Golden Lads | Page 5

helped to hold the Nieuport section, the
last northern point of the Allied line. When they entered the fight at
Melle in October, 1914, our corps worked with one of their doctors,
and came to know him. Later he took charge of a dressing station near
St. George. Here one day the Germans made a sudden sortie, drove
back the Fusiliers for a few minutes, and killed the Red Cross roomful,
bayoneting the wounded men. The Fusiliers shortly won back their
position, found their favorite doctor dead, and in a fury wiped out the
Germans who had murdered him and his patients, saving one man alive.
They sent him back to the enemy's lines to say:
"Tell your men how we fight when you bayonet our wounded."
That sudden act of German falseness was the product of slow, careful
undermining of moral values.
One of the best known women in Belgium, whose name I dare not give,
told me of her friends, the G----'s, at L---- (she gave me name and
address). When the first German rush came down on Belgium the
household was asked to shelter German officers, one of whom the lady
had known socially in peace days. The next morning soldiers went
through the house, destroying paintings with the bayonet and wrecking
furniture. The lady appealed to the officer.

"I know you," she said. "We have met as equals and friends. How can
you let this be done?"
"This is war," he replied.
No call of chivalry, of the loyalties of guest and host, is to be listened
to. And for the perpetrating of this cold program years of silent spy
treachery were a perfect preparation. It was no sudden unrelated horror
to which Germans had to force themselves. It was an astonishing thing
to simple Belgian gentlemen and gentlewomen to see the old friendly
German faces of tourists and social guests show up, on horseback,
riding into the cities as conquerors where they had so often been
entertained as friends. Let me give you the testimony of a Belgian lady
whom we know. She is now inside the German lines, so I cannot give
her name.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF A GERMAN SPY NEAR COXYDE
BAINS, BELGIUM.
He had a deep gun foundation, concealed by tiling, motors, hydraulic
apparatus--a complete fortification inside his villa.
[This photograph would have been better if it had not been developed
in the ambulance of one of the American Field Service, but it shows the
solid construction of the hidden flooring, the supporting pillars, one of
the motors and one of the gas pipes.]]
"When the German troops entered Brussels," she states, "we suddenly
discovered that our good friends had been secret agents and were now
officers in charge of the invasion. As the army came in, with their
trumpets and flags and goose-stepping, we picked out our friends
entertained by us in our salons--dinner guests for years. They had
originally come with every recommendation possible--letters from
friends, themselves men of good birth. They had worked their way into
the social-political life of Brussels. They had won their place in our
friendly feeling. And here they had returned to us at the head of troops
to conquer us, after having served as secret agents through the years of
friendly social intercourse."

After becoming proficient in that kind of betrayal the officers found it
only a slight wrench to pass on to the wholesale murder of the people
whose bread they had eaten and whom they had tricked. The treachery
explains the atrocity. It is worth while to repeat and emphasize this
point. Many persons have asked me, "How do you account for these
terrible acts of mutilation?" The answer is, what the Germans did
suddenly by flame and bayonet is only a continuation of what they have
done for years by poison.
Here follows the testimony of a man whom I know, Doctor George
Sarton, of the University of Ghent:
"Each year more Germans came to Belgian summer resorts;
Blankenberghe, for instance, was full of them. They were all very well
received and had plenty of friends in Belgian families, from the court
down. When the war broke out, it immediately became evident that
many of these welcomed guests had been spying, measuring distances,
preparing foundations for heavy guns in their villas located at
strategical points, and so on. It is noteworthy that this spying was not
simply done by poor devils who had not been able to make money in a
cleaner way--but by very successful German business men, sometimes
men of great wealth and whose wealth had been almost entirely built up
in Belgium. These men were extremely courteous and serviceable, they
spent much money upon social functions and in the promotion of
charities, German schools, churches and the like; they