RAVAGED BELGIUM

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2389, 19 February 1915, Page 6

RAVAGED BELGIUM

M. MAETERLINCK'S APPEAL TO ITALY

REMAINING CITIES DOOMED

INCREDIBLE BARBARITY

Belgium is unfortunate just at' this time in having a Maeterlinck, aud when the; literature of the war i,-. collected some of. its richest I 'and most passionate pages will be from his pen. No current history of the conflict would be coiupleto without his feeling appeals for the-preservation of the .beautiful cities bis native land, and even his German foes, whom he bitterly denounces, must read 'liis patriotic entreaty with the thrill. that .flames from heart, to. heart even across hostile . barriers. ( What Greeco did for Ys r esteni civilisation at tho time of the great Asiatic invasions, Belgium has done for .Latin civilisation, declares Maurice Maoterlinck, and the world owes her full compensation. This view, ho, set forth in a lecture, delivered recently.' in Milan,, in an effort to stir M> the Italians to. an: act, of protest against' .tho .impending destruction of the remaining Belgian cities. ■ .His lecture was forbidden by the Italian Government, but popular clamour overrode theofficial 1 action, and; he was- finally permitted to ■ present it.) The . New York "Times" publishes' a translation of his lecture, wherein he points out that'Belgium'.''.'lias-been punished as no nation ever was punished for doing: her duty as no nation ever did it." "She lias saved the world, in the full knowledge that she could not be saved, tie goes oil: '.

Her Service to Civilisation.' "She saved the world by throwing herself across the path of the barbarian horde, by allowing herself to be trampled to death.ii) order to give the champions of justice the necessary time, not to succour her—she was aware that she could not be succoured in time—but to assemble troops enough to free Latin' civi]isa!tiou from the greatest- ' danger: with which it:has ever been threatened. Thus she has rendered to that civilisa-tion,-the only one under which most wish and are able to live,". a service exactly-like the, service "rendered by Greece to the. mother of thai) civilisfl,— fcion at the. time of the great Asiatic invasions.- / , . . . "But though tho service is similar, the-act-itself.is beyond,all comparison, "is .'useless to look through, history.; nothing caii, be discovered. there that equals: it. The magnificent sacrifice of Thermopylae', perhaps .the proudest act. in the :annal3 of. war, is bathed m a ciuite as heroic but less idealistic, sipce ,it vas.Jess disinterested, less immaterial.",; £ 4 , j "Leonidas- and lus' thre© " hundred Spartans 'Were defending their homes, their wives,■their children—all the realities which ' they had just -left behind tliem. '' But ; ' King Albert and his Belgians were'not ignorant of the fact, thatV'b'y.barriiig .the way to the invader, titey inevitably sacrificed their homes, wives, and children: Far from having, like the Spartan; heroes, an imperative and vital- reason for fighting, they had everything to-gain by not .fighting, and -nothing'to lose—^-save honour. "On: the-'one side were pillage, i fire, rum, massacre, nil the immense disaster - which we are witnessing, and, 'on the .'mother, .'that little word; 'honour,; which also represents things of' immense. importance, but things which one pan not so©-or "which can bo seen clearly enough when one is very puro and very .great. That a- man more hichly placed than the rest should perceive' what this word represents .and sacrifice: his life and tho. lives, of those lie loved to. what he perceived—such .a tiling has been seen hero and there in history, 'such men have not nurightly become- the objects' of- a devotion which raises - them -to an eminence almost oi--riiio. ~ • •• • { 'But the : spectacle or an -entire people) great, and liuriible, rich: and poor, savants, .and - unlettered, sacrificing themselves deliberately for something which is invisible—that, 1 declare has never >011 seen before, and L gav it without fear that any, ono can contradict mo by searching through the history of mankind;"

'Happy and Proud in Suffering.•' Mr. Maeterlinck insists ~ that- .the world bear lu, uiind that Belgium s behaviour' was- "not one of those heroic decisions, made in a moment of enthusiasm'. when a man . easily loses control of ■himself, and which he must not live up to the next day when his mo-, mentary enthusiasm is past m<l he drops , once more , to the ordinary • level of .his daily existence." Rathei^"This decision was one that had. to Be made and adhered to every mormng for nearly, four months in the midst or disand disaster growing,, every .day. Yet the will that achieved that decision has not flinched in the least but grows step by stop with the misfortune, and .row that, this misfortune is reaching its climax'it also is . doing so. • „ , . - • '-'I'have met many of my fellow-coun-trymen who are refugees. Some wererich and had lost everything; poor before tho war, now; arc reduced to less than oven , the poorest of us possesses. I have received many letters from every comer of Europe whither the exiles off duty had gone to find a moment's rest. In these I found complaints, natural enough, hut not ouo reproach, not one regret, not _ one .recrimination. I did not onco find tnat discouraged but excusable - phrase, which, one would think, would con easily to despairing lips : If our King had not done what he did, we should not suffer what wo are suffering todo not even think of saying such a'thing! It almost seems as if this thought cannot exist in _ air that has been purified by their misfortune. They are not resigned, for resignation is to renounce and no longer to keep up one's courage. They are hapny proud in their suffering. Vaguely they feel that this suffering will re;gyrate them like a baptism of confidence and <rlin-y, .'tbat it will ennoble them to the mid "of time in tho. memory of man. An unforeseen breath, coming from the vcr«t reserves of the human, race, from that/which is- best in- the human heart,-1 has passed suddenly over their life and E iven them all a soul of the same heroic mould as' that of their great King. "They did what had-never been done belore. and .it is to be hoped, .for the good of mankind, that no nation may ever be called upon again to do it. cut their admirable example .will. not be lost even if there is no occasion to imitate it; At the time when .the conscience of the world, weakened by too many years of prosperity and too selfish realities,: was about to undergo some kind of weakening, I know not exactly what, the- example of the. Belgians raised what one may call the. political molality of the .world several degreesraised it suddenly to a height which it has not yet-attained and from which itcannot drop back for this example is so splendid and burns itself so deeply ' no i ß memory that it creates a sort of new'religion and establishes tie-, finitely the level on which human conscience, loyalty, and courage nasi he now states, history, he declares. • will affirm some day more eloquently and authoritatively, the Belgians saved Latin civilisation . "For centuries they have stood nt the meeting-place of two powerful and: hostile types of culture. riv\\ ha I to choose between the two. They chose without hesitating. And their choice is all the more significant all the more full of lessons for us, from the fact none could choose with open eves

as well as they. You are aware that more than half Belgium is of German extraction, so that, through race affinity she' was better qualified than anybody to judge the kind of culture that was offered her together with the theory of dishonour which it included. She understood this culture so well, - she knew it so well, that she rejected it with a horror and disgtost of unparalleled violence—spontaneous, unanimous, irresistible—pronouncing thus_ a sentence without appeal and giving the world a peremptory lesson sealed with all her blood. ; "But now she can do no more. She is at the end not of her courage, but of her strength. She has paid for tho immense service she has done to the whole world with all that she possessed. "Thousands and thousands of her children are dead, all her wealth has been annihilated, nearly all her historical monuments, which were her pride and joy, nearly all her artistic treasures, anions the most beautiful in the world, have been destroyed for ever:

Remaining Cities Mined. "She is nothing but a desert, from which rise, still almost intact, four great cities which the hordes from across the Rhine, to whom one does too much honour by calling them merely barbarians, spared, it. seems. ,only for the purpose of keeping a monstrous and supreme vengeance for the hour of their . • inevitable •. defeat. Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and Brussels are irrevocably doomed. The admirable Grando Place, the Town' Hall, and the Cathedral of Brussels—l know this, and I Repeat that I know it from a personal and sure source beyond all denial-—have been mined-. .A spark will suffice- for reducing'to a heap of ruins, like Ipres, Malines, and.Louvain, one of the greatest wonders of Europe. A little later - for the disaster is. as good as accomplished unless there is immediate intervention —the turn of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp will come,. and suddenly there will disappear one of the corners of this earth in which had been accumulated the most memories, the most historical substance, thomost beauty. ; "It is time for this to stop 1 The. time has come for . everything that breathes.to rise, up at last against this systematic, insensate, and stupid 'destruction, devoid of military Justification, and strategic purpose. If at last we Belgians raise our voices In a cry of distress—we who are, above all, a silent : we turn to noble Italy, it is. because she is ~to-day the only Power in Europe that can halt the unchained beast on the brink, of crime.