Between these two elements, the military and the civilians, there did not always exist great cordiality, and, when they did not agree, the military always had the last word. Also, at Brussels, the authority of the Governor General was sometimes handicapped by the intervention of the Quartermaster General, von Sauberzweig, representative of the German General Staff, and it seems beyond doubt that the excesses and crimes committed by the German government at Brussels were frequently imposed by the military party. The murder of Edith Cavell and the deportation of civilians to Germany and to the firing-line were certainly acts of the military. The situation of the Belgian civilian population became now very peculiar. The Belgian government, which had left Antwerp together with the King, had accepted the hospitality of the French government at Havre; the King and Queen were with the troops on the Yser. There remained in Belgium, as representatives of the national power, the burgomasters or mayors of the various towns, the parish priests, and the bishops. They were to be the leaders of the oppressed population. Cardinal Mercier took up the fight against the crimes, the excesses, and the illegalities of the occupying power, and the mayor of the capital, Max, stirred the people by his patriotic and gallant attitude. The Germans sent him to Germany for having been too outspoken in his feelings; he remained there in confinement till the end of the war. They did not dare to arrest Cardinal Mercier, but they tried by all means to silence him and to prevent his encouraging, in his pastorals and letters addressed to his flock, the sense of patriotism and the endurance of the people. The Cardinal never missed any occasion to tell the Belgians what was their duty in the face of the invader, or to protest against atrocities committed, or to try to prevent brutalities as, for instance, at the time of the awful deportations. The bishops of Liège and Namur also took up the same energetic attitude. In many towns and villages the burgomasters did their duty as calmly as the priests. Thanks to the attitude of their civilian and ecclesiastical leaders, the Belgians found the necessary patience to endure the harshness, the persecutions, and the privations of the new régime. It may be said that, generally speaking, they offered, on “the interior front,” as good a resistance as the soldiers on the Yser front.