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When, at the beginning of November last, the protests of the Belgian Government and the “Signal of Distress” of the Belgian bishops made known the slave raids which had taken place, most of the outside world was shocked and surprised.  It had lived, for months, under the impression that “things were not so bad” in the conquered provinces.  After the outcry caused by the atrocities of August, 1914, there came a natural reaction, a sort of anti-climax.  Fines, requisitions, petty persecutions do not strike the imagination in the same way as the burning of towns and the wholesale massacre of peaceful citizens.  It had become necessary to follow things closely in order to understand that, instead of suffering less, the Belgian population was suffering more and more every day.  Besides, news was scarce and difficult to check.  When alarming reports came from the Dutch frontier, it was usual to think that the newspaper correspondents spread them without much discrimination.

But to those who were familiar with the policy pursued by the German administration since the spring of 1915, the bad news which they received lately only confirmed the fears which they had entertained for a long time.  As the war went on, it became more and more evident that Germany, whose man-power was steadily decreasing, would no longer tolerate the resistance of the Belgian workers, and would even attempt to enrol in her army of labour all the able-bodied men of the conquered provinces.  The slave-raids coincide with the “levee en masse” in the Empire and with the organisation of the new “Polish Army”:  “If every German is made to fight or to work, ought not every Belgian, every Pole, to be compelled to do the same?  The fact that they should turn their arms or their tools against their own country is not worthy of consideration, as it is supposed already to enjoy the blessings of German rule and has become an integral part of the Fatherland.”

There is a great deal to be said for the slavery of ancient times.  It was at least free from cunning and hypocrisy.  The conqueror ill-treated the vanquished, but he spared him his calumnies.  The only law was the law of the stronger, but the stronger did not pretend to be also the better.  The tyrant was always right, of course, but he did not pretend to show that the victim was always wrong.

Now the worst aspect of the German policy is that it associates the subtlest dialectics with the most insane brutality.  When the time comes, they act with the blind fury of the bull, but they have already thought it all over with the wisdom of the serpent.  That is why the popular appellation of “Huns” is so misleading.  It suggests merely the brutality of primitive men, which is not always so dangerous and so depraved as the brutality of civilised men.  Brutality does not exclude honesty and pity.  Attila listened to the prayers of the Pope and spared Rome.  The Kaiser’s lieutenant does not