- 'Eye-Witness at Antwerp'
- by J.M.N. Jeffries - Correspondent for the 'Daily Mail'
A British Reporter at Antwerp
British naval brigade in Antwerp
When war broke out the younger correspondents of newspapers were sent to the countries where fighting was not expected to be heavy. Mr. Jeffries, then a new member of the staff of the "Daily Mail," arrived in Brussels on August 3. 1914, and went back with the retreating Belgian Army to Antwerp.
October 5 was the last of Antwerp's hopeful nights, though courage kept up appearances on the following one. Everything really altered next day. By then our Naval Brigade had been reinforced to six thousand with fresh R.N.V.R. units, full of courage, but untrained and, as Mr. Churchill says, "incapable of manoeuvre." They were rushed to the front where, very soon, in the phraseology of communiqués, they were bristly engaged. How wonderful are these military expressions! "Briskly" - you would imagine that British and Germans had an alert wash-and-brush-up together. Though some of the R.N.V.R. till then had scarcely ever discharged rifles, they made good enough use of them. However, the Germans, forcing the river, got into shattered Lierre town. British and Belgians counter-attacked in the evening, drove the Germans back over the river. I went frontwards again, reached much the same position as on the previous day, and found the engagement much warmer.
As the hours advanced there were signs of breaking and disorder amid the troops. At some bifurcation or cross-point close to the front on the- Lierre road, Contich perhaps, or was it Linth ? - memory is not very precise about it - there was great confusion, jamming of vehicles to and from the front, rearing of horses and shouts, ambulances involved with ammunition wagons, cars all honking and screaming at each other, with the prospect of enemy shells landing at any moment in the midst of the disorder, and no one to direct, no one to disentangle the jumble which grew worse every minute.
No one, that is to say, till a man jumped from a car and, hoisting himself to vantage upon some unseen pedestal or other, began to cry out at the mob in Anglo-French, and to point with vigorous, imperative gestures to this or that centre of the maelstrom. He was a remarkable and in that place an inexplicable figure, clad in a flowing dark blue cloak, clasped at the neck with silver lionheads or something of that sort, after the fashion of the cloaks worn by prelates in Rome, and this cloak fell in great folds from his stretched oratorical arm. But there was purpose in his gestures, and power in his voice, and under his direction cars and carts were unlocked from each other, and the traffic gradually sorted into streams.
The car in which I was fell into its own channel and went past with the others, but as I looked back he was still at his post, poised like a statue, watching till the order he had created was installed with durable momentum. It was Mr. Winston Churchill.
I did not fail to mention this characteristic and valuable little piece of work, for valuable it was, in my telegram that evening. But all was forbidden appearance by the censors in London, even my identification in harmless pleasantry of the blue cloak (and I seem to remember there was a dark yachting-cap) as the active-service uniform of an Elder Brother of Trinity House. Its wearer must have been on his way then to confer, if he could reach him, with General Paris, who commanded the Naval Brigade, and was somewhere in action down Lierre way.
This brigade of Paris's held stubbornly to its rough-made positions. You could scarcely call these trenches ; they were only defensive troughs. The British Brigade, too, was in continual danger of being outflanked and so of being cut off, owing to the weakening of resistance on its left. Resistance, indeed, was ebbing most definitely. As I crossed the fields again, I was aware of troops dropping back, dropping back. Uncertain of my own situation, and obliged to keep away from the roads which were no places to linger near, I skulked about close to the railway-line behind hedges. Suddenly there came the blast of resounding fire from near at hand, and looking for the cause I saw an armoured-train, with guns en branche, steaming towards me. It halted, fired again. I ran towards it, and was obligingly hauled by a couple of Belgian officers who were standing at its open door into a goods-van or horse-van which formed the wooden tail of the metal train.
As I struggled in I saw the forms of some of our own sailors at the guns in the armoured trucks ahead. This train was an improvisation of an officer of the Royal Navy, ever at its most royal when ruling over difficulties. It had been assembled with the help of the Cockerill workshops in Antwerp. It was one of a pair, each bearing 4-7 naval guns in steel-plated trucks, with a couple of magazine-trucks attached, drawn by two engines. Lieutenant-Commander Littlejohns was its deviser and presided over one of his trains. The other was in charge of a Belgian, Captain Servais. Naval gunners manned both trains, assisted by Belgian volunteers.
These trains were, to say the least of it, widely known in defence circles, and had all sorts of names from "Le Rapide Leet-le-jaw" (i.e. Littlejohns belgice) to "le wagon-lit." Somehow they maintained a seafaring character; they cruised all over the threatened Lierre hinterland, firing away indefatigably at the enemy. What is more, they eluded him persistently, despite all his kite-balloons, Zeppelins and aircraft. As soon as the Germans had got their range Littlejohns or Servais would tack up the railway-line and watch interestedly the shells detonating over their recent berth. If any instrument of war can be light-hearted this train was. When I was dragged on board to the grins of the watching seamen I found that its Belgian officers and men had absorbed the communicative naval manner.
Army That Was Too Late
I stayed up most of the night. Earlier in the evening there had been another Council of War at the Royal Palace, and the determination had been reached to fight on. King Albert, Mr. Churchill records, "preserved an unalterable majesty" in the face of untoward fortune. Hope endured still that an Anglo-French force would reach Antwerp from the coast within three days, in time to raise the siege. Some of our troops had already massed for the purpose in maritime Flanders, but the decision, or perhaps the opportunity, to form this army had come just too late. Time was lost in the passage of notes between England and France, in the technical preparations of transport, and in various facings and frontings soon made necessary by the German army's movement at the northward end of its line.
So the situation rushed into crisis at Antwerp. Our last offensive was taken that afternoon by two Belgian regiments, who, at the bayonet's point, drove the Germans established on the near bank back across the Nethe. Part of the newly arrived Naval Brigade attacked at their side. But there was much confusion and a lack of coordination. I cull from the official history of the Marines during the war the acid statement that "there appear to have been present a number of unofficial staff-officers and politicians who attached themselves to the staff and gave orders to the troops." I do not think this is intended for Mr. Churchill, who as First Lord of the Admiralty could hardly be described as unofficial. If it were so intended it would be unjust, for he only gave orders when it was a question of his orders or of none at all and after he had conferred with General Deguise and had obtained his agreement and his leave.
In any case, this effort of the Belgians could not be renewed. The sweet fibre of Allied support drew out, thinned to spun-sugar and melted in the flames of burning Lierre, which I stood and watched from an hotel roof or some such eyrie. Towards midnight the Germans re-established themselves over the Nethe, crossing near the town, at Duffel, at many points.
They swam over ; they came with machine-guns in pontoons ; it was the swarm of definite occupation this time. The exhausted defenders fell back, fell away. Yet I remember that even in that final hour Antwerp showed a brave face. Some vain few hundred reinforcements marched that night through the streets ; I met them on my way to the "Pilotage" where headquarters were. They passed through the dark, unlit, blinded city to the sound of files, and thousands of cheering shadows came out to greet them.
I had returned before then towards Contich, to encounter wounded, stragglers and whole sections of fugitives. Artillery were cantering in with caissons and such equipment, but officerless and gunless, having lost commanders and pieces, answering enquiry about them, "Sais pas . . . ils sont allés fiche." It was a sort of rout.
The Germans were getting cavalry over the river (the river Nethe). Another fort, Broechem. fell. When its commander had taken it over he had found that if he were to open rapid fire, without intermission, there was but a quarter of an hour's supply of ammunition for his main armament and six minutes' supply for his flanking! The outer defence was non-existent now, and the Germans were attacking strongly at Termonde, to cut off all retreat over the Scheldt from the forces in Antwerp. The inner forts still remained, but they could do no more than the outer had done, and now Termonde in its need began to cry out for reinforcements.
King Albert held a last council and gave orders for the field-army to evacuate the city while the bridges over the Scheldt were still intact at Tamise and Hoboken, before the enemy could bring up his guns. He acted in the nick of time. Termonde was taken next day. But the army already had begun to withdraw through the corridor between Termonde and the Dutch frontier, and most of it made good its with- drawal before the Germans advanced across the three roads and two railway-lines of the corridor which led to Bruges or to Ghent. That night the members of the Government took ship for Ostend. Mr. Churchill went by motor through the corridor to the same town. Civilians left the city by the western roads or by the northern towards Holland in steady, melancholy streams.
armored train at Antwerp
At All Costs the Guns Must Do Their Work
The fierce onslaught of the German army on Termonde to cut off the line of retreat from Antwerp across the Scheldt, referred to in this page, was met with that stubborn determination to defend the Mother Country that the Belgian army had shown from the first moment that enemy soldiers crossed the frontiers. Termonde must be defended; the guns must have a clean sweep, so down comes this fine old arch.
The First Lord had to support, soon afterwards in England, very bitter attacks for his intervention, for his optimistic endeavour to save a hopeless situation, for his risking of British prestige. But he knew more about prestige than the whole pack of his critics. Their idea was to preserve prestige in a showcase, as though it were a museum- piece; he saw that prestige must be brought into use instantly, the moment the first great risk appears. The silk colours of regiments are placed in the cathedrals; prestige is the one banner left to the nation that can lead its soldiers into action.
The Only Man Who Tried
It is true that Mr. Churchill told the Burgomaster of Antwerp: "We are going to save the city," and failed to save it. But in Belgium he is remembered not as the man who failed but as the only man who tried to succeed. As for practical results, since the German forces did not occupy Antwerp till the 9th, six days were gained by his stand as against the earlier intended evacuation on the 3rd, during which time the western end of Belgium was sealed, Dunkirk protected from enemy occupation, and the sea was secured as the left flank of the Allied armies.
We quitted Antwerp between ten and eleven, a little group of five persons in the end. I had had to abandon my luggage, naturally, and it perished when later in the day the bombardment was resumed and my hotel was struck and set on fire. I had a few articles in a sort of emigrant's roll.
We walked past the shipping at our slow gait as though officially inspecting all that we owned there before it passed out of our possession. It was melancholy to see the quantity of vessels lying so trimly at their moorings, ready filed, as it were, for insertion in the prize-lists of the invader.
Away before us a stream of fugitives stretched to the village of Eeckeren, three miles beyond. To the right, over more bare country, flowed another great stream of mankind. Seen from afar this was so sombre and moved so little that it had the likeness of something cut deep into the soil, of some vast drain. From where we stood I could judge the hours which must pass before we ourselves made junction with it. The day would be growing dark before our united ooze of forlorn mankind could gain the woods next to Eeckeren, whence I could perceive even now a further deadwater of flight stretching to the region which lay about the frontier.
The number of those departing was so great that I gave no thought to estimating it. If huge crowds had fled the city I might have tried to reckon how many they were. But what I perceived now was not a mere escape or withdrawal of huge crowds. Departure was universal. Antwerp was like a box which had been opened and its population had fallen out of it.
Alexander Powell, the American correspondent, who saw the German entry into the abandoned city, describes that extraordinary scene, taken as from legend, with the regiments tramping in step and the bands playing through streets where there was no one left to watch or to listen, and the glass from the broken windows lay on the deserted footways.
Another writer at the time declared that only five thousand persons were left in Antwerp. Suppose he exaggerated and ten times that remained, what were they out of three hundred thousand?
The composition of the long array of fugitives, in the middle-distance, as I watched, where the outlines could just be distinguished of men and women, of laden vehicles and of animals, gave it the appearance of a nation upon the move. That appearance, too, answered to fact.
THE continual shrinking of Belgian territory because of the advance of the foe had forced the population from town to town, till in Antwerp to its own inhabitants there had come an influx drawn from all the sources of that small but thickly settled land. These were mostly those peasants and humble townsfolk who are their country's fundamental stock, and all unknowingly hold the recipe of its character. In Antwerp, more than in Brussels, the race had taken refuge. Now it was driven forth again and with its primitive belongings was plodding into exile. No wonder then that the unbroken press before me, wherein old-style chariots and improvised litters and herds were all mingled, made me think of the Israelites and of Exodus.
These thoughts soon were chased by my own difficulties of the moment.
With the ever-recurring recollection in my mind of the telegram which I must send somehow to London, I tried, with my companions, to progress through the throng about us. This was a scarcely conceivable task. The road on which we were may have been some fifteen yards across, from containing hedges on the right to the track on the left of one of those half-trams, half-trains which run along so many of the highways of Belgium. But this space in itself was broken up into a central breadth of pavé, hard and irregular to the foot with its innumerable stone-bricks, and two stone-edged paths on either side, three yards or so broad. It was further complicated by trees in the middle of the paths and by the twelve-inch drop from paths to pavé.
Trudging, Shambling Mob
If there had been an ordinary large crowd on this road it would have been excessively fatiguing to slip through it, veering about, changing level all the time, swerving under elbows, cutting in and out, knocking against the kerb or the iron rails - and to go on doing this for miles. But now that the road was filled with the flight, to penetrate it became exhausting in ten minutes, and after as much time I would abandon the effort and would drop into the step-by-step trudge of the throng, and would jerk, shamble and halt with everyone else, till again I felt equal to pushing through quarter-made gaps, to stumbling between cows and crooking at an angle round tree-trunks, only to be beaten once more by the exertion, to fall into my uneasy socket, and then to begin again and to fail and to re-begin.
All the time the afflictions of the route encompassed me. Most of the fugitives paced along sadly, their gaze on the ground or lost in the distance. Here and there were riders, bareback or on rough farm- saddles, limp-shouldered from their eternal jog, their heads as bent as their horses'. Enormous wagons occupied half the road, bearing twenty, twenty-five, thirty persons pent in a heap, girls huddled listlessly together upon heaps of bedding, aged brown women like shrunk walnuts, buried in shawls, children fitfully asleep, shaken and querulous, and babies crying interminably. There were no cars; no car could have stood the rate of progress without its driver going mad; and it was a poor people's march.
But there were bicycles with shapeless, angular or bloated bundles fixed to them, protruding on either side of the wheels, lolloping insecurely, or else slung and ever slipping and calling for readjustment; and some had a little child tied to the saddle, pushed by its patient father on and on, stop and go, stop and go, endlessly. Perambulators, too, were filled with children, and with children on whom clothes and linen had been piled because of need of space, or who were a little older and could manage to carry clocks or boxes in their arms. Sons wheeled old fathers along in wheelbarrows, and strong men were carrying (for how long?) chairs slung from their shoulders in which daughters or wives, ill or with child, sat gripping the arms of the chair rigidly. Led horses with household goods strapped to their backs or even bearing hen-coops as panniers made their heavy way along.
All such issued from the mass of plodders, of men leaning on sticks, of couples arm-linked for support, of families irregularly strung out; mixed with whom again was a surf and an undersurf of domestic beasts, clogging every pore of progress; bevies of wretched hoof- weary baa-ing sheep; dogs barking distractedly; bellowing cattle in droves. To their din was joined the exasperating, ceaseless jingle and twang of the bells of city cyclists, who, until towards dark they learned sense or learned hopelessness, were for ever making yard-starts, turning a pedal once, ringing violently - as though there were any chance of way being made for them there ! - subsiding awkwardly on to one leg, colliding with walkers, or with dogs which yelped at the impact.
Weeping As They Walked
Some of the legions of dogs dragged little carts ; others trotted cowed between the wheels of a wagon; others were bunched upon its straw- piled top with cats and goats and with three or as many as four generations of a family.
Numbers of women cradled cats in their arms, and I walked awhile alongside two who carried between them a sort of laundry-bundle out of the top of which peeped the head of a pathetic little wastrel of a pup. The bundle swung back and forth; the women cried silently as they walked. A couple of others had a cat, swinging similarly, but in a curtain tied or sewn about it, from which the miaowing cat kept trying to wriggle away.
The awful slowness of movement wore out the soul. Hundreds upon hundreds gave up, flung themselves down by the roadside or formed camps amid the trees by the border, so that the roadway became twice congested and the moving flood was dammed in long delays.
As I had reckoned only too well, evening came on while we were still in its midst. The campers pulled boughs from the trees and kindled fires, and as we came up out of the darkness and approached each fire I saw the sleepers lying side by side and over upon each other, stacked near the warmth ; in their midst a seated figure or two, hands collapsed in lap, face dumb with perplexity and with the wrong of everything, gazing unregardfully at the multitude which went swaying into the further darkness beyond.
About then individuals here and there began to light lanterns, and candles also, both because of the obscurity and because many had brought the blessed candles which they kept in their homes to be lit on feast-days, or in any emergency. Now, therefore, with their candles held in their hands, they passed on twinkling like a pilgrimage, as though in this extremity they had turned their steps finally towards the one sure bourne of God.
Their state, of course, had worsened with the lengthening day, through growth of fatigue and through want of food. Perhaps half of them had brought food with them, but what they had brought they had generally shared lavishly, so that no one had eaten much at all. Water to quench the thirst occasioned by the heat of the morning and by the turmoil and the dust was still harder to come by. An extraordinary sight stays in my mind still, seen when I had struggled forward to learn the cause of a long halt in the ranks. In mid - roadway was a group of women, all clothed in black, leaning humped together, as the old masters draw women at the foot of the Cross, and moaning in unison like Jews under the walls of Jerusalem, crying: "Donnez-nous a boire! Sainte Vierge, donnez-nous a boire!"
Sometime in the evening we reached the frontier of Holland, ten miles away ... I dispatched my telegram, an outline of the day's events.
