Belgium -- History -- German occupation, 1914-1918
How to obtain their submission? The Germans threatened to suppress
all traffic in Malines. A singular fashion of punishing workless men
who refuse to betray their country, especially after declaring that
the only "guilty" persons were those who had organized the collective
refusal to work! (_La Belgique_, 9th June, 1915). But, in accordance
with the juridical principle that "the innocent must suffer with the
guilty," our enemies punished the market-gardeners of the Malines
district and prevented them from sending their cabbages and rhubarb and
peas and asparagus to market.
After the lapse of some days the Governor-General removed the
prohibition. But he did not wish it to seem that he had repented of his
decision, however unreasonable the latter might be, so to keep himself
in countenance he posted up a statement that a sufficient number of
workers had resumed work (placard of 10th June, 1915). However, the
Baron von Bissing cannot have been ignorant of the fact that none of
the strikers of the Malines workshops had returned; the only workers
whom the Germans had been able to recruit were some unemployed persons
from Lierre, Boom, and Duffel, who had never set foot in the shops
before. As they could not be employed in the manufacture of railway
material, they were made to dig trenches in the direction of Wavre-Ste
Catherine and Duffel.
The workers whom the soldiers led to the shops by force related that
their escort begged them not to resume work, because they would then
be obliged to leave Malines and to go to the Yser, a prospect which
inspired them with the keenest terror.
(_b_) _The Germans' Talent for Organization._
"The industrial and commercial prosperity" which Belgium is at present
enjoying is, of course, due to the Germans' incontestable spirit of
organization. "This sense of discipline and order, which the foreigner
calls militarism" (_Voss. Zeit._, 12th February, 1915, morning), has
enabled the officers of the reserve to accomplish such wonderful things
that Herr Oswald F. Schütte, correspondent of the _Chicago Daily News_
(see _K.Z._, 6th May, 1915, first morning edition) can scarcely find
the words to describe them. "We understand," adds the same journalist,
"that the Government at Havre does not look with a favourable eye upon
the success with which the German administration has once more made
life worth living in Belgium."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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