Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts--and Behind Them | Page 4

path at the side for bicycles, between almost uninterrupted rows of low houses and tiny fields in which men and women both were working. Other carts like ours passed by, occasional heavy wagons drawn by one of the handsome Belgian draft-horses, and now and then a small loaded cart, owner perched on top, zipping along behind a jolly Belgian work dog--pulling as if his soul depended on it and apparently having the time of his life. Every one was busy, not a foot of ground wasted; a more incongruous place into which to force the waste and lawlessness of war it would be hard to imagine.
Past an old chateau, with its lake and pheasant-preserve; along the River Lys, with its miles of flax, soaked in this peculiarly potent water, now drying in countless little cones, like the tents of some vast Lilliputian army, and so at last into Courtrai.
It was like hundreds of other quaint old towns along the French and Flemish border, not yet raked by war, but motionless, with workmen idle, young men gone to the front, and nothing for people to do but exchange rumors and wait for the clash to come. I strolled round the old square and through some of the winding streets. One window was filled with tricolor sashes carrying the phrase: "Long live our dear Belgium! May God preserve her!"
On blank walls was this proclamation in parallel columns of French and Flemish:
Ville De Courtrai Avis Important a la Population Courtraisienne Stad Kortrijk Belangrijk Bericht aan de Kortrijksche Bevolking
I am about to make an appeal to your reason and your sentiments of humanity.
If, in the course of the unjust war which we are now enduring, it happens that French or Belgian troops bring German prisoners to our city, I beseech you to maintain your calm and dignity. These prisoners, wounded or not, I shall take under my protection, became I say that they are not really to blame for acts which they have been ordered to do under threat of cruel punishment.
Yes, I say I shall take them under my protection because my heart bleeds to think that they, too, have left behind those dear to them--an aged father, an old mother, a wife, children, sisters, or sweethearts whom separation has plunged into deepest anguish. Do not forget when you see these prisoners passing by, I beg of you, and permit yourself to shout at and insult them. Keep, on the contrary, the respectful silence appropriate to thinking men. Fellow citizens, if, in these grave and painful circumstances, you will listen to my advice, if you will recall that it is now thirty years that I have been your burgomaster and during all that time of hard work I have never asked a favor of you, I feel sure that you will obey my request and, on your side, you may be sure that my gratitude will not be wanting.
A. REYNAEKT, Burgomaster.
Although war had not touched Courtrai as yet, the rumor of it, more terrifying often than the thing itself, had swept through all Flanders. Along the level highways leading into Courtrai trooped whole families carrying babies and what few household things they could fling together in blankets. Covered wagons overflowed with men, women, and children. The speed with which rumor spread was incredible. In one village a group of half-drunken men, who insisted on jeering the Germans were put at the head of a column and compelled to march several miles before they were released. The word at once ran the length of dozens of highroads that the Germans "were taking with them every one between fifteen and fifty." I heard the same warning repeated on several of the roads about Courtrai by men and women, panting, red-faced, stumbling blindly on from they knew not what. Later, I met the same people, straggling back to their villages, good-naturedly accepting the jibes of those who had stayed behind.
A linen manufacturer who lived in the village of Deerlyck, not far from Courtrai, where German scouts had been reported, kindly asked me to come out and spend the night. For several miles we drove through the densely populated countryside, past rows of houses whose occupants all seemed to know him.
Women ran out to stop him and rattled away in Flemish; there were excited knots of people every few steps, and the heads kept turning this way and that, as if we were all likely to be shot any minute. We drove into the courtyard of the solid old Flemish house--a house in which he and his father before him had lived, with tiny rooms full of old paintings, garden, stable, and hothouse packed close in the saving Belgian fashion, and all as spick and span and shining as if built yesterday--and then into the street again.