1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [237]
In German-occupied Belgium it was very different, and in anticipation of a possible surge of nationalistic feeling on Belgium’s national day, the occupying power had issued stern edicts and made it clear that severe penalties would be exacted if their orders were flouted. The Germans were particularly anxious to avoid demonstrations in Brussels where the civilian population was adept at finding subtle ways of cocking a snook at the authorities. There was the matter of the season of Wagnerian opera which had recently been held under official German patronage. Two years earlier, a similar event had brought all Brussels to the Théatre de la Monnaie and the operas had played to glittering houses for a full week. This time all Brussels had shunned it and, apart from a handful of German officers and their wives, the audiences stayed away. Even the ambassadors of neutral countries had refused official invitations with polite excuses and, to the fury of the German ‘Governor General’, the whole thing had been a flop. Brussels was not to be so easily placated for the many indignities its citizens had suffered at the hands of the invaders, and they kicked back in any way they could.
It was a point of honour not to keep Berlin time, and people obstinately continued to order their days by ‘l’heure des alliés’, one hour behind the hated ‘heure boche’ which had been imposed by the Germans in the first days of the occupation. Inevitably this caused confusion, especially since the proprietors of all public clocks were obliged to show Berlin time and, although the order could not be openly defied and it was explicitly forbidden to stop them altogether, the clocks of Brussels developed a bizarre tendency to run so fast or so slow that it was entirely pointless for passers-by to consult them. Only the clock of the Hotel de Ville (now occupied by the German Kommandatur) showed the ‘correct’ German time and this was a godsend to officials keeping appointments. It was the Spanish ambassador who conveniently noticed that to state a time according to I’heure de l’ Hotel de Ville could not offend the Germans because it was their time, and could hardly offend the Belgians because it was their clock.
After almost a year of occupation Brussels was a gloomy city. Food was scarce, spirits were low and the only entertainment to be found in the one-time ‘Paris of the north’ was the pastime of duping the Germans. As the day of the national fête approached people turned their minds to new ways of outwitting them. The Germans had already prohibited the flying of Belgian or Allied flags and the wearing of national colours, and on 18 July a new edict was posted up.
NOTICE
I warn the public that on July 21, 1915 demonstrations of all kinds are expressly and emphatically prohibited. Assemblies, parades, and the decoration of private buildings fall within the scope of this prohibition. The offenders will be liable to punishment of imprisonment not exceeding three months and a fine not exceeding 10,000 marks.
The Governor of Brussels,
Von Kräwel, Lieutenant-General.
But the Germans had not thought of everything. They had not forbidden the Belgians to wear flowers and the flower-vendors were out in force selling posies of red and yellow blooms which, worn in the lapel of a black frock-coat or pinned to a black dress, represented the colours of the Belgian flag. Almost everyone was in black, for Brussels was observing the occasion as a day of national mourning. Black-bordered handbills distributed clandestinely had mooted the idea and everyone took it up. Shops, cafés, restaurants, closed their doors, offices shut up for the day, householders drew their blinds