Headquarters Nights - Kellog

8/8/2019 Headquarters Nights - Kellog

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THE LIBRARIES


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Headquarters Nights


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Headquarters NightsA Record of Conversations and Experiences

at the Headquarters of the GermanArmy in France and Belgium

By Vernon Kellogg

The Atlantic Monthly PressBoston


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Copyright, igiyTHE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC.FIRST PRINTING, SEPTEMBER, 1917SECOND PRINTING, OCTOBER, 1917


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CONTENTSPAGE

Biographical Note 7Foreword by Theodore Roosevelt 13The Headquarters of the Great General

Stafif 15Von Bissing's Headquarters 57A Belgian Record 105


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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTEVernon Kellogg graduated from the uni-

versity of his native state of Kansas in 1889.After winning his master's degree, he studiedat Cornell, and subsequently spent severalyears abroad specializing upon entomologyand biology at the University of Leipzig, andconsiderably later at the University of Paris.For the past twenty years, he has been aprofessor of entomology in Stanford Uni-versity, writing and lecturing on problems oflife in a multitude of its most interesting andextraordinary forms.

' Soon after the war broke out. ProfessorKellogg, pacifist and humanitarian by con-viction, obtained a furlough from his univer-sity and went abroad to devote himself to thealleviation of human suffering. It was notlong before he joined his friend of long stand-ing, Mr. Herbert Hoover, in the memorableenterprise of the Commission for the Reliefof Belgium, of which he has become the officialhistorian. In connection with this work of

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Headquarters Nightscivilian relief, it is worth recording that hiswife, Charlotte Hoffman Kellogg, was theonly woman member of that commission.Both Professor and Mrs. Kellogg spent theirstrength and energy to the utmost upon thecause; and in the years which preceded theinevitable intervention of the United States,it was Professor Kellogg's duty to serveduring considerable periods as a sort ofinformal ambassador of the C. R. B., both atthe Headquarters of the Great GeneralStaff and at the Headquarters of the GermanArmy of Occupation of Belgium. The uniqueopportunities given through this official yetintimate acquaintance with the German highercommand and with German civilians of im-portance are set forth in this little book, whichincidentally becomes an illuminating recordof the conversion of a reasoned pacifist intoa supporter of the great and necessary war.

In an article published in the AtlanticMonthly Professor Kellogg once gave a de-scription of the surroundings in which helived during those tense months. "TheGreat Headquarters," he wrote, "is quiet.The loudest sounds there come from the

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Headquarters Nightsplaying of children in the streets. In thelarger buildings of the town sit many officersover maps and dispatches. Telephones andtelegraph instruments, stenographers, mes-sengers, all the bustle of busy but quiet offices,are there. The General Staff, the GeneralQuartermaster's group, the General Intend-ant's department, scores, aye, hundreds, ofofficers, play here the war game for Germanyon the chessboard whose squares are bits ofEurope."The small gray town is another head-

quarters, too; it is the great headquarters ofall relief work that goes on in the North ofFrance. Here lives, by permission and ar-rangement with the German staff, the Ameri-can head of the neutral relief workhe andone other American who is the local head ofthe district including a hundred and fiftythousand people around the town. Theylive in a large comfortless house, and withthem two German staff officers as officialprotectors and friendly jailers. And they,too, are part of the neutral relief work, for noman can live with it and not become part ofit. It is too appealing, too gripping.

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Headquarters Nights"We had seven orderlies and two chauffeurs,

for we are provided with two swift gray mili-tary motors for our incessant inspecting.One of the orderlies is named cook, and hecooks, in a way. Another was a barber beforehe became corporal, which was convenient.And another blacked my shoes and beat myclothes in the garden with a rough stick andturned on the water full flow in our improvisedbath at a given hour each morning, so that Ihad to get up promptly to turn it off before itflooded the whole house.

*' Quite four nights of each seven in the weekthere were other staff officers in to dinner,and we debated such trifles as German Mili-tarismus, the hate of the world for Germany,American munitions for the Allies, submarin-ing and Zeppelining, the Kaiser, the Germanpeople."We were not all of one mind. 'Now all

keep still,' demands my officer, the Haupt-mann Graf W., 'and my American will tellus just what the Americans mean by GermanMilitarismus.*"They all kept still for the first ten wordsand then all broke out together

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Headquarters Nights'"No, we shall tell you what it is. Organ-

ization and obediencenothing more, noth-ing less. It is that that makes Germany-great. And it is that that you must come toif you would be a great nation.'

**I protested that I thought we are alreadya great nation.

^* ^Well, then,' they answered, 'if you wouldcontinue great. Otherwise you will smash.Democracy, bah! license, lawlessness, dis-ruption. Organize, obey,or smash.' Andthey believe it.When the actual distribution of Belgian

relief had passed out of American control,Professor Kellogg followed Mr. Hoover to hisnew patriotic work, and is now an importantmember of the organization which controlsthe distribution and influences the consump-tion of the food of one hundred millions of theAmerican people.

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FOREWORDOne of the most graphic pictures of the

German attitude, the attitude which hasrendered this war inevitable, is contained inVernon Kellogg's 'Headquarters Nights/It is a convincing, and an evidently truthful,exposition of the shocking, the unspeakablydreadful moral and intellectual perversion ofcharacter which makes Germany at present amenace to the whole civilized world.The man who reads Kellogg's sketch and

yet fails to see why we are at war, and whywe must accept no peace save that of over-whelming victory, is neither a good Americannor a true lover of mankind.

Theodore Roosevelt.Sagamore Hill,August 26, 1917.

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The Headquarters of the GreatGeneral Staff


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I

We do not hear much now from theGerman intellectuals. Some of the pro-fessors are writing for the German news-papers, but most of them are keepingsilent in public. The famous Ninety-three are not issuing any more proclama-tions. When your armies are movingswiftly and gloriously forward under thebanners of sweetness and light, to carrythe proper civilization to an improperlyeducated and improperly thinking world,it is easier to make declarations of whatis going to happen, and why it is, thanwhen your armies are struggling for lifewith their backs to the wallof a Frenchvillage they have shot and burned to ruinfor a reason that does not seem so good areason now.

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Headquarters NightsBut some of the intellectuals still speak

in the old strain in private. It has beenmy peculiar privilege to talk throughlong evening hours with a few of thesemen at Headquarters. Not exactly theplace, one would think, for meeting thesemen, but let us say this for them: someof them fight as well as talk. And theyfight, not simply because they are forcedto, but because, curiously enough, theybelieve much of their talk. This is oneof the dangers from the Germans towhich the world is exposed: they reallybelieve much of what they say.A word of explanation about theHeadquarters, and how I happened tobe there. It wasit is no longer, andthat is why I can speak more freelyabout itnot only Headquarters butthe Great Headquarters Grosses Haupt-quartierof all the German Armies ofthe West. Here were big Von Schoeler,General-Intendant, and the scholarly-


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Headquarters Nightslooking Von Freytag, General-Quartier-meister, with his unscholarly-looking,burly chief of staff, Von Zoellner. Herealso were Von Falkenhayn, the Kaiser'sChief of Staff, and sometimes even theAll-Highest himself, who never missed theSunday morning service in the long lowcorrugated-iron shed which looked alltoo little like a royal chapel ever to inter-est a flitting French bomber.But not only was this small gray town

on the Meuse, just where the water poursout of its beautiful canon course throughthe Ardennes, the headquarters of theGerman General Staffit was also thestation, by arrangement with the staff, ofthe American Relief Commission's hum-ble ununiformed chief representative forthe North of France (occupied Frenchterritory). For several months I heldthis position, living with the Germanofficer detached from the General Quar-termaster's staff to protect meand

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Headquarters Nightswatch me. Later, too, as director of theCommission at Brussels, I had frequentoccasion to visit Headquarters for con-ferences with officers of the GeneralStaff. It was thus that I had opportunityfor these Headquarters Nights.Among the officers and officials ofHeadquarters there were many strongand keen German militaristic brainsthat goes without sayingbut therewere also a few of the professed intel-lectualsmen who had exchanged, forthe moment, the academic robes of theAula for the field-gray uniforms of thearmy. The second commandant of theHeadquarters town was a professor ofjurisprudence at the University of Mar-burg; and an infantry captain, who livedin the house with my guardian officerand me, is the professor of zoology in oneof the larger German universities, andone of the most brilliant of present-daybiologists. I do not wish to indicate hisperson more particularly, for I shall say

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Headquarters Nightssome hard things about himor abouthim as representative of manyand weare friends. Indeed, he was Privat-docentin charge of the laboratory in which Iv/orked years ago at the University ofLeipzig, and we have been correspondentsand friends ever since. How he cameto be at Headquarters, and at preciselythe same time that I was there, is a storywhich has its interest, but cannot be toldat present.Our house was rather a favored centre,

for 'my officer,' Graf W. he alwayscalled me 'my American,' but he couldno more get away from me than I fromhimis a generous entertainer, and ourdinners were rarely without guests fromother headquarters houses. Officers,from veteran generals down to pink-cheeked lieutenants, came to us andasked us to them. The discussions, be-gun at dinner, lasted long into the night.They sat late, these German officers, overtheir abundant wineFrench vintages

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Headquarters Nightsconveniently arranged for. And alwayswe talked and tried to understand oneanother; to get the other man's point ofview, his Weltanschauung.

Well, I say it dispassionately but withconviction: if I understand theirs, it is apoint of view that will never allow anyland or people controlled by it to existpeacefully by the side of a people gov-erned by our point of view. For theirpoint of view does not permit of a live-and-let-live kind of carrying on. It is apoint of view that justifies itself by awhole-hearted acceptance of the worst ofNeo-Darwinism, the Allmacht of naturalselection applied rigorously to humanlife and society and Kultur.

Professor von Flussenthat is nothis nameis a biologist. So am I. Sowe talked out the biological argumentfor war, and especially for this war.The captain-professor has a logicallyconstructed argument why, for the goodof the world, there should be this war,


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Headquarters Nightsand why, for the good of the world, theGermans should win it, win it completelyand terribly. Perhaps I can state hisargument clearly enough, so that othersmay see and accept his reasons, too. Un-fortunately for the peace of our evenings,I was never convinced. That is, neverconvinced that for the good of the worldthe Germans should win this war, com-pletely and terribly. I was convinced,however, that this war, once begun, mustbe fought to a finish of decisiona finishthat will determine whether or not Ger-many's point of view is to rule the world.And this conviction, thus gained, meantthe conversion of a pacifist to an ardentsupporter, not of War, but of this war;of fighting this war to a definitive endthat end to be Germany's conversionto be a good Germany, or not much ofany Germany at all. My 'HeadquartersNights' are the confessions of a convertedpacifist.

In talking it out biologically, we agreed23


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Headquarters Nightsthat the human race is subject to theinfluence of the fundamental biologic lawsof variation, heredity, selection, and soforth, just as are all other animalandplantkinds. The factors , of organicevolution, generally, are factors in humannatural evolution. Man has risen fromhis primitive bestial stage of glacial time,a hundred or several hundred thousandyears ago, when he was animal amonganimals, to the stage of to-day, alwaysunder the influence of these great evo-lutionary factors, and partly by virtueof them.But he does not owe all of his prog-

ress to these factors, or, least of all, toany one of them, as natural selection,a thesis Professor von Flussen seemedready to maintain.

Natural selection depends for its work-ing on a rigorous and ruthless strugglefor existence. Yet this struggle has itsameliorations, even as regards the loweranimals, let alone man.

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Headquarters NightsThere are three general phases of this

struggle :1. An inter-specific struggle, or the

lethal competition among different ani-mal kinds for food, space, and opportunityto increase

2. An intra-specific struggle, or lethalcompetition among the individuals of asingle species, resultant on the over-pro-duction due to natural multiplication bygeometric progression; and,

3. The constant struggle of individualsand species against the rigors of climate,the danger of storm, flood, drought, cold,and heat.Now any animal kind and its indi-

viduals may be continually exposed toall of these phases of the struggle forexistence, or, on the other hand, anyone or more of these phases may belargely ameliorated or even abolished fora given species and its individuals. Thisamelioration may come about througha happy accident of time or place, or

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Headquarters Nightsbecause of the adoption by the species ofa habit or mode of life that continuallyprotects it from a certain phase of thestruggle.

For example, the voluntary or involun-tary migration of representatives of aspecies hard pressed to exist in its nativehabitat, may release it from the too severerigors of a destructive climate, or take itbeyond the habitat of its most dangerousenemies, or give it the needed space andfood for the support of a numerous prog-eny. Thus, such a single phenomenonas migration might ameliorate any oneor more of the several phases of the strug-gle for existence.

Again, the adoption by two widelydistinct and perhaps antagonistic speciesof a commensal or symbiotic life, basedon the mutual-aid principlethousandsof such cases are familiar to naturalistswould ameliorate or abolish the inter-specific struggle between these two species.Even more effective in the modification

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Headquarters Nightsof the influence due to a bitter strugglefor existence, is the adoption by a speciesof an altruistic or communistic mode ofexistence so far as its own individualsare concerned. This, of course, wouldlargely ameliorate for that species theintra-specific phase of its struggle forlife. Such animal altruism, and the bio-logical success of the species exhibitingit, is familiarly exemplified by the socialinsects (ants, bees, and wasps).As a matter of fact, this reliance by

animal kinds for success in the worldupon a more or less extreme adoptionof the mutual-aid principle, as contrastedwith the mutual-fight principle, is muchmore widely spread among the loweranimals than familiarly recognized, whilein the case of man, it has been the greatestsingle factor in the achievement of hisproud biological position as king of livingcreatures.

Altruismor mutual aid, as the biolo-gists prefer to call it, to escape the impli-

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Headquarters Nightscation of assuming too much conscious-ness in itis just as truly a fundamentalbiologic factor of evolution as is the cruel,strictly self-regarding, exterminating kindof struggle for existence with which theNeo-Darwinists try to fill our eyes andears, to the exclusion of the recognition ofall other factors.

Professor von Flussen is Neo-Dar-winian, as are most German biologistsand natural philosophers. The creed ofthe Allmacht of a natural selection basedon violent and fatal competitive struggleis the gospel of the German intellectuals;all else is illusion and anathema. Themutual-aid principle is recognized onlyas restricted to its application withinlimited groups. For instance, it mayand does exist, and to positive biologicalbenefit, within single ant communities,but the different ant kinds fight desper-ately with each other, the stronger de-stroying or enslaving the weaker. Sim-ilarly, it may exist to advantage within

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Headquarters Nightsthe limits of organized human groupsasthose which are ethnographically, nation-ally, or otherwise variously delimited.But as with the different ant species,strugglebitter, ruthless struggleis therule among the different human groups.This struggle not only must go on, forthat is the natural law, but it should goon, so that this natural law may workout in its cruel, inevitable way the salva-tion of the human species. By its salva-tion is meant its desirable natural evolu-tion. That human group which is in themost advanced evolutionary stage asregards internal organization and form ofsocial relationship is best, and should, forthe sake of the species, be preserved atthe expense of the less advanced, theless effective. It should win in thestruggle for existence, and this struggleshould occur precisely that the varioustypes may be tested, and the best notonly preserved, but put in position toimpose its kind of social organizationits

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Headquarters NightsKulturon the others, or, alternatively^to destroy and replace them.This is the disheartening kind of argu-

ment that I faced at Headquarters;argument logically constructed on prem-ises chosen by the other fellow. Add tothese assumed premises of the Allmachtof struggle and selection based on it, andthe contemplation of mankind as a con-geries of different, mutually irreconcilablekinds, like the different ant species, theadditional assumption that the Germansare the chosen race, and German socialand political organization the chosentype of human community life, and youhave a wall of logic and conviction thatyou can break your head against but cannever shatterby headwork. You longfor the muscles of Samson.

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II

The danger from Germany is, I havesaid, that the Germans believe what theysay. And they act on this belief. Pro-fessor von Flussen says that this war isnecessary as a test of the German positionand claim. If Germany is beaten, it willprove that she has moved along thewrong evolutionary line, and should bebeaten. If she wins, it will prove thatshe is on the right way, and that the restof the world, at least that part which weand the Allies represent, is on the wrongway and should, for the sake of the rightevolution of the human race, be stoppedand put on the right wayor else bedestroyed as unfit.

Professor von Flussen is sure thatGermany's way is the right way, andthat the biologic evolutionary factors

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Headquarters Nightsare so all-controlling in determininghuman destiny, that this being biolog-ically right is certain to insure Germanvictory. If the wrong and unnaturalalternative of an Allied victory shouldobtain, then he would prefer to die in thecatastrophe and not have to live in aworld perversely resistant to natural law.He means it all. He will act on thisbelief. He does act on it, indeed. Heopposes all mercy, all compromise withhuman soft-heartedness. Apart from hishorrible academic casuistry and his con-viction that the individual is nothing, theState all, he is a reasoning and a warm-hearted man. So are some other Ger-mans. But for him and them the test ofright in this struggle is success in it. Solet every means to victory be used. Theonly intelligence Germans should followin these days is the intelligence of theGeneral Staff; the only things to believeand to repeat are the statements of theofficial bureau of publicity.

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Headquarters Nightstive. We were to take the conversationalcue from His Highness. The Comman-dant-professor of jurisprudence was there,and a casual baron or two, and variousHeadquarters officers.The duke entered, to find us a fixed

row of effigies, hands on trouser-seams,eyes front, chins up, in the receiving-room. His Highness was a small be-whiskered gentleman, very abrupt anddisconcerting in manner, but not atall stupid, and very ready to expresshis opinions on all subjects of war andchurch history, his hobby.As he surveyed the row of effigies his

keen eye spotted the ununiformed Amer-ican, and he directed a questioning looktoward Graf W., the host. My officermade a concise explanation of the situa-tion, which the duke acknowledged witha grunt of understanding and the sharpquestion,

'But does he speak German?'Graf W. hastened to declare, 'Wie34


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Headquarters Nightsein Eingehorener' like a nativewhichis far from true. Another grunt ofsatisfaction, a critical stare of examina-tion, and finally a direct phrase of formalrecognition. I reserved any exhibitionof my fluent German, and merely bowed.My officer gave me an expressive look ofapproval and found a later chance tocongratulate me on my 'success.* I sup-pose not being ordered out of the roommay be called success, under the circum-stances.

After giving the whole row a finallooking-over. His Highness mumbledsomething, whereupon an aide-de-campstepped briskly up, clicked heels, andheld out to him a small box containingseveral medals on yellow ribbons. Theywere the insignia of some minor order inhis duchy. He presented one to one ofthe barons, one to the Commandant-professor of jurisprudence, and one tomy officer's chief orderly, who acted ashouse barber and head waiter! The

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Headquarters Nightsbaron and professor had done their bestand deepest bowing, but when Miiller'sturn came, it was like morning gym-nastics in the bedroom. 'Touch toes tentimes with finger-tips, legs remainingunbent/ I fancied that the baron andprofessor became less satisfied with theirhonor, the more Muller waxed enthusi-astic. In fact, they did not put on theirorders immediately; Muller did. Finally,my officer got our barber to stop bowingthe duke wasn't even seeing himand we went into the dining-room.At dinner the personally conducted

conversation leaped suddenly from churchhistory to Zeppelining. It was just afterone of those earlier London raids, whenthe great city was practically defenseless,and the German newspapers had been fullfor several days of accounts of the enor-mous damage and losses of life achievedby the raid. As a matter of fact therewere some horrorsnot extensive butintensive horrors: women and babies in

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Headquarters Nightsthe blowing up of munition factories,and theahthe terror and thewell,the military advantage generally. Onemust not consider theahother sideof the matter. A fewahnon-combat-ants, perhaps, but the military advantage,that is the sole criterion.'

His Highness snorted audibly andvisibly.

'That is, of course, all that one doestake into consideration. It is preciselyand only because there is no militaryadvantage in Zeppelining that it is stupidand the men who order it are stupid pigs.We don't blow up any munition factories,and for every miserable woman killed,hundreds, aye, thousands of Englishmenrush into the army to come over to thefront and fight us. We are doing theirrecruiting for them. ' He fixed the squirm-ing recipient of his yellow ribbon with acold gray eye. We are all only thinkingof the military advantage. What are afewoh, pouf, why talk of it? My dear

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Headquarters Nightsbaron, I am perhaps as much a militaryman as you' (this was withering scorn;the baron was the Headquarters readerof foreign newspapers!), 'and I repeat:Zeppelining is bad, and it is bad simplyand entirely because it has no militaryadvantage.'That ended Zeppelining for the moment,

until unlucky Iwell, the very nextsubject introduced was the attitude ofthe neutral world, America in particular,toward Germany. The newspaper-read-ing baron suddenly turned to me.'Why is this universal hate of Ger-

many? Why do you Americans hate us?'It was too soon after what I had just

heard. I blurted out,'For things like the military advantage

of Zeppelining.'My officer gave a scrape and a lurch;something tipped over. Then he staredall of us staredat the duke. HisHighness did not order me to the firingsquad or even to the cells. He did noth-

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Headquarters Nightsing, said nothing, to show any displeas-ure. He looked steadily and thought-fully at me, and then gruffly indicatedhis pleasure that the company shouldrise from the table. My officer recov-ered his color and his equanimity.

I believe that His Highness knewthat answer all the time. But the restdid not, and they do not understand itnow. * Military advantage,' 'militaryexpediency'how often have thesephrases blocked us of the Relief Com-mission in our efforts in Belgium andNorth France! No mercy, no *wornen-and-children' appeals, no hesitation touse the torch and the firing squad, de-portation, and enslavement. And it isall a part of Professor von Flussen'sphilosophy; the pale ascetic intellec-tual and the burly, red-faced butchermeet on common ground here. Andthen they wonder why the world comestogether to resist this philosophyandthis butcheryto the death

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IllLate one afternoon we left Head-

quarters to dine with General von R.down near the Champagne front, Mr.Hoover, Chairman of the Commission,and Mr. White, of its London office,had come over to Brussels and on toHeadquarters for a conference in con-nection with our work in Northern Franceand so we were all to go with my officerand two or three other men of the GeneralStaff to receive this special attentionfrom a commanding general at the front.We made an imposing procession inthree big gray military cars runningswiftly to the south. As the general'schief of staff, who had come to Head-quarters to escort us personally, spokeno English and did not like to hearEnglish spoken, he took me alone with

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Headquarters Nightshim in his car. He was a taciturn, crustymajor, with a thin, stern face and tightlips.

His first remarks were certain directquestions about conditions in Londonand England. I could reply only that,if such questions were asked me inEngland about Germany or German-occupied territory, I would not answerthem. He did not like it, but after alittle bullying settled into moody silence,occasionally broken by curt remarks tome, and brutally put instructions to hissoldier chauffeur. It was evident thathe did not like the idea of his general'sshowing this high courtesy to the in-truding Yankees. It was not a pleasantexcursion for any of us, and yet it was abeautiful two hours' ride over smoothtree-lined roadsthe trees are mostlygone nowthrough picturesque countryof wide outlooks.

Just at dusk we climbed slowly up agentle hill-slope. As we reached the flat42


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Headquarters Nightssummit and sped along over it, onecould see the road stretching far ahead,a gently irregular white line dippingout of sight into a valley in front, butreappearing on the farther up-slope andrunning there straight away into invisi-bility. Just at the horizon, where thehilltop met the heavens and the roaddisappeared, the tower of a little churchsilhouetted itself against the darkeningblue of the evening sky.

'This is the road to Rheims,* mut-tered my companion. 'You can see itfrom that church.

I thrilled. The road to Rheims!Rheims just there in front, and a shellbursting over itover the Cathedral,saycould be seen from that littlechurch. I wanted to go right on alongthat white line to that hilltop.

Later I really did go there, and be-yond it even to the very verge of thesad city itself. There is an extraordinarylittle village of cellarsthe houses above

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Headquarters Nightsare mere stone-heapsjust behind theGerman trenches in front of Rheims.These cellars are occupied by two hundredand thirty-three women and girls, sixty-seven children, and four tottering oldmen, the total remaining population of aonce picturesque and crowded village.We wanted them to come away and behoused farther back from the line. Butthey prefer to live *at home.' And sowe have fed these women and childrenthere two years. They live in theircellars, with the shells moaning backand forth over them whenever there is'desultory artillery firing before Rheims.'As we were running swiftly over the

flat hill-summit with the long view infront of us, our driver, without beinginstructedand cursedby the major,suddenly slowed the car, and I noted themajor staring hard at a soldier's graveby the roadside. There had been hardfighting all about here and the graveswere numerous along the way. My

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Headquarters Nightscompanion turned abruptly to me, with athumb-jerk toward the grave.*He was my best friend,' he said

gruffly; and with another jerk to thefront, he added, 'And my brother liesunder the shadows of that church-tower there on the hill.'

I forgave him his gruffness.Arrived at the general's headquarters

in a French industrial town now half inruins, we walked by a stiff row of orderliesinto a spacious house, and were shownby other orderlies and a young lieutenantto an upstairs room to brush off the whitechalk-dust of the Champagne road. Myofficer had remained below. Suddenlyhe came into our room, excited and with aface of much concern. He told us swiftlythat a translation of President Wilson'slatest note, a short and sharp one, hadjust been telephoned to the general fromBerlin. And the general and everybodydownstairs were violently incensed. Hewondered whether one of us had not

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Headquarters Nightsbetter get suddenly ill, so that we shouldhave to go back at once without stayingfor dinner.This seemed absurd. We said that

the general could get ill and call off thedinner if he wanted to, but we shouldnot. Poor Graf W. ! He had beentrained to abuse his subordinates andcringe before his superiors, and it wasreally a horrible position for him; hefelt, in a way, responsible for his Yankees,and he wanted the occasion to go offpleasantly. However, we had not writtenthe note, or done anything except come,with no anticipations of pleasure, to eatdinner with the general! And so weinsisted on going down.

It was a strenuous meal, not becauseof an overabundance of things to eatit is a long time now since there hasbeen too much to eat in Germany, evenamong generalsbut because of thesituation. The general and his staffwere always polite, but never more than

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Headquarters Nightsthat. They were perfectly correct andperfectly reserved. We talked muchand said little. The general declared aninterest in 'caring for the people. * He wastrying to reestablish the industries ofthe region, he said. I had noted thestacks of two factories smoking as weentered the town. Such sights in Belgiumand North France have been unusual fortwo years, and attract attention. I saidwe were very glad to learn of his interest,and asked what the factories were. Heturned to the gentleman on his other side.But a less discerning young officer acrossthe table said theywere making corrugatediron. This is an article much used inand behind the trenches.There is also much cutting of trees

French treesand sawing of lumbergoing on in occupied France. Woodis also much used in the trenches. Andlarge herds of cattle are being pasturedin French pastures. They are Germancattle for the soldiers. The French cat-

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Headquarters Nightstie have long ago been eaten bythem.

I suppose all this is just war. Butwhen such things are given the colorbefore the world of 'restoring the indus-tries of the people,* the specific objectof this restoration should be told. Thebald truth is that Governor von His-sing's repeated declarations of rehabil-itating industries in Belgium, and thesimilar statements of the General Stafffor Northern France, are equivocations.What has been strongly attempted hasbeen a forced exploitation of the peoplefor German military advantage. It hasbeen resisted by the simple but braveand patriotic workingmen of the occupiedterritories with a success that seems in-credible in the face of the guns anddeporting trains all too familiar to them.It is true, as has been said in criticism ofthem, that the Belgians do not work.Theyhave littlework of theirown that theycan do, and they will not work for the

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Headquarters NightsGermans. That is one of the reasons forthe deportations, which have been, bythe way, one of the greatest of Germanblundersand brutalitiesin this war.But I must not write of Belgium now;Headquarters was in Northern France.

It was not all sticking at Headquar-ters. I traveledalways with my offi-cer, of courseup and down andacross and back over all of occupiedFrance; from Lille to Longwy, fromCoucy-le-Chiteau to Charleville. Forthe purposes of our ravitaillement theoccupied French territory is dividedinto six districts. These correspondedwith no political subdivisions of thecountry, as departements and arrofidisse-ments, but were determined chiefly bythe original disposition of the Germanarmies, each of which, having a certaindegree of autonomy as regards the regionoccupied by it, objected to any movementof French feeding committees and our own

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Headquarters NightsAmerican Commission representativesacross the borders of its own region.We had, therefore, six district ravitaille-ment centres, or headquarters, at each ofwhich were stationed one or two of ourrepresentatives, who moved about moreor less freely in his district, each with aspecially detailed German officer of hisown'nurses,' we called them. It wasmy privilege and duty as chief repre-sentative, and my officer's as chief ofthe officer group, to visit occasionallyeach of the districts.

We traveled by military motor, myofficer and I in the tonneau, and a sol-dier chauffeur and an orderly in thedriver's seat, each of them with a loadedMauser held erect in clamps by hisside. In each side-flap pocket of thetonneau was a loaded Browning. Wewere never shot at, nor did we evershoot at anybody, but the armamentgave the proper military tone to ourequipage. We ran frightfully fast, and

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Headquarters NightsI always had the uneasy feeling that Ishould find my finish in North France,not in a dramatic erasure by a strayshell or casual bomb from overhead,but in a commonplace motor smash-up.As it came out, the only casualtiesattending our 5000 or more kilometresof mad running were among the fewremaining half-fed chickens of the Frenchvillagers. We did once rather narrowlymiss being run over by the Crown Prince,who sat on the front seat with an orderly,and drove his own car like a hurricane.As he swerved slightly to miss us, heintrusted his lifeand oursto one ofhis hands, while with the other he gave usa d6bonnaire salute.

This extraordinary touring of NorthFrance came finally to get strongly onmy nerves. It is such a sad land; sucha wreck of half-destroyed villages andcrumbled farm-houses, of stripped wood-land and neglected fields. And thepeople: all women and children and old

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Headquarters Nightsand infirm men! And the meagerness ofthe food-supply, despite the best we coulddo! We meant much to these people,we eight or ten Americans moving aboutamong them; at least, they gave us un-mistakably to understand that we did.We represented the sympathy and en-deavor of a great nation far away. Cutoff as these imprisoned French are fromall communication with their fightingmen across the terrible trench-lines; cutoff even from communication with eachother, if only a few miles apart, weexemplified the freedom that still existedsomewhere, and the hope of the freedomto come to them again. And we meant,too, for them, the holding back of thespectre of actual starvation.The sights and the incidents of those

trips are too harrowing to exploit. Theyare untellable, intimate memories for us,but they went far in making us con-vinced and bitter believers that the onlycomprehensible answer to the German

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Headquarters NightsThere is, I suppose, a slight military

advantage in so maltreating and terri-fying a conquered land that only a few-elderly Landsturmers, scattered hereand there over it, are sufficient as anarmy of occupation. The rest of theLandsturmers can be used in the trenches.But it is a terrible priceof somethingto pay for this alleged military advantage.

I used to ask my officer about thesewrecked villages as we ran through them,or stopped to inspect a local distributingcentre, or watch a soup-line, or get areport, and always a piteous request,from a feeding committee. He had astereotyped reply: 'Punishment.*Tunishment for what?'Tor a civilian's shooting at a soldier;

or the village's harboring a spy; or afailure to meet a requisition ; or somethingor other.'He never knew exactly; nobody ever

knew exactly; and I do not know ex-actly. Not even with all the explana-

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Headquarters Nightstion from the captain-professor, whoexplained it on a basis of biologicalphilosophy. Nor with the explanationof the non-philosophizing fighters, whosimply said that it was necessary as amilitary advantage. Nor with the ex-planation of my officer, who, when Icontinued to press him, would make anugly screwing gesture with closed fist,which seemed to mean, *Just do it tothem!'

I went into Northern France and Bel-gium to act as a neutral, and I did actas a neutral all the time I was there. IfI learned there anything of militaryvalue which could be used against theGermans I shall not reveal it. But Icame out no neutral. Also I went in anardent hater of war and I came out amore ardent one. I have seen that sideof the horror and waste and outrage ofwar which is worse than the side re-vealed on the battlefield. How I hopefor the end of all war

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Headquarters NightsBut I have come out believing thatthat cannot come until any people which

has dedicated itself to the philosophyand practice of war as a means of humanadvancement is put into a position ofimpotence to indulge its belief at will.My conviction is that Germany is such apeople, and that it can be put into thisposition only by the result of war itself.It knows no other argument and it willaccept no other decision.

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Von Hissing's Headquarters


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I

Twenty years ago the Samoan Is-lands belonged to England, Germany,and the United States. The Gordianknot of trouble inevitably tied by sucha handling of Samoan affairs had its cut-ting hastened by the famous hurricane of1889, which piled up some men-of-war ofthe ruling nations on the vicious coralreefs of Apia harbor, and drove others insafety out to sea.This terrible common experience made

temporary friends of the struggling Eng-lish, German, and American sailors andSamoan boatmen, who had all been mu-tual enemies. It also helped to hasten thearrangementby which England exchangedher interests in Samoa for another SouthSea quid pro quo, and the four principalislands were divided between Germany

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Headquarters Nightsand America, two to each. The Ger-mans got Savaii with its volcano andUpolu with its cocoanut groves, while wegot beautiful Tutuila with its harbor andlittle Manua without much of anything.The money in use in Upolu, and in its

chief town, Apia, had been, for years,English money, its lesser pieces knownto the natives as 'shillins' (accent on thesecond syllable), *seese-a-pennies,' and*kolu-pennies,' kolu being the nativeword for three. When the Germans tookfull possession of Upolu, they, of course,introduced their own currency. But thenatives persisted in calling a silver marka 'shillin,' and a fifty-pfennig piece a*seese-a-penny.* A mark looked like ashilling and it bought no more or less ofanything than a shilling; the same withfifty-pfennigs and six-pence. Why newnames, then?But though the natives persisted, the

Germans insisted. The Governor of Ger-man Samoanow head of a great de-60


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Headquarters Nightspartment of the Imperial German Gov-ernment at Berlingave much time andenergy to trying to change 'shillin* tomark. But he never succeeded. So witha host of other trivial things. He couldtell a German to say this for that, or dothat for this, and it was said and done;why not a Samoan? He could not under-stand it. Apparently no German canunderstand it.So it has been In all the other one-

time German colonies. And so It hasbeen in Belgium.

Governor-General von Bissing diedfrom too much telling the Belgians todo thingssome important, many triv-ialand too much trying to make themdo them. He fumed and worried and suf-fered because they would not behaveproperly. Why would they not? Whyshould not Belgians be managed as Ger-mans are managed? Why would theynot? He died unenlightened. He had alarge staff of subordinates: department

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Headquarters Nightsheads, provincial governors, and whatnot. None of them enlightened him.None of them could enlighten him. Ialmost believe that no German could.Von Bissing is dead and Von Falken-

hausen has stepped into his shoes, andis going on trying to rule Belgium in thesame way. But he will succeed no bet-ter. He will never know the Belgians,as Solf did not know the Samoans, andthe statesmen and rulers of Germany donot know the English, or the French, orthe Americans. How often have I beenasked, angrily, pathetically, always in-sistently, 'Why do you Americans do asyou do? Germans would not.'At first I tried to explain. But they

could not understand. Some few under-stood that they did not understand, buteven they could not understand why theydid not, why they could not. I say somefew ; really I remember only one. He wasa business man of proved capacity. Forthe moment, he was in an officer's uni-

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Headquarters Nightsform and head of an important depart-ment of Von Bissing's government; aman of good mind, and university-trained.Most of the German ojfficers and officialsare men of good mind and university-trained.He said, *You say we can't understand

other people, their minds, their points ofview, their feelings. Look at us in SouthAmerica. Our traders were getting thebest of the English traders and your ownkeen Yankee traders. We understoodbetter than you the wants and businessmethods of the South Americans. Wemade the goods the way they wantedthem made; we packed them the waythey wanted them packed ; we gave themcredit in the way they preferred tohave it. We were more adaptable thaneither you or the British. Butyes, it istrue, our statesmen do not understandyour statesmen or your people ; our diplo-mats do not understand the people towhom we send them. Everything you

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Headquarters Nightsold Flemish university at Ghent just asGeneral von Beseler reestablished the oldPolish university at Warsawrecentlyclosed, by the way. In Poland this wasa slap at Russophil Poles; in Belgium, aslap at the ruling Walloons. Von Hissinghad arranged for fifty professors, someGerman, some Dutch, and a few renegadeand bribable Flemish, to accept chairs atGhent. The bribe for these men was agood immediate salary and a pension forlife after cessationfor causeof teach-ing.That cessation will come the min-

ute that Belgium is free again, and thecause will be a swift flight from the coun-try. For not one of these renegade Flem-ish professors can live in Belgium afterthe Germans go out, nor even anywherewithin reach of Belgian vengeance. They-will urgently need their pensions.With a grand flourishbut an all-

German flourishthe reestablished Flem-ish university at Ghent opened with fifty66


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Headquarters Nightsprofessorsand forty students! Thesestudents will need pensions, too.My companion's remark about theGovernor-General's offer to let me lec-ture at Ghent had reference to a grimjest on the part of His Excellency. I hadacted for a few months in 191 5 as theRelief Commission's director in Brussels,on leave from my university in California,but had had to return for the second halfof the college year. This finished, I wentback, at Mr. Hoover's request, to takeup the directorship again. Soon after myarrival in Brussels, I made my call offormality on Von Bissing, in company withthe German head of the departmenthaving chief cognizance of our reliefwork.The Governor-General received me not

unkindly, in his stiffly pleasant manner,and said he hoped I would not have toleave again while the relief work wenton, adding that, if I felt once more theneed of giving some university lectures,

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Headquarters NightsI might give a course in the new uni-versity at Ghent!

It was meant as a jest, but, as he knewas well as I did what fate was in reservefor the lecturers in his new university, ithad a grimness that made his smile, underthe stiff clipped mustache, no less awrythan mine. I had a horrible temptation,fortunately resisted, to return jest for jestby asking the figure of my pension.All this great and affectionate interestin matters and people Flemish, exhibitedby General von Bissing and his staff, andby the German Chancellor and his Berlinassociates, and now by Von Schaibele,the new special sub-governor for FlemishBelgium, is so simple and obvious in itsreason and intent that it is nothing shortof astounding that any Germans, ' of goodmind and university-trained,* can, for amoment, believe that it could fool anyone, least of all the people most imme-diately concerned. The naivete of thewhole performance is simply pathetic.

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Headquarters NightsTo hire a few cheap Flemings to come toBerlin and do a stage chat with the chan-cellor, and have their pictures taken in atop-hatted group with him, and then ex-pect to palm off this infantile perform-ance as evidence of German and Flemish-Belgian rapprochement, is to betray asimplicity that is past conception. Copiesof that group photograph, as publishedin Die Woche, are being religiously keptby hundreds of Belgians as evidence,when the time comes, on which to hangthese paid Flemish renegades. I hopethat they, like the professors, have beenpensioned, and have reserved future lodg-ings in the heart of Germany. They willbe safe nowhere elseperhaps not there.That is the simple, naive side of Ger-

man rule. There is another and fearfullycontrasting side. It is the side of bloodand iron. And Belgium has had fullmeasure of laughable and tragic experi-ence of both sides. Her keen wits haveoften bested the rule of naiveteby pay-

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Headquarters Nightsing a fine; her bravest hearts have oftenbested the rule of brutalityby payingtheir lives. No week has passed in all themany since Germany violated her ownhonor, and that of Belgium, three yearsago, without a new Verordnung placardedon the hoardings, prescribing some trivialdoing or not doing,^which meant smilesand shrugs and quick little schemes ofavoidance to the reading Belgians; norhas a week passed without some grimcourt-martial running its fated course ofjudicial travesty^which meant imprison-ment or death to some devoted womanor brave man of Belgium.Some woman or some man, do I say?

Some tens or twenties of women and men,I ought to say. The trials and condem-nations at Hasselt alone are of scores ata time.

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II

The German government of Belgiumis three fourths strictly military and onefourth quasi-civil. There is a Civil-Ver-waltung, or department of civil govern-ment; a Politische Ahteilungj or Apolitical*department, having to do with the dip-lomatic and general political relation ofthe government to the Belgian peoplegenerally, and the Belgian and Americanrelief organizations specially; a Bank-Abteilung, whose most conspicuous activi-ties have had relation to the forced re-moval of 450,000,000 marks from thevaults of two great Belgian banks tothose of the Reichsbank in Berlin, andthe putting of proper pressure on all theBelgian banks to produce the hugemonthly indemnity, first of forty millionfrancs, then fifty, and now sixty, that is

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Headquarters Nightscollected from Belgium by Germany; aPress-Abteilung, presided over by a capa-ble sculptor, which looks after the edit-ing of all the Belgian newspapersexceptLa Libre Belgique!a Vermittlungsstelle, orspecial bureau of the political depart-ment, through which all negotiations ofthe Belgian Comite National and theAmerican Commission with the Germangovernment, either in Brussels or Berlin,are taken up; a Central Harvest Com-mission {Central Ernte Kommission) , withspecial charge of the native food-cropsand live stock (horses excepted) ; and last,but very far from least, the Military * In-tendance,' which represents the army'sinterests and control.

In addition to these various chief de-partmentsand I may have overlookedone or two; it does not matterthere isa series of bureaus or organizations oflesser rank, called Centrale, which takespecial cognizance and charge of different

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Headquarters Nightskinds of local foodstuffs and related com-modities.The Central Harvest Commission

ought, perhaps, more properly to belisted as the first and most important ofthis group, rather than among the chiefdepartments as noted above. It is com-posed of five German officials representing,respectively, the Governor-General him-self, the civil department, the bank de-partment, the political department, andthe military department, and a Belgianrepresenting the Comite National, and anAmerican representing the Relief Com-mission. The Belgian and Americanmembers were tolerated rather than wel-comed, and their voices, although heard,rarely carried conviction to the alreadyunanimously convinced German members.They had, however, full voting privilege,but the minutes of the bi-monthly meet-ingssolemn, formal affairs with an oc-casional relieving glimpse of uncoveredfeeling and humannessrecord a monot-

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Headquarters Nightsonous list of motions carried by five voicesto two, and other motions lost by two tofive!There are, in addition to the principal

Harvest Commission, a barley central;an oats central, wholly in military hands;a sugar central; a general fats and oilscentral, with a special butter central; avegetables central, with special potatoand chicory centrals; a brandy central,for the controlling and taxing of all alco-holic production, this alcohol comingchiefly from the yeast factories; and,finally, a coal central, which, oddlyenough, controls the fertilizers as well ascoal.

I may also have overlooked a centralor two; but, again, it doesn't matter.There were enough, if not too many;enough, that is, to give a very plausibleseeming of what one expects from Ger-man organization, namely, careful andmeticulous specialization and subdivisionof labor, responsibility, and authority, but

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Headquarters Nightsall tied together and subject to the supe-rior understanding and direction.At a distance, the German government

of Belgium seems admirably organizedand even well managed. At close rangB,especially at the close range of personalcontact and experience, it reveals itselfas absurdly over-organized and ineffi-ciently managed. The German govern-ment of Belgium has proved itself incapa-ble, except in those matters where resultswere got by sheer brutal force aloneandin these the force has been too often usedblindly as well as brutallyand has neversatisfied the Germans themselves, eitherin Belgium or in Berlin. This is a state-ment that I can make with confidenceand without breach of confidence. For itis well known in Holland, which sees andknows by one means or another practi-cally all that goes on in Belgium andGermany.Governor-General von Bissing wished

to gain a certain measure of Belgian ap-75


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Headquarters Nightsproval of his administration of the coun-try. His first approval, naturally, shouldcome from Berlin; his second, from Ger-many; his third, if there could be any-thing for Belgians to approve of whatmust first be commended by Berlin andGermany, was to come from Belgium.And he really wanted this approval.

Hopeless cynics might explain his de-sire simply as dictated by pure personalselfishness and .ambition. A successfulcivil administration should receive somemeasure of approval from the adminis-terecf. Von Bissing's government was al-ways a quasi-civil government. He wouldcommend himself and his administrationto his over-lords if things went fairlyquietly in Belgium. But he would not ifBerlin's already fatigued ears had to beassaulted by the disquieting rattle of ma-chine-guns in the streets of Brussels andAntwerp, and the screams, groans, andlast sobbing coughs of the dying Bruxelloisand Anversois. The world seemed in-

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Headquarters Nightsclined to give a too attentive ear to noisesfrom Belgium, and Berlin^s own ears,usually only too deaf to the cries of thetortured, had become, by virtue of thisfact, a little sensitive also to sounds fromBrussels. It is a popular belief that Ber-lin cares not a rap for the world outside.But this is not true. She does care, anddoes not at all relish being so continuallyand distressfully 'misunderstood.* Whatis true is that it is only with the utmostdifficulty, and only rarely, that Berlin canunderstand what the reaction of theworld outside is going to be to Germanbehavior. I believe that it is chiefly thislimitation that is leading Germany todefeat and near-destruction.But I am not a hopeless cynicto get

back to the matter of General von Bis-sing's rather pathetic desire for Belgianapproval. And I think that the pastgovernor's wish was based partly on lessquestionable grounds than pure selfish-ness. He had in some degree a feeling of

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Headquarters Nightspersonal responsibility for the five millionor more human bodies and souls, namelessand hardly distinguishable to him, withsocial traditions and natural inheritanceutterly uncomprehended by him, whichhad, by the inexplicable hazards of hu-man fate, been thrust, willy-nilly, intohis hands. It would be a bit too super-mannish not to feel a little anxious, forthe people's own sake, about the fate ofindividuals in such a mass of people,hanging ever on the verge of starvationand kept from literal destruction only bythe interference of an incomprehensibleforeign neutral organization.

But, some way, for whatever Governorvon Bissing was able to do, there was notapproval enough to go around. AfterBerlin and Germany had approved, therewas never any to come from Belgium.In the face of what he did, or allowed tobe done, how in the name of humanity, ofhonor, and of what there is of God inman, could there be?

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Headquarters NightsAnd so the Germans in Belgium have

been an ostracized people. The Belgianson the streets look another way as theypass the spurred, field-gray officers. TheGerman soldiers have learned to ride onthe platforms of the tramcars; it is lesschilling there than inside. The few openhotels and shops have become differen-tiated into places for Germans and placesfor Belgians. It is an odd victory thatthese conquered people win over theirconquerors every day.

For the Germans feel it. They havewanted friendly civil treatment from theBelgians; they have tried in their un-comprehending, unsympathetic, stifflypatronizing, semi-contemptuous way toget it, and they have expected it. Indeed,it was more than civility, it was deferencethat they first expectedin parts of oc-cupied France the people have to salutethe German officers or get shot butwhen the deference was seen to be hope-less, they expected civility.

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Headquarters NightsWell, they have not got it; they have

not had it. And this complete withhold-ing of Belgian approval of the Germanadministration, and the complete lack ofany personal rapprochement between Ger-man officers and officials and Belgiansduring the long period of enforced rela-tionship and companionship, is, to me,vivid evidence of two things: Belgianspirit, and German maladministrationand utter lack of human consideration ofthe people and persons they are rulingand professing to be trying to placate,befriend, and elevate. For the Belgiansare no more than human, and human con-sideration w^ould inevitably have had itsusual effect in some visible measure.This condition is also a sufficient proof,

if the world needs further proof, of theutter inability of the Germans to help theworld in its efforts to humanize and so-cialize and lift up its peoples. Even wereGerman KuUur that most desirable thingthat the German intellectuals have said

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Headquarters Nightsit isand that most of us are convincedit is notthe Germans are utterly un-able to make it over to any other people.The Ninety-Three Intellectuals werequite sure that Germany could spreadand bestow its Kultur on the backwardnations of the earth by conquering themby arms. But Kultur cannot be imposedon a people, even though its rule can.The Belgians are ruled by German Kulturbut they are not penetrated by it.From the depths of their bleeding

hearts they execrate it. They haveseen what it does to a peopleto twopeoples, the Germans and themselves.It makes brutes and martyrs: brutes ofits possessors, martyrs of those whocome in contact with its possessors.German Kultur stifles the good in manfor the good of a man-made Juggernautcalled the State.Whatever headway any German

singly might have been able to make ingaining the tolerance or friendship of8i


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Headquarters Nightsthe Belgiansand there have been andare to-day individual Germans in Bel-gium of a certain warmth of heart andhuman sympathythis man, as memberof the German administrative organiza-tion in Belgium, was no longer 'any Ger-man singly,* but a nameless, individual-less, rigid little cog on one of the myriadwheels of the Great German Machine.He could move only as his wheel moved,which in turn movedor should moveonly in perfect relation to the moving ofthe other wheels.

This 'any German singly' gave up, inall matters in which he acted as a part ofthe German administration, all of thethinking, all of the feeling, all of the con-science which might be characteristic ofhim as an individual, a free man, a sep-arate soul made sacred by the touch ofthe Creator. And he did this to acceptthe control and standards of an imper-sonal, intangible, inhuman, great coldfabric made of logic and casuistry and

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Headquarters Nightsutter, utter cruelty, called the Stateoroften, for purposes of deception, theFatherland. There is fatherland in Ger-many, but it is not the German State. Itis German soil and German ancestry, butnot the horrible, depersonalized, super-organic state machine, built and managedby a few ego-maniacs of incredible selfish-ness and of utter callousness to the suffer-ings, bodily and mental, of their own aswell as any other people in their range ofcontact.But this machine is a Frankenstein that

will turn on its own creators and worktheir destruction, together with its own.Such sacrifice and stultification of humanpersonality as national control by such amachine requires, can have no perma-nence in a world moving certainly, even ifhesitatingly and deviously, toward indi-vidualism and the recognition of personalvalues.

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IllThe experience of our Relief Commis-

sion with this machine has been wearing.It has also been illuminating. For it hasresulted in the conversion of an idealisticgroup of young Americans of open mindand fairly neutral original attitude, into aband of convinced men, most of whom,since their forced retirement from Bel-gium, have ranged themselves amongfour armies devoted to the annihilationof that machine and to the rescue andrestoration of that one of its victims, thesight of whose mangling and sufferingbrought unshed tears to the eyes and silentcurses to the lips of these Americans sooften during the long two and a halfyears of the relief work.We were not haters of Germany whenwe went to Belgium. We have simply,

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Headquarters Nightsby inescapable sights and sounds andknowledge forced on us, been made intowhat we have become. If we hate Prus-sians and Prussianism now, it is becausePrussia and Prussianism have taught usto hate them. Whom have they evertaught to love them?The work of the Relief Commission

was carried on under a series of guaran-ties given by the succeeding Germangovernors-general, the Berlin ForeignOffice, and the Great General Staff ofthe German armies. These guarantiescommitted the German authorities, fromthe beginning of the work, to the non-requisition of the food-supplies importedinto Belgium and to non-interferencewith our distribution of these supplies.Later they included the non-requisitionof the food-stuffs produced within thecountry, and the non-purchase of thesenative crops for the use of the Germanarmy. Also they contained the positivepromise that the Commission should en-

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Headquarters Nightsjoy all reasonable facilities to do its benef-icent work and to be able to satisfy itselfthat the guaranties as to non-requisitionand purchase were strictly lived up to.

In general these guaranties have beenmaintained; the one respecting the non-requisition of the imported supplies inparticular has been scrupulously regarded.Of course, if it had not been, the workwould have stopped abruptly at the mo-ment of its disregard. But in detail, in therelationship with German officialdom andGerman soldiery, made necessary in thecarrying on of the work, difficult in itselfunder the most favorable circumstances,we were harassed and delayed and trickedand bullied in a thousand ways, but al-most always under cover of a sophisticatedand specious reasoning. A German offi-cial is no less plausible than brutal.There was always a protracted debate, adelaying argument, an exasperating showof consideration and conference, when-ever we protested and pleaded and de-

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Headquarters Nightsmanded that our work be not interferedwith.The dying of children, the weakening of

women and men, the advance of disease,were not arguments that we could pushforward to our advantage; there was al-ways a convenient * military exigency' toput these summarily out of court. Theargument had to turn on the form ofwords in the guaranties; this was suscep-tible of debate, this was a matter to con-sider.The machine seemed to have a curi-

ous regard for our ^scraps of paper*except when it was more convenient todisregard them entirely, which was notoften, although always possible. In thisrespect we were constantly surprised,having always in mind the original noto-rious scrap-of-paper incident. Perhapsthe machine has become a little sensitiveto paper troubles.A prolific source of difficulty for us was

the lack of clear demarcation among the87


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Headquarters Nightsmany wheels and parts of the machine,and a lack of coordination among thesebits of mechanism. But sharp special-ization and thorough coordination aregenerally supposed to be exactly the basisof the reputed high organization and effi-ciency of the German government. Bethat true of all the rest of German admin-istration or not, I do not know; I onlyknow it is not true of German adminis-tration in Belgium. A difficulty over themovement of canal boats; over the cen-soring and transmission of our necessarymails between the Brussels central officesand the provinces; over the circulation ofour workers and their motor-cars ; over theprinting and posting of our protectingplacards on warehouses and railwaywagons; or over what not elseit madeno difference. Never was there a well-defined course of procedure for us; nevercould we quickly find the proper depart-ment of the government to which to applyand from which to obtain decision in any


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Headquarters Nightsof these and the many other cases oftrouble.

It was indeed precisely because of thisconstant uncertainty, and a final recog-nition of the difficulty by Governor-Gen-eral von Bissing, that there was finallyestablishedjust a year after the reliefwork was begunthe Vermittlungsstelle,to which all our troubles were first to bereferred, to be in turn passed on by it intothe whirring interior of the creaking ma-chine, there to be whirled around untilsome kind of final or provisional decisionwas ejected.But these interior processes of diges-tion and resynthesisfor what went inalways came out in a different formtook time, and time too often freightedwith awful significance to the helpless,waiting, hungering Belgians. But themachine took little account of humansuffering, or human lives, even. It tookthe time that its incapacity made neces-sary, and turned out its work in the in-

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Headquarters Nightscomplete or distorted form that its clum-siness assured. This must seem, in theface of the popular conception of Germanadministrative organization, like uncon-sidered and exaggerated writing. Butit is not. It is the revelation of simpletruth.Under whatever detailed guaranties,

or on the basis of no matter how elab-orate regulations, an inevitable require-ment for the carrying on of our workwas a certain element of trust by theGerman authorities in the correct be-havior of our American workers. Thestruggle between German officialdom'sneed for an absolute control of us, be-cause any or all of us were potential spieswe were, of courseand the impossi-bility, under existing circumstances, ofestablishing any such effective control,resulted in a state of affairs that was ludi-crous when it was not too irritating to beanything else.The control was attempted by a rigor-

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Headquarters Nightsous set of restrictive rules concerning themovements of the Americans and theircars, prohibitions against carrying anyletters except certain censored officialones, and a careful reissuing of passes eachmonth for all of the men connected withthe relief work. Our compliance withthese regulations was checked on all motortrips by a regular inspection of passes,including the special ones of chauffeurand motor, a recording of the movementof the car, and sometimes an examinationof the contents of bag and pockets, at allthe sentry posts scattered along the roads.These posts were so abundant in the earlydayswhen there were soldiers to sparethat we would be stopped a dozen timesbetween Brussels and Antwerp, less thana two-hour trip. In addition to the regu-lar inspection, there was another irregularone, which consisted of the sudden haltingof the car any day anywhere along theroad by a group of military-secret-servicemen, who made a close examination, not

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Headquarters Nightsonly of passes and papers, but of cars andpersons^ The cars would be fairly takento pieces, tires deflated and searched, andgasoline tanks fished in. The examinationof the clothing and bodies of our men wasno less thoroughand more disgusting.Now all this was good control to pre-ventwhat? It prevented our carryingany persons unauthorized to travel bymotor, or any dangerous information inletters, from one part of Belgium to an-otherfrom Brussels to Antwerp, say.But these possible would-be travelerscould go without hindrance or examinationfrom Brussels to Antwerp by any one ofseveral trains a day, or by a combinationof tram-lines and buses, or on foot. Whatthey might not do was to joy-ride! Andif we wished to carry any dangerous in-formation we certainly should not haveconfided it to letters, but should simplyhave taken it as told us or discovered byus, and made it over to whomever wecared to, provided he could understand

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Headquarters Nightsour kind of French. We were allowedthe circumstances of the work made it ab-solutely necessary, as the German authori-ties recognizedto talk when and whereand to whom we pleased.More than this and much more impor-

tant than this, we sent outwith theconsent, of course, of the Germansthreetimes a week, a mail courier from Brusselsthrough the electrified wire fence andacross the Belgian frontier into Holland.The mails he carried had been censoredand sealedthe seals to be examined atthe frontierand he was subject tosearch, regular and irregular, at any timebefore reaching the wire. But he was avery intelligent young man, who spokeFrench, German, Flemish, Dutch, andEnglish, and when in Holland was free totell any one thereand Holland's popu-lation is, at present, most interestinglycosmopolitanor write to any one any-whereto a man in England, say, with aninterest in matters in Belgiumanything

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Headquarters Nightshe pleased. In Holland he had but onecontrolhis honor. And there was analternate courier with this same privilege,and several others of us had to go out oftento Holland. Mr. Hoover and myself wentback and forth oftenMr. Hoover veryoften and more or less regularlybetweenLondon and Belgium. In other words, ifwe could not be trusted, there was abso-lutely no hindrance in the German schemeof control to our conveying informationat any time to the enemy. And yet theexercise of the absurd control attemptedwas evidence that we were not trusted.The repeated personal examinations, care-fully planned to catch any guilty one offhis guard, outraged our sense of honorand decency. The whole situation mightwell have stimulated a man to accept theimplication of dishonesty which it placedon him as a recognition that he might spy,if he could get away with it! All thisabsurd pseudo-control was stupid in thepsychology that dictated it, and stupid in

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Headquarters Nightsthe method of its carrying out. It wasinexpedient and inefficient.And it was unnecessary. We were not

spies, and the German officials knew it.If we were, or if they really thought wewere, their only sensible and safe actionwould have been to remove us. Butknowing that we were not spyingina few cases in which some over-eager'flat-foot' thought he had found proofthat we were, we were able brilliantlyto prove the contrarythey neverthe-less treated us in a way to make us feel andseem suspect, though not in a way whichwould have prevented us from spyingand informing had we really been inclinedto. That is machinery, but not brains.And wheels can never really replace brain-cells in human functioning.

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IVHowever, a pacifist, or a neutral, is

hardly to be made into an adherent of awar against any people on the basis ofbeing ever so convinced of the stupidityof that people's form of government, orbecause of an ego-maniacal overestimate,on the part of this people, of its form ofKultur. And it was something morethan any conviction of this kind thatturned our group of American neutrals inGerman-occupied Belgium and NorthFrance into a shocked, then bitter, andfinally blazing, band of men wishing toslay or be slain, if necessary, to preventthe repetition anywhere of the thingsthey had to see done in these torturedlands.The Germans entered Belgium in Au-gust and September, 1914; we began to

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Headquarters Nightscome in November. Hence we saw noneof the ' atrocities ' of the invasionwe sawonly results of them. Among these re-sults, as seen by us, were, I hasten to say,no women without breasts or childrenwithout hands. But there were womenwithout husbands and sons and daughters,and children without mothers and fathers.There were families without homes, farmswithout cattle or horses or houses, townswithout town halls and churches and mostof the other buildings, and even somewithout any buildings at all, and a fewwithout many citizens. But there werecemeteries with scores and hundreds ofnew gravesnot of soldiers; and littletoddling children who came up eagerly toyou, saying, ' Mon pere est mort; ma mereest morte. ' They were distinguished fromsome of their playmates by this, you see!And we had to hearand endurethe

stories, the myriad stories, of the relictsof Dinant, Vis6, Tamines, Andennes, andall the rest. Of course, there were stories

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Headquarters Nightsexaggerated wilfully, and others exagger-ated unintentionally, simply by the in-evitable inaccuracies that come from ex-citement and mental stress. But therewere stories that were true, all true.

If we had had but to make acquaintancethis way with happenings of the days be-fore we came! But there was no escapefor us; the civilizing of Belgium did notcease with the terrible rush over the landto the final trench-lines in the West. Itkept, and is keeping, everlastingly on.And we had to see it, and hear it, andfeel it. We had to see the citizens of aproud and beautiful capital barred fromwalking in certain of its streets and parks,that elderly Landsturmers and schneidigeboy officers might stroll and smoke thereand to be sent indoors to bed every nightfor a fortnight at eight o'clock to learnto be deferential and friendly to soldierswho had slain their relatives and friends,not in the heat of battle, but at cool dawnin front of stone-walls.

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Headquarters NightsAnd we had to be there the fatefulnight of Nurse Cavell's death; and the

days and nights of many other Hkedeaths and travestied trials that pre-ceded them. And we had to make theacquaintanceship of noble men andwomen, giving all the hours of all theirdays to the relief and encouragement oftheir people, only to have them disap-pear, carried off without an opportunityfor a good-bye, for imprisonment in Ger-many, because of some trivial word oract of indignation at the sufferings oftheir people. Which carrying off bringsus to the final word: Deportations.

There have been deportations of onekind or another from Belgium ever sincethe war began. Removal to Germanyhas been a punishment much favored bythe German authorities for indiscreet ortoo uncomfortable Belgians. But mostof these removals have been made ofcitizens singly or in small groups, usuallyafter a military trial ; and the official morn-

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Headquarters Nightshuman beings comparable only with thatwhich might have been given to an equalnumber of cattle, sheep, or swine drivento the railways, held in yards in the rainor sun for a cursory examination forpossible infectious disease and physicalcondition generallyfor the importerswanted only sound animalsand thenpacked tightly into box-cars with enoughfeed and water for the trip to the distantabattoirsenough feed, that is, if thetrsiins got through on schedule, whichthey never did.The world knows this hazily, I say.

Much has been written about this de-porting; about its causes, the conditionsthat incited German authority to do itit was the highest military authority thatdecreed it, not Von Bissing's Belgian gov-ernment,the manner of its doing, itsresults. But the world needs the wholestory. Unfortunately it cannot yet bewritten. Among other things lacking isthe knowledge of just how many of the

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Headquarters Nightshundred thousand Belgian slaves havedied and are to die in Germany. Somehave been sent back hastily, so that theywould not die in Germany; they die onthe returning trains, or soon after theyget back. Or, what is worse, some donot die, but continue to live, helplessphysical wrecks.The deportations were not hazy to us.

They were the most vivid, shocking, con-vincing single happening in all our en-forced observation and experience ofGerman disregard of human suffering andhuman rights in Belgium. We did notsee the things that happened to the de-ported men in Germany. But we couldnot help knowing some of them. Whenthe wrecks began to be brought backthe starved and beaten men who wouldnot sign the statements that they hadvoluntarily gone to Germany to work ! andthe starved and beaten ones who would notwork at all; and the ones who could notwork even when, driven by fear of pun-

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Headquarters Nightsishment, they tried to, on the acorn soupand sawdust bread of the torture campswhen these poor wrecks came back, theybrought their experiences with them, andrevealed them by a few words and thesimple exhibition of their scarred andemaciated bodies.The deportations occurred near the end

of the period of our stay in Belgium.They were the final and the fully sufficientexhibit, prepared by the great GermanMachine, to convince absolutely any oneof us who might still have been clinging tohis original desperately maintained atti-tude of neutrality, that it was high timethat we were somewhere elseon theother side of the trench-line, by preference.There could be no neutrality in the faceof the deportations ; you are for that kindof thing, or you are against it.We are against it ; America is against itmost of the civilized nations are againstit. That is the hope of the world.

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A Belgian Record


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A BELGIAN RECORDIn connection with the subject of the

Belgian deportations, the following trans-lation, made by Professor Kellogg, of amemorial sent to Governor-General vonBissing about December i, 191 6, by agroup of prominent burghers of Antwerp,will be of interest. It is new to theAmerican public.To His Excellency Baron von Bissing^

Governor of Belgiuniy in Brussels:Your Excellency,By virtue of an Order of the Military

Governor of Antwerp, rendered in accord-ance with the instructions of the GermanGeneral Government in Belgium, datedNovember 2, 191 6, our citizens withoutwork whose names are on the lists of theRegistry Office (Meldeamt) are instructed

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Headquarters NightsBy what right is this forced labor with

deportation introduced into our unhappy-country? We seek in vain for a responseto this question. The Rights of thePeople condemn such a measure.There is no modern author who justifies

it. The articles of the Convention ofThe Hague, defining requisitions made forthe benefit of an occupying army, aredirectly opposed to such a measure.The constitutional right of all Europeancountries, including Germany, is not lessopposed to it.The most illustrious of your sovereigns,

Frederick the Second, has regarded andhonored as a dogma, individual libertyand the right of every citizen to disposeof his capacities and of his work as hewishes. An occupying authority oughtto respect these essential principles whichhave been the common patrimony ofhumanity for centuries.

It cannot be denied that the Belgiandeported workers, under the conditions

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Headquarters Nightscreated by this action, will set free aproportional number of German workersto go to the front to fight the brothers andsons of the deported Belgians. Thismakes them forced partakers in the waragainst our country, something thatArticle 52 of the Convention of The Hagueprohibits in express terms. That is notall. Immediately after the occupation ofAntwerp, thousands of our citizens hadfled the country and taken refuge in thatpart of Holland stretching along theBelgian frontier, but the German au-thorities made most reassuring declara-tions to them.On October 9th, 19 14, General von Bes-

eler, Commander-in-Chief of the besiegingarmy, gave to negotiators from Contich adeclaration stating: 'Unarmed membersof the Civic Guard will not be consideredas prisoners of war.*Under the same date, Lieutenant-

General von Schutz, the German Com-mander of the Fort of Antwerp, gave out

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Headquarters Nightsthe following proclamation: 'The under-signed, Commander of the Fort of Ant-werp, declares that nothing stands in theway of the return of inhabitants to theircountry. None of them will be molestedeven the members of the Civic Guard, ifthey are unarmed, may return in allsecurity.'On the 1 6th of November, 1914, Car-

dinal Mercier communicated to the popu-lation a declaration signed by GeneralHuene, Military Governor of Antwerp,in which the General said, for purposes ofgeneral publication: 'Young men havenothing to fear from being taken to Ger-many, either to be enrolled in the army orto be employed at forced labor.' A littlelater the eminent prelate requested Baronvon der Goltz, Governor-General of Bel-gium, to ratify for the whole country,without limit as to time, these guarantieswhich General Huene has given for theProvince of Antwerp. He was successfulin obtaining this.

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Headquarters NightsFinally, on the i8th of October, 1914,

the military authorities of Antwerp gavea signed statement to the representativeof General von Terwiega, Commander ofthe Holland Field Army, to the effect thatthe young Belgian men and unarmedmembers of the Belgian Civic Guardcould return from Holland into Belgiumand would not be molested. One of hissentences was: 'The rumor accordingto which the young Belgian men will besent into Germany ... is withoutany foundation.'Upon the faith of these solemn public

declarations, numerous citizens, not aloneof Antwerp but of all parts of the country,have returned across the Holland-Bel-gium frontier to their own hearth-stones.Now these very men who, once free, re-turned to Belgium, relying upon the formalengagements of the German authorities,will be sent

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Headquarters Nights - Kellog