January 25, 2014
A Spot of History: I've
decided to use this post's Spot of History to showcase the first two pages of
my Belgium/CRB book. No book title yet, but I've now roughed out the first 35
pages, which is the majority of Chapter One. I thought I would share these
first to pages to see if anyone thinks they're interesting enough to want to
read more. If you like them, please send me a message. Thanks!
Chapter One: August 1914
There Once Was a Nice Little Town in
That Place.
On a cold evening in late November 1914, a German officer
named Coumbus was drinking with a boisterous group of fellow officers in the
luxurious Hotel Astoria. Situated in Brussels, Belgium, on Rue Royale near the
city's major park, the hotel was in the fashionable upper part of town and had
been commandeered by the German occupation forces for their officers, staffs
and privileged guests.
A little more than three months before, on Tuesday, August
4, the German Army had started World War One by invading neutral Belgium on its
way to its real objective, France, and Coumbus had been a part of that invading
force. A "fine-looking man" with "agreeable manners," he
was in his mid thirties and had lived in England for years before returning to
Germany to become a cavalry officer in the Kaiser's army.
Even though it was late -- past midnight -- and all the
other Germans had stumbled off to bed, Coumbus stayed at the table and spoke in
perfect English to two Americans, E.E. Hunt (a war correspondent) and Lieutenant
Herbster, USN (a neutral observer) visiting the German-occupied city.
Referring to the August days of the invasion, Coumbus calmly
stated that the Belgians " 'do not understand war, and they do not
understand the rules of war. I remember once riding into a little town down
here in the South of Belgium and finding my four scouts lying dead in the
streets. Civilians had butchered horses and men – shot them from behind.
" 'I ordered my men to go into the houses and kill
every one they found. Then I ordered them to burn the town.'
"He leaned back in his chair and took a short swallow
from his drink.
" 'There once was a nice little town in that place.
There is no such town now.' ” [Source: War Bred, Edward Eyre Hunt, Henry Holt and
Company, 1916, page 167.]
Hunt would never forget the German's calm, brutal words, and
they would follow him as less than a month later in December he joined a small
group of Americans who would try to save more than 9 million Belgian and French
civilians from starving to death.
The interlacing stories of German brutality, Belgian
resistance, the struggles against starvation and the American men Hunt joined
in the burgeoning Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), all began back in
those chaotic days of August 1914 when the Germans attacked the little Low
Country. Few could have guessed it then, but the invasion acted like a toppling
domino that would cause a tumbling together of extraordinary people into a
chain reaction of life-and-death situations far from the trenches and killing
fields of World War One.
And hanging in the balance were millions of civilian
lives.
It is a story that few have heard.
End of
first two pages.
My Post: So
there you have it -- the first two pages. I know it's not much to go on, but
the rest isn't yet ready for posting. But I should say that somewhere in those 481
words is my "nut" graph -- that one paragraph that sums up what I
hope the book will cover. I hope you spotted it.
I am happy
to report that I did make the January 15 deadline I had set for myself. By that
date I had roughed out the first 30 pages and began sending them to a very
select group of people for review.
I'm
relieved to say that all the feedback I've received so far has been very
positive (although I'm still waiting to hear from one true academic historian
who will be judging the accuracy of my history. I'm a bit nervous about what he'll say.)
Frankly, my opening 30-pages isn't exactly what I had envisioned, but it's actually
better than I thought it would be.
I have
always seen this book as a series of primary source vignettes strung together
in chronological order to detail and describe as powerfully as possible the
Belgian ordeal and the CRB delegates' work from August 1914 through April 1917
(when America entered the war). Most importantly, the stories would be of the
little-known people who actually did the CRB work or suffered from the
German occupation.
Yes, I would cover the major players such as Herbert Hoover,
German Governor-General von Bissing and English Prime Ministers Asquith and Lloyd
George, but their coverage would be more through the eyes of those less famous then
from their own eyes.
To me,
this book has always been about the boots-on-the-ground people who have
received very little exposure in the last 100 years. Their stories deserve to
be told. And in the photo below of nearly faceless people, there are a handful of men and one of the women who readers will get to know very well by the end of my book.
Some Of The Nameless Who Did The Work;
You'll Get To Know Them In My Book
Library, and author's family collection.]
But I
also knew that a simple string of stories would need historical context to make
them fully understandable and to maximize their reader impact.
It's
this historical context -- basically, mini history lectures -- that worries me
the most. Can I write the history in such as way as to maintain the interest of
mainstream readers? That's critical because I want this book to have a much wider/broader
appeal than just WWI history buffs.
At
least that's my plan. But, as famous boxer Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone
has a plan, until they're punched in the mouth."
Keep
your fingers crossed that I keep my guard up, write fascinating historical
prose, and not get punched in the mouth!
End of
Post.
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