"Witnessing the German occupation of Belgium. Roberto J. Payró's war chronicles"

MARÍA INÉS TATO

Londres

Congreso; International Conference Beyond Flanders Fields: The Great War in Belgium and the Netherlands; 2016

Queen Mary University of London

The Argentine writer Roberto J. Payró (1867-1928)had settled in the city of Brussels in 1909, working as correspondent for thenewspaper La Nación (Buenos Aires).At the outbreak of the Great War, he decided to stay in Belgium to offer hisreaders a first-hand account of the war events. His journalistic contributionswere based on his personal diary, and covered the period from the eve of the war untilNovember 1914, being published by the Argentine newspaper between September1914 and September 1915.In his chronicles, Payródescribed the distressing atmosphere that surrounded the invasion andoccupation of Belgium by the German army. Due to the increasing restrictions tothe mobility of people and the censorship on communications imposed by the warsituation, Payró resorted to contrasting different sources: official documentsof the nations at war, often translated and reproduced in his texts; theBelgian and European press; the clandestine press, after the occupation;interviews to protagonists and witnesses. He also visited the devastated areaspersonally and he even moved to the Netherlands to deliver his correspondenceto La Nación, which allowed him toget a fuller picture of the real situation of the war and of its immediateprospects. The dissemination of his detailed denunciations of the German crimesthrough that newspaper prompted German diplomats and businessmen in BuenosAires to alert the occupation authorities in Brussels about his anti-Germanpreaching. As a consequence, he was put under house arrest and strictsurveillance until the end of the war, and his chronicles ceased.This paper aims to reconstruct -throughthe eyes of this privileged witness- the experience of the German invasion andoccupation of the Belgian territory, and the subsequent formation of a warculture.