The contrast between Brussels and La Panne is the contrast between Belgium as it was and as it is. The last time I was in Belgium, before this war, I was in Brussels. The great modern city of three-quarters of a million people had grown up round the ancient capital of Brabant. Its name, which means "the dwelling on the marsh," dates from the tenth century. The huge Palais de Justice is one of the most remarkable buildings in the world.
Now in front of that great building German guns are mounted, and the capital of Belgium is a fishing village on the sand dunes. The King of Belgium has exchanged the magnificent Palais du Roi for a small and cheaply built house--not that the democratic young King of Belgium cares for palaces. But the contrast of the two pictures was impressed on me that winter morning as I stood on the sands at La Panne and looked at the royal villa. All round were sentries. The wind from the sea was biting. It set the long grey grass to waving, and blew the fine sand in clouds about the feet of the cavalry horses filing along the beach.
I was quite unmolested as I took photographs of the stirring scenes about. It was the first daylight view I had had of the Belgian soldiers. These were men on their twenty-four hours' rest, with a part of the new army that was being drilled for the spring campaign. The Belgian system keeps a man twenty-four hours in the trenches, gives him twenty-four hours for rest well back from the firing line, and then, moving him up to picket or reserve duty, holds him another twenty-four hours just behind the trenches. The English system is different. Along the English front men are four days in the trenches and four days out. All movements, of course, are made at night.
The men I watched that morning were partly on rest, partly in reserve. They were shabby, cold and cheery. I created unlimited surprise and interest. They lined up eagerly to be photographed. One group I took was gathered round a sack of potatoes, paring raw potatoes and eating them. For the Belgian soldier is the least well fed of the three armies in the western field. When I left, a good Samaritan had sent a case or two of canned things to some of the regiments, and a favoured few were being initiated into the joys of American canned baked beans. They were a new sensation. To watch the soldiers eat them was a joy and a delight.