Art. 8.-GERMAN METHODS OF PENETRATION IN BELGIUM BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR.

1. The German Mole, a Study of the Art of Peaceful penetration. By Jules Claes. With a Preface by J. Holland Rose. Bell, 1915.

2. (a) Histoire belge du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg. (b) Histoire belge de la Prusse Rhénane. Deux brochures par Pierre Nothomb. Paris: Perrin, 1915.

3. L'Effort de l'Allemagne pour diviser et teutoniser la Belgique. Par Fernand Passelecq. Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1915.

4. German Socialists and Belgium. By Emile Royer. Preface by Emile Vandervelde. Allen and Unwin, 1915. 5. Pastoral Letter of Cardinal Mercier. Burns and Oates, 1915.

6. Protestation de Monseigneur Heylen, évèque de Namur. La Haye Office belge, 1915. English translation. Burns and Oates, 1915.

7. Reports on the violations of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws and Customs of War. Two vols. Published on behalf of the Belgian Legation. Wyman, 1915, 1916.

THE object-lesson afforded by German efforts in Belgium before and during the war serves, perhaps, as the most potent stimulant to the Allies in their unshakable determination to prosecute the campaign until a definite decision has been obtained, which will safeguard Europe against the ambition of Germany. Nowhere has the process of 'peaceful penetration' been more patiently carried out. Nowhere in a like degree has military success been looked upon as merely a prelude to what is regarded as a natural union with the Empire of territory greedily coveted for many years. Nowhere has the failure of attempts at conquest by pacific methods, by intellectual and moral union, been more clearly demonstrated. Of the long and costly efforts which sought to naturalise German trade, German gold and German labour in Belgium, no trace remains at the present time. All the expectations of the German mind founded on the probable break-up, to its own profit, of the Belgian provinces, have been falsified by the unanimity of an unconquered people. The German

effort has achieved nothing but a simple military occupation. No relationships, economic, intellectual or moral, have followed on the triumph of a power which knows no distinction between right and wrong, and whose very existence depends on arms and the perpetual display of armed force.

We must realise how widely this result differed from the realities and the dreams of German 'penetration' in Belgium before the war, if we wish to measure the extent of its defeat. We must measure the volume of these disappointed ambitions if we are to realise the danger which Belgium is escaping, thanks to the vigour of her national character, if we are to consider the claim which her resistance has justified to a new place in the European system which the victory of the Allies will call into being, a claim which might well be made the subject at the present time of preliminary investigation and discussion. In view of the recent publication of certain works upon the subject we propose to trace the process of preparation which Belgium has undergone at the hands of Germany with a view to a long-contemplated annexation and the events which have brought Europe face to face with the situation as it stands-an ancient people robbed of all means of lawful defence, which, though standing in the vanguard of civilisation, has been overwhelmed by barbarism, but remains true to itself.

A detailed history of the 'penetration' of Belgium by Germany before the war has yet to be written; the appropriation of the port of Antwerp by German traffic was but one step in the process. To denounce the fact, as French writers did periodically, was merely to repeat a commonplace, and tended to range in opposition to France the material interests of Belgian trade. In reality the fact, by itself, gave no especial cause for alarm; and, while French national writers proclaimed 'Antwerp a German port,' France herself, like Italy and England, was the victim of a process of penetration' insidious, unceasing, and equally serious.

Owing in both cases to geographical position, the 'hinterland' of Antwerp, like that of Rotterdam, is Germanic; and there was nothing surprising or abnormal

in the fact that 90 per cent. of the trade of the port was German. What was surprising was the pride with which the people of Antwerp and certain other classes of Belgians regarded this foreign traffic, which, apart from port and pilotage dues and the freight on railway carriage between Antwerp and the frontier, brought in no profit to the nation. The shipping contractors, the forwarding agents, were German to a man; and German too were the goods, whether loading or unloading. Nothing impressed the fact more strikingly than the endless range of warehouses belonging to the North German Lloyd, the first thing to meet the eye of any visitor to the port. If, then, at the end of the war we see, as we hope to see, German trade desert Antwerp by choice or of necessity, Belgium herself will be none the poorer; the compensation she will gain by developing the English trade and her own will be doubled by the conviction, now at last forced upon her, that Antwerp was being appropriated slowly but surely by the German State.

A 'State within a State' was the practical result of the presence in the commercial capital of Belgium of an organised German colony, where every one, from the humblest clerk to the most powerful capitalist, was intent on the one object of 'Deutschtum '-conquest and annexation. Thirty or forty years ago German families established themselves permanently at Antwerp and acquired, together with the rights of citizenship, that attachment to the city, its traditions and its glory, which has for centuries marked the inhabitants. Patriotism in Belgium has its foundation in the spirit of the Commune; and this spirit flourishes most strongly in our cities beneath the shadow of their belfries, those symbols of Communal privilege. Thoroughly local at heart, the Belgian lives, grows and dies within the radius of his native town.

It has always been characteristic of Antwerp that she has imbued with her own municipal spirit the medley of strangers within her gates. A friend of mine, an author of great talent, has written a eulogy of the city of Antwerp, in which, after quoting from the town-registers cases of foreign names borne by undoubted citizens, he concludes with this picturesque touch, 'Antwerp has taken to herself many foreign lovers, but the children

she has borne have all been Anversois.' And, in fact, when we find agents, ship's painters, sea-captains, rich merchants and city aldermen who bear the names of Spanish grandees, Portuguese 'Conquistadors,' Dutch navigators and Hanse merchants, we can appreciate the power of assimilation possessed by their mother-city, the more so that in spite of its modern wealth and development, Antwerp has retained its patriarchal and homely habits, and that its ceremonial, now as in the 17th century, is traditional and religious in character. The true Antwerp is to be seen in the crowds who pour out of the churches on a Sunday morning or in the families who on fête days throng the Place de Meir, waiting for the important mid-day meal, or watch the processions of decorated cars, each with its freight of rosy-cheeked damsels grouped after some design of Rubens.

It is only during the last twenty or thirty years that the Germanic influx has added to this people, so gay and bright, a new element, under whose influence the aspect of Antwerp has tended in the direction of flat uniformity, while its aspirations have been guided towards a future at variance with its historic destiny. Germansounding names have always been heard in Antwerp; during recent times they have increased notably, and those who bear them have abandoned the habits which their fathers acquired in a generation during which they had become first naturalised Anversois and then naturalised Belgians. The city no longer assimilates the Germans whom she has attracted; they now live apart as a distinct colony. The majority spend only a part of their lives at Antwerp, and end by returning to make their homes in Germany, while all go to Germany for their holidays or to serve their time in the army. The greater part of them no longer apply to be naturalised as Belgians or seek to contract family ties in Belgium. They form among themselves an exclusive society; they have their clubs, their schools, their churches; they celebrate their own national fêtes and hold aloof from the life of the city.

Before long a new development takes place. Certain prominent members of the colony become enrolled in the ranks of the Belgian authorities, force their way into

social clubs and political associations, seek to influence directly the world of art and pleasure, and even the movements of party politics. It suddenly becomes known that musical and theatrical enterprises are under the absolute control of Germans, who patronise and protect them. The tendency of a certain political club is explained by the Teutonic friendships and relationships of its members; and individuals, so closely identified for generations with the life of the city that their German origin has been forgotten, now revert to their former status under the fatal influence of these new-comers.

It was material interest, and nothing else, which prevented certain persons, more far-sighted than the rest, from raising a cry of alarm and from bestirring themselves and urging those about them to cast off these dangerous ties. The German hold over Antwerp is in no sense intellectual or moral; it is due to no similarity of race or habits; it is purely economic and financial. Very few of these confederacies are consciously formed. Some, even at the present time, are acknowledged more or less openly, but many remain latent, unsuspected by their victims and even by their authors, and encouraged by the double fiction of a neutrality guarded by land and by the supposed superiority of the German in business.

This latter prejudice is not peculiar to Antwerp; it is found throughout Belgium, and is shared without question by the business world in England, France and Italy. At Antwerp it is intensified by the pressing needs of the moment and the growing interdependence between the individual advantages of the Belgian and the all-embracing enterprise of the German. To-day our eyes are opened, and we see clearly the beginning and in certain cases the fulfilment of the scheme of expropriation. It has been seriously observed by men well known in the business world, that this war was after all a blessing, in that it put a stop once for all to that annexation which must have been the inevitable result of the conquest by 'peaceful penetration.'

A book has just appeared, exceedingly plain-spoken, though perhaps insufficiently supported by statistics, which denounces vigorously the instruments of that conquest. Its title is The German Mole,' and it is the work of M. Jules Claes, the editor of 'la Métropole,"