Since those days a kind of reckless indifference has seized the
Belgians. If we must lose everything to gain everything, let us lose
it. The sooner the better. It is the spirit of a poor man burning his
furniture in order to shelter his children from cold, or of a Saint
suffering every physical privation in order to gain the Kingdom of
Heaven. It is an uncanny spirit composed of wild energy and bitter-sweet
irony. "First Liège, then Brussels, then Namur, now Antwerp. The King
has gone, the Government has gone. If all Belgium has to go, let it go.
It is the price we have to pay. The victory of our soul shall be all the
greater if our body is shattered and tortured."

Henceforth, the voice of Belgium reaches us only from time to time. Its
sound is muffled by the enemy's strangle-hold, which grows tighter and
tighter. Before the fall of Antwerp, the German administration of
General von der Goltz had merely a temporary character. We knew that
most of the high officials were stopping in Brussels on their way to
Paris. On the other hand, any skilful move of the Allies, any successful
sortie from Antwerp, might have jeopardized all the conqueror's plans
and necessitated an immediate retreat. The Yser-Ypres struggle barred
the way to Brussels as well as to Calais. The Germans knew now that they
were safe, at least for a good many months, and began systematically to
"organize the country." All communications with the uninterrupted part
of Belgium were interrupted. It became more and more difficult and
dangerous to cross the Dutch frontier without a special permit. The
economic and moral pressure increased steadily, and the conflict between
conquerors and patriots began, a conflict unrelieved by dramatic
interest or excitement from outside, which carried the country back to
the worst days of Austrian and Spanish domination.