Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. More Days in Antwerp
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
244 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
is only the poor and the less well-to-do bourgeoisie who have
to remain.
As regards the town itself, it is true that the stranger would
notice that the theatres were closed and that a German
sentry was posted outside the Palais de Justice and other
public buildings. But he would have seen no signs of destruc-
tion, no smoking ruins, no naked walls black with soot and
smoke. The population of Brussels remained perfectly quiet
when the Germans entered. There were no ambushes and there
was no firing from windows. Therefore all the houses remain
untouched and the town has been spared the fate which over-
took Louvain and Dinant. And the population acted wisely.
They would never have been able to inflict an appreciable
check on the Germans, but would, on the contrary, have
suffered enormous economic losses. The war requisition of
fifty million francs imposed upon the town would in case of
resistance have been multiplied over and over again.
I could not refrain from making another inspection of
Antwerp, more thorough than the preceding ones.
Antwerp ! The city of the dead ! Loulan, the desert city,
given over to destruction and oblivion when the sea of Lop-
nor wandered southward, was not harder hit than Antwerp.
For have not the oceans retired and left high and dry this
great hub of commerce which not many days ago was in close
contact with all the earth’s continents and islands ! These
gigantic harbour installations now lay dead and idle, and there
was not even an apprentice to be found in all the twenty-two
ships which lay forgotten by the quayside when the blow fell.
The whole city was paralysed. One of the things I wanted to
see was whether in the course of the next few days there
would be any signs of an awakening from this torpor. Of
course, one realised that life in the harbour would remain
dead as long as the sea outside was full of mines, and would
not perhaps reawaken until the end of the war. But I thought
it possible nevertheless that the city itself might rouse itself
and that many of the unhappy fugitives who had fled across
the Dutch frontier would return.
So on the 15th October I started out for the third time for
Antwerp. I had been invited to join in an excursion, and we
drove out in five cars. I was with my friend General Bailer
and a couple of other officers. The participants included no
less a person than the Imperial Chancellor, Herr von Beth-
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
