,  is  convinced  that  the  few 
newspapers  which  have  not  ceased  to  appear,  and  those 
which  have  since  seen  the  light,  have  rendered  great  and 
real  services  to  the  Belgian  people,  by  facilitating  the  rela- 
tions between  the  population  of  the  province  and  the  authori- 
ties, by  reanimating  the  commercial  life  of  the  country,  and 
above  all  by  clipping  the  wings  of  those  ridiculous  canards 
which  used  to  fly  over  the  country. 

This  over- interested  maker  of  black-lists  is  subject  to  the 
immediate  application  of  a  recent  decree,  and  deserves  to  be 
punished.  He  will  do  well  not  to  forget  this  any  further; 
otherwise,  we  shall  remind  him  of  it. 

(Le  Bruxellois,  13th  October,  1915.) 

The  decree  with  which  the  writer  threatens  his  critic 
is  worded  thus: 

Decree  Relating  to  the  Repression  of  Abuses  Com- 
mitted to  the  Prejudice  of  Persons  of  Germanophile 
Sympathies. 

Art.  I. — Whosoever  shall  attempt  to  prejudice  other  per- 
sons in  respect  of  their  pecuniary  situation  or  their  economic 
resources  (for  example,  their  livelihood)  by  inscribing  their 
names  on  black  lists,  by  threatening  them  with  certain  dis- 
advantages or  by  resorting  to  other  means  of  the  same  kind, 
because  these  persons  are  of  German  nationality,  maintain 
relations  with  Germans,  or  give  proof  of  Germanophile  feel- 
ing, is  liable  to  a  term  of  imprisonment  of  not  more  than 
two  years*  duration  or  a  fine  not  exceeding  10,000  marks. 
The  two  penalties  may  be  inflicted  concurrently. 

Whosoever  insults  or  maltreats  another  person  for  one  of 
the  above-mentioned  reasons  is  liable  to  the  same  penalties, 
as  are  all  who,  by  threatening  certain  injuries  or  resorting  to 
other  analogous  procedures,  attempt  to  prevent  another  per- 
son from  displaying  Germanophile  feelings. 

If  one  of  the  reprehensible  actions  mentioned  in  the  first 
and  second  paragraphs  is  committed  in  common  by  several 
persons  who  have  concerted  to  that  end,  each  member  of  such 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM      91 

a  group  will  be  regarded  as  infringing  this  decree.  In  this 
case  the  maximum  penalty  may  be  increased  to  five  years' 
imprisonment. 

Art.  2. — Infractions  of  the  present  decree  will  be  led  by 
the  military  courts. 

Brussels,  the  4th  September,  1915. 

The  Governor-General  in  Belgh    i, 

Baron  von  Bissing, 
General-Colonel. 

Let  us  mention  two  further  facts  which  give  evi- 
dence of  the  abject  character  of  our  domestic  journals. 
On  the  death  of  the  greatly  lamented  Emile  Waxweiler 
the  censored  newspapers  gave  an  account  of  his  life 
and  occupations  as  Director  of  the  Institute  of 
Sociology  and  Professor  in  the  University  of  Brussels; 
they  spoke  of  his  works  and  his  Extension  Lecttires; 
but  of  all  that  he  accomplished  during  the  war,  not  a 
word:  his  two  books,  La  Belgique  neiitre  et  loyale 
and  Le  Proces  de  la  Neiitralite  beige  were  not  even 
mentioned;  a  silence  all  the  more  significant  in  that 
these  books  were  extremely  well-known  in  Belgium, 
the  first  having  even  been  reprinted  in  that  country 
(see  p.  10). 

Finally — the  last  degree  of  degradation — Le  Briixel- 
lois  publishes  daily  the  names  and  addresses  of  young 
men  who  are  suspected  of  having  crossed  the  frontier 
in  order  to  enrol  themselves  in  the  Belgian  Army. 


In  addition  to  the  newspapers  which  declare  them- 
selves to  be  free  from  any  dealings  with  the  enemy — 
and  which  are  consequently  the  most  dangerous — there 
are  some  which  are  directly  inspired  or  edited  by 


92      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

the  creatures  of  Germany.  We  will  mention,  among 
the  daily  papers  on  sale  in  Brussels:  U Information, 
De  Gazet  van  Brussel,  Het  Vlaamsche  Nieivws  (Ant- 
werp), De  Vlaamsche  Post  (Gand).  La  Libre  Bel- 
gique  (Nos.  45  and  46)  has  given  some  information 
relating  to  the  last-named  journal  (more  commonly 
known  as  De  Vlaamsche  Pest). 

This  journal  succumbed  in  the  spring  of  19 16: 
probably  from  auto-intoxication. 

Here  is  an  interesting  detail  relating  to  the  German 
newspapers  which  are  published  in  French  and  in  the 
guise  of  Belgian  journals.  By  a  decision  given  on  the 
25th  of  June,  191 5,  the  Court  of  First  Instance  (Brus- 
sels) declared  that  ''there  are  no  longer,  at  the  present 
time,  any  Belgian  journals  in  Belgium,  as  the  news- 
papers appearing  since  the  foreign  occupation  under 
the  German  censorship  cannot  lay  claim  to  this  title." 
The  decision  was  reproduced  in  full  by  La  Libre  Bel- 
gique  (No.  35) ;  but  the  latter  journal  had  already 
commented  upon  it  in  No  34. 

There  are  no  longer  any  Belgian  Newspapers  in 

Belgium. 

The  Court  of  First  Instance  (Brussels),  in  reply  to  a 
litigant  who  requested  that  a  decision  should  be  inserted  in 
the  "Belgian"  newspapers,  has  just  proclaimed:  "There  are 
no  longer  any  'Belgian'  newspapers  in  Belgium";  since  the 
German  occupation  the  papers  which  appear  daily  in  this 
country  do  not  deserve  the  title.^ 

^  This  article,  which  reaches  us  at  the  last  moment,  is 
necessarily  incomplete.  This  decision,  important  from  more 
than  one  point  of  view,  was  preceded  by  some  remarkable 
"whereases."  La  Libre  Belgique,  which  does  venture  to  claim 
the  title  of  "Belgian"  newspaper,  is  disposed  to  make  an  ex- 
ception in  this  case  to  the  rule  which  it  has  set  itself,  not  to 


THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM   93 

Justly  decided,  and  expressed  in  excellent  terms.  But 
what  will  these  worthy  joMrnals  say  which  have  accepted 
the  censorship  of  the  German  authorities,  and  have  become 
its  slavish  instruments?  We  wager  that  they  will  not  on 
this  account  cease  to  flood  the  country  with  their  interesting 
issues.  Must  they  no  longer  put  away  their  handsome  thou- 
sand franc  notes?  As  for  serving  the  patriotic  cause,  this  is 
assuredly  the  least  desire  of  the  editors  of  these  lamentable 
newspapers.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  they  do  an  enormous 
amount  of  harm,  for  they  deceive  the  country  as  to  the 
reality  of  events.  The  German,  Austrian,  and  Turkish  com- 
muniques display  themselves  with  their  well-known  com- 
plaisance, while  the  communiques  of  the  Allies  are  falsified 
and  mutilated  in  such  a  way  as  to  remove,  as  far  as  possible, 
any  favourable  symptoms.  What  is  to  be  said  of  the  "ten- 
dencious"  articles,  the  skilfully  presented  news,  the  lying 
passages  by  means  of  which,  deliberately  and  heedless  of 
the  evil  they  do,  these  conscientious  journalists  exert  them- 
selves to  sow  discouragement  and  error? 

A  fine  task,  in  truth !  These  gentlemen  are  playing  an 
unspeakably  contemptible  part;  their  productions  should  be 
spurned  and  placed  upon  the  index  by  all;  they  will  not  in 
any  case  lose  anything  by  writing,  and  we  promise  them,  on 
the  day  of  approaching  liberation,  a  masterly  cleaning  up. 

(La  Libre  Belgique,  No.  34,  July,  1915,  p.  3,  col.  2.) 

Is  Germany  ashamed  to  allow  foreigners  to  see 
what  she  has  made  of  our  domestic  journals?  In 
any  case,  their  export  was  forbidden  after  November, 

1915: 


accept  advertisements,  and  to  insert  the  judgment  of  the 
Court  in  extenso  as  a  "judicial  separation."  (For  conditions, 
apply  to  our  offices  at  the  usual  hours.)  If,  contrary  to  all 
expectation,  our  journal  had  not  the  honour  of  this  insertion 
we  should  find  ourselves  compelled  to  place  before  our  readers 
the  decision  as  our  reporter  took  it  down  at  the  trial. 


94      THE  SECRET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

It  is  Decreed — 

By  order  of  the  German  General  Government  the  following 
restrictions  will  immediately  enter  into  force  as  regards  the 
sending  by  post  of  newspapers,  reviews,  books  and  music. 

The  sending  by  post  of  newspapers  is  authorised  within  the 
limits  of  the  General  Government,  and  to  destinations  in  the 
neutral  countries  hitherto  admitted  to  the  postal  service  with 
Belgium;  Denmark,  Luxemburg,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
Sweden  and  Norway,  only  under  the  following  conditions: 

(a)  If  the  package  is  sent  by  the  publisher  or  printer  of 
the  journal  or  review  in  question;  (6)  If  the  parcels  are 
addressed  to  the  German  authorities,  or  to  German  officers 
or  officials,  if  they  are  despatched  by  the  latter. 

No  other  packages  of  journals  or  reviews  can  be  sent 
through  the  post  within  the  limits  of  the  General  Government. 

All  exchanges  of  books  or  music  with  the  above-mentioned 
neutral  countries  are  also  prohibited. 

For  correspondence  with  Germany  and  the  countries  allied 
to  Germany — Austria-Hungary,  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and 
Turkey — no  changes  have  been  introduced.  Consequently 
newspapers,  reviews,  printed  books,  and  music  may  still  be 
despatched  to  these  countries  without  any  restriction.  Simi- 
larly, the  newspapers  sent  to  postal  subscribers  are  not  in  any 
way  affected  by  the  above-mentioned  restrictions,  whether 
as  regards  the  postal  service  in  the  interior  of  Belgium  or  the 
postal  service  between  Belgium  and  other  countries. 

The  remarkable  thing  is  that  Germany  is  ashamed 
to  betray  the  fact  that  she  is  ashamed.  This  decree, 
in  effect,  does  not  frankly  forbid  the  despatch  of  news- 
papers through  the  post.  The  package  must  be  sent 
by  the  publisher  or  the  printer.  But  as  it  is  im- 
possible to  subscribe  to  these  journals — no  condi- 
tions as  to  subscription  being  indicated  in  their  pages 
— you  v^ill  perceive  that  this  amounts  to  an  absolute 
prohibition. 

Let  us  further  remark  that  from  March,  191 6,  one 


*      •  <       •  1  • 

•    »      •  •    • 


••»*  ••«* 


«     «  * 

•  •••••    ' 


>  >   '■».'• 


THE  SECRET  Jp.RE§S "  1^*  'BBLDIUM      95 

could  readily  obtain,  in  Brussels,  a  so-called  indepen- 
dent Belgian  newspaper — La  Belgique  Independante, 
published  in  Geneva.  Its  sale  was  authorised  in  Bel- 
gium by  the  Germans,  and  the  German  Press  across 
the  Rhine  frequently  used  to  borrow  from  it.  This 
twofold  castigation  is  more  than  enough ;  we  need  not 
further  overwhelm  it.  La  Belgique  Independante 
ceased  to  appear  in  May,  19 16. 

Several  German  newspapers  which  profess  to  be 
Belgian  help  to  further  the  German  propaganda  abroad. 
Thus  the  German  authorities  see  to  it  that  De  Gazet 
van  Brussel  is  regularly  introduced  into  Holland.  As 
for  the  Bruxellois,  which  is  gratuitously  despatched 
into  Switzerland,  it  is,  in  that  country,  an  object  of 
general  disgust  (see  U Impartial  de  Delemont,  ist  June, 
19 1 6,  quoted  by  U£cho  beige,  15th  July,  19 16). 

4. — Dutch  Newspapers  Allowed  to  Enter 

Belgium 

We  also  receive  a  few  Dutch  newspapers  whose 
Germanophilia  constitutes  a  perfect  guarantee.  The 
most  widely  read,  and  that  which  was  the  first  to  be 
permitted  to  enter  Belgium,  is  the  Nieuwe  Rotter- 
damsche  Courant.  But  even  this  often  contains  articles 
which  the  Belgians  cannot  be  allowed  to  read,  and 
these  issues,  which  are  precisely  the  most  interesting, 
are  held  up  by  the  censorship. 

Thus  there  are  every  month  some  ten  or  twelve 
issues  which  cannot  be  distributed  in  Brussels.  More- 
over, in  April  and  May,  191 5,  a  number  of  issues 
which  were  passed  for  sale  were  mutilated  by  the 
censorship.     On  the   loth  of  May,   for  example,  a 


96      THE  SEC:RET  PRESS  IN  BELGIUM 

telegram  was  rendered  illegible ;  it  appeared  in  column 
3,  page  2,  sheet  B,  of  the  morning  edition.  Here 
is  the  translation  of  the  lines  blacked  out  by  the 
censorship: 

Chlorine. 


\  London,  9th  May  (Reuter^s  Agency).  The  "Eye-witness" 
(  at  the  British  Headquarters  (in  France  and  Flanders)  give? 
in  his  latest  description  of  the  recent  operations  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Ypres  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  a 
Prussian  officer  was  taken  prisoner,  and  then  led  behind  the 
lines,  where  a  handful  of  British  soldiers,  placed  hors  de 
combat  by  asphyxiating  gases,  lay  at  the  point  of  death, 
making  painful  efforts  to  breathe.  The  Prussian  officer 
stopped,  burst  out  laughing,  and  pointing  to  the  men  out- 
stretched upon  the  ground,  asked :  "How  do  you  like  that  ?" 
"Eye-witness"  terminates  his  narrative  as  follows:  "The 
sight  of  comrades  poisoned  by  the  gas,  groaning  and  writh- 
ing in  pain,  twisted  with  agony,  like  poisoned  vermin,  has 
produced,  among  the  British  troops,  an  exasperation  which, 
let  us  hope,  will  be  shared  by  the  whole  United  Kingdom; 
it  will  ensure  that  we  shall  not  rest  before  we  have  obtained 
complete  satisfaction  from  those  who  are  responsible  for 
these  horrors." 

Is  it  now  clear  why  the  Belgians  feel  the  need  of 
non-censored  newspapers  ? 


The  End 


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