WATCHING ON THE RHINE
WATCHING ON THE RHINE
WATCHING ON THERHINECHAPTER ITHE APPROACHJuly 1919
WATCHING ON THERHINE
July 1919
Four a.m.: the slowly moving engine comes to a standstill with a jolt which wakes me from the uneasy half-sleep of a train journey. I lift a corner of the blind and look out. It is the grey hour before the dawn, when night still wrestles with morning for the possession of the coming day. A ruined building lit up by a station flare stares at me stark and desolate. In the quarter light a long street of battered houses is also dimly visible. Lille! We have come through the worst of the devastated area in the night, but the hall-mark of the invader lies stamped on the big industrial town, the very name of which is associated henceforth with suspense, with anguish, with triumph. The military train begins to move again cautiously over temporary bridges and a permanent way not as yet permanently repaired. We are far removed from the days when continental expresses and sleeping-cars swept in a few hours from one capital to another. The miracle is to be in this slow-movingtrain at all which links the British base in France with the occupied German area. Ruined houses look in through the window, phantom buildings of which nothing but the outer walls remain. Yet, as I strain my eyes in the dim light, I see something else; something which was not visible when I last visited a devastated area in March—here and there a house already rebuilt, stacks of bricks neatly piled, rubbish sifted and cleared, stones laid in order for the mason’s hand. Yes, there has been “cleaning up” during the last five months—the most tragic cleaning up which can ever befall a nation. And clearly France, with her amazing energy and recuperative powers, has already flung herself into the task of repairing the desolate places. It is a grim and mighty task which awaits our Ally.
Stricken though the towns, the land, desolate, barren, uncultivated, has a pathos all its own. As we move ever eastwards and the dawn comes up in the sky, the nakedness of the fields invaded by coarse grass and weeds symbolises the sufferings of France. But in the growing light evidences appear in the fields of the same brave spirit which is reclaiming the towns. Here and there a half-destroyed farmhouse has been patched up, and a thin cloud of smoke rises from the battered chimney. Across the silent fields a team of horses is being led out to work; a woman drives out her cows or is seen surrounded by clamorous poultry. France may be sorely wounded, but the spirit of France cannot be destroyed. France, for all her losses, has hope in her heart, and amid the desolation of war, hope, like some beautiful flower, blossoms once again.
Eastward, always eastward, for we are bound throughthe lands of the conquering victim to those of the humbled oppressor. With every mile the visible signs of war grow less, though houses and buildings along the railway show marks of gunfire long after the land has regained its normal aspect. First and last, districts through which the railways pass have suffered most both in advance and retreat; a fact to which the scarred stations bear witness.
By the time the sun is shining brightly we have passed beyond the outer fringes of desolation and are again in a prosperous-looking land. The sight of Maubeuge recalled many an anxious moment during the great German invasion of 1914. Outwardly the town appeared to have suffered but little. As we crossed the Belgian frontier a general view of the country as seen from the carriage windows conveyed the same impression. The soil was well cultivated, the houses in good order. There are no evidences of the presence of a hostile army beyond the occasional destruction of a bridge blown up during the German retreat. The spiritual yoke of an enemy occupation for four and a half years must have been intolerable, but material damage was clearly confined to the first and last days of the war. And Belgium has the matter in hand. She is at work, working, working all the time. From countless buildings the Belgian flag waving in the sunshine proclaimed the glad tidings of a land released from its invaders and restored to its original place among nations. The little valleys of the Ardennes, the factory chimneys of Liège, seem at one in telling the same tale of liberty regained. There is an indescribable air of gaiety among the people on the roadside, a sense of laughter and merry-making. Aerschot, Dinant, Louvain would, of course, tell a different tale, but in southernBelgium it would seem that the grip of the invader was of a different quality from his strangle-hold on France.
Still eastward, and now with a thrill of indescribable emotion we find ourselves at Herbesthal, the German frontier. Before us in the sunshine lie the broad fertile plains of the people whose rulers have deluged the world with blood and tears. One remembers with bowed head the many million lives laid down before we handful of British folk could journey thus far into the country of the enemy who had challenged our very existence. With the memory of shattered and devastated France before our eyes, we think with sternness no punishment can be too severe in expiation of the crime under whose consequences the world is staggering to-day. A train-load of German prisoners, homeward bound, runs into the station. They cheer, not very loudly or energetically, it is true, but nevertheless they cheer as once again they touch the soil of the Fatherland. From the windows we catch sight of eager, excited faces among the shabby men in their faded uniforms. Insensibly the heart softens. They too have gone through hardship and suffering, just ordinary men glad to be home again, eager to see wife and child and sweetheart. And then, as the train rolls forward, suddenly on the threshold of the enemy’s land comes the remembrance of those noble words, one of the few great utterances which illumine the darkness and the passions of war, “Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness in my heart.”
The hands of brutal men could not touch the serenity of Edith Cavell’s soul. On the threshold of a cruel death her spirit had soared above the hideous welter of passion and brutality all around. She saw these things inthe light of eternity; saw also the ultimate good of life express itself, not in the narrow terms of race, but in abiding spiritual values. The demand for vengeance which followed on her death has to a large extent obscured the greatness of her message. Yet Edith Cavell indicated expressly that vengeance was not the way. No individual during the war has thrown a ray of light more clear on the turmoil of the struggle. But the path she trod is not an easy one, and many who honour her name shrink from a task of self-conquest so great as what she indicates.... No hatred and no bitterness: and we are English people crossing the German frontier for the first time after the war.... What has Edith Cavell to say to each one of us?
Aix-la-Chapelle—Aachen—with its memories of Charlemagne, King of the Franks, lies some ten miles within the German frontier. Few outward signs of its venerable history survive in the busy manufacturing centre of to-day. The cathedral, founded by Charlemagne, where the ashes of the great monarch lie buried, rises—an incongruous and protesting relic—among factories, tall chimneys, and all the ugly apparatus of modern industry. Aachen is in Belgian occupation, and we stare from our carriage windows at a mixed throng of Belgian soldiers, British Tommies, and German civilians, with whom the station is crowded.
It is a little difficult to express in words the conflict of feelings in your mind as you enter Germany. You are certainly prepared for something dramatic. It is almost with a shock you realise that German civilians are not equipped with hoofs and horns or other attributes of a Satanic character. After all, they look just like anyone else: tidy, well-dressed, self-respecting people—the typical German crowd of old days. But certainly you expected to see some outward and visible signs of military occupation, apart from the familiar sight of khaki soldiers; visions of a Germany bristling with guns; of burgomasters and high officials walking about with halters, actual or metaphorical, round their necks; of a sullen, conquered people casting looks of hatred on conquerors who move among them in no small peril of their lives. If such is the anticipation, it proves to be ludicrously remote from the reality. The outstanding fact in the occupied territory, and one which fills an English visitor with ever-growing amazement, is the complete acquiescence of the Germans in the situation. Life is astonishingly normal. Khaki soldiers have replaced grey-coated soldiers. Otherwise everything seems to go on exactly as before. These amazing people, outwardly at least, do not appear to mind that their country is occupied by hostile armies. The Germans on the Aachen platform were moving about and talking in a placid, undisturbed manner. Their indifference to the British and Belgian soldiers appeared to be absolute. A picture rose before my eyes of an English station occupied by German troops: would equal apathy and indifference have been shown under such conditions? In this as in many other respects the German psychology is a riddle to which no answer seems forthcoming, and it is a riddle the perplexity of which will be found to deepen with every hour spent in the occupied territory.
Between Aachen and Cologne the train runs through a district rich in natural resources, both mineral and agricultural. We pass many large factories of modern constructionin which, thanks to smoke-saving apparatus, the dirt of our own industrial districts has been avoided. Those factories are not idle. It is true not every large chimney is smoking, but some chimneys in every group show that work is going on. The Rhineland industries are to a large extent independent of imported material, and the activities in this district cannot be taken as an index to the rest of Germany. Similarly with the soil. Agricultural experts tell us that taken as a whole the soil of Germany is naturally poor. Only immense scientific care and attention made it possible in pre-war days for the land to yield 85 per cent. of the nation’s food. But here in the Rhineland the quality of the crops must strike the most casual traveller. With the thin English harvest in mind, I can only marvel at these bumper crops—the thick yellow corn, the potatoes, the roots, the mealies, the general impression of agricultural prosperity. The land is in perfect order. Every twig looks as though it had been put in splints. Whatever else has suffered, prisoners’ labour, or labour of some kind, has kept the land clean and in order. Compare the large areas of devastation in France with this fat, smiling country bearing no visible signs of any kind of war, and the bitterness in many French hearts seems very natural. It is difficult to associate stories of want and starvation with a rich country like this. Yet it was quite clear that at the last Germany was brought to her knees by hunger. The surface impression of prosperity in one particular district may be misleading—the reality may prove on closer acquaintance to be of grimmer stuff!
Already a hundred questions beset my mind as Cologne Cathedral comes into sight. There is something typicallyGerman about the unwieldy appearance of the Kölner Dom crowned with its preposterous spires. Many years had passed since I was last in Cologne. As the line ran through the clean, well-built suburbs, I remembered vaguely an hotel on the Dom Platz, and a general impression of tall, robust men drinking beer and eating large meals. From a dusty shelf in memory’s cupboard came the recollection of some careless remark made to an English friend—I hoped there would never be war between England and Germany, because judging by the physique of the men, war with them would be no trifling affair....
The train has drawn up in the fine Haupt Bahnhof. Two W.A.A.C. administrators, courteous and businesslike, examine tickets and visas. A large German standing meekly, hat in hand, before the fair-haired English girl stamping his pass is eloquent as to some lessons taught by the Occupation. Amazing is the scene which breaks on the traveller on emerging from the railway station. Khaki-clad soldiers swarm in every direction. Soldiers, soldiers; they overflow the railway station, the square, the Hohenzollern bridge. The Dom rises grim and protesting from a sea of khaki. Government lorries lumber down the streets; the square in front of the Excelsior Hotel, where a modest Union Jack over the door proclaims the presence of G.H.Q., is crowded with cars. Every branch of the service is here in force. Uniformed women on whom the Boche gazes with peculiar annoyance are common. Selected W.A.A.C. administrators are carrying on responsible work of various kinds. Searching German women passengers whose clothes are found to bestuffed with sausages must have its humours as well as its drawbacks.
The W.R.A.F. is here as a force. Army nurses in red and grey and the blue of the V.A.D.’s vary the monotony of the prevalent mustard colour. Here and there one sees the blue headdress of a British Empire Leave Club worker, the girls who do much for the entertainment of Thomas Atkins in a foreign town. Y.M.C.A., Church Army, and half a dozen other organisations are all to the fore. Atkins must be a much-amused man with so many willing workers to cater for his needs. This is the Army of Occupation as it came up from the fields of victory over 200,000 strong. Large numbers of troops are quartered, not only in Cologne, but throughout the occupied area and the bridgehead. But demobilisation has already laid its hand on this great force. The sluices are drawn and civilian life will shortly reclaim the lads who crowd the town and area. It is a wonderful sight to have seen, a wonderful moment in history to have experienced. The German goes about his work in the middle of this English crowd apparently as unconcerned as his fellow-countrymen at Aachen and Düren. But what at heart is he thinking of it all? What actions and reactions are likely to result from this strange assembly of people thrown together by the compelling force of the sword on the banks of the Rhine?