Soldiers by Max Hastings

Author:Max Hastings [Hastings, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2021-09-25T21:56:09+00:00

The doctor and I thought we had better visit the Commander, General Otto von Below. The Germans were perfectly civil to us. Some of them said that they had already invested Brussels. They seemed so absolutely sure of themselves that they still treated the English with politeness and were for the moment only terrorizing and bullying the Belgians. Herr General von Below and his smartly-uniformed officers received my card with great courtesy, and I began to see that it would be necessary to keep up this courtesy by a fixed determination on my part to get all I wanted. The Headquarters Staff was established at the Hôtel de Hollande. The Germans were being importuned by residents asking various favours and questions. One Belgian lady asked if she might follow her husband, who was a prisoner, to Germany. ‘You may follow him if you like, madame,’ was the reply, ‘but you cannot accompany him.’ The lady looked very sorrowful.

General von Below apologized for receiving me in his bedroom, so terribly overflowing were all the other rooms. Feld-Marschall von der Goltz, who arrived en route to take up his duties in Brussels, was kept waiting while the General spoke to me. He was buttoned up to his nose in an overcoat. Above the collar gleamed a pair of enormous glasses. He was covered with orders. He shook me by the hand, and went out. I did not discuss the situation with General von Below. I took him for granted. He said he was sure he had met me at Homburg.

‘Accept my admiration for your work, Duchess,’ he said. He spoke perfect English. General von Below ‘did me the honour’ to call the next morning at our Ambulance. He was accompanied by Baron Kessler, his aide-de-camp, who composed the scenario of La Légende de Josephe. He had been much connected with Russian opera in London during the past season. It was exceedingly odd to meet him under such circumstances, after having so often discussed ‘art’ with him in London. A message came through to me that about 20 English prisoners had passed through Namur station going to Germany. They were closely guarded and were not even given water to drink nor food, because the Germans said, the English were using ‘dum-dum’ bullets. I laid a complaint about this to the new German Commander of Namur. He assured me there must be some mistake, and he gave me permission to go to the station and look after any other wounded and take my nurses.

When I was at the ‘Kommandantur’, there appeared to be some depression among the Germans. The head doctor of the garrison, Dr Schilling, who had hitherto been most civil to me, seemed agitated. He looked at my passport and his hands trembled as he held it. He said, ‘How wicked of you English and your “Mr” Grey to fight against the Germans and leave us to those devilish Russians.’ I used to go every day and visit the ‘Kommandantur’ and quote the Convention of Geneva and do all I could to lighten the lot of our wounded.

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