AN APPALLING EXODUS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 248, 23 November 1914, Page 6

AN APPALLING EXODUS.

WATCHING THE FLOOD OF MISERY ROLL BY.

"What is, in some of its aspects, the most remarkable incident in the whole course of the Belgian campaign up to the present moment occurred today/' wrote on September 28 Mr Hugh Martin in the "Daily News." "By order of the Belgian military authorities, Alost, a town with 33,200 inhabitants according to the last census, has been evacuated by the entire civilian population. Not a Belgian remained in the place by three o'clock this after-1 noon. . ] Everybody Out. "This is the answer to the crime of Termonde. It is an answer horrible in its implications, and, let us hope, scathing in its results. Termonde, but seven miles to the north, was wiped out with a completeness never known to history, and in the process hundreds of defence-1 less people perished. "To save Alost, three times the size, from a similar fate,; the . Government has taken tliie wise/ though sensational, step of ordering ai ".complete abandonment, ; down to the*, last man, woman, and child. If. th'epHunS. destroy now they will be doubly cursed. Not a soul remains to challenge.'their right. Yesterday morning. ..there were forty thousand people —civilians all, quietly pursuing their avocations under the shadow of the coming .terror—in Alost arid, the surrounding, villages. . . " When the place was entered by the Gei'maii 1 forces this : aiffiernoon it was as quiet as a sepulchre. / • / ' 'What "ifi happening - there to-night we -Can' only guess, but t ,w;e know that When the German advance guard came in they found all the doors of all the houses open, all the. furniture, with but. £^w- :! there, all • the food' in all the' larders, ready to be eaten,- all the wine to; be -drunk, all the beds to be ' slept .in—all that an army ; to - satisfy its love of cOmfort and'.-its * pride of conquest. All but something to kill. , j '' T fancy the German army must have i been- disappointed,. surprised], i W here- -is the glory in sacking a dead r city," iir pillaging a - corpse ? Where is : even the f rightfulness?' . " Yesterday afternoon 'the.* blonde beast' —as* Mr Philip, quoting. -froni Niet/cschOj lias called hun —pat his oA: Alost, ."with - the' claws out.- c been , scratching. •at the town before. "Now, to "prepare 'for the serious, work of mauling he. sent was afterwards proved.) av body of spies, some' fifty hi number, disguised as refugees from villages further afield. They 'came, and melted away. Then more peasants appeared, bringing tlieir household goods with them pn "little carts' drawn by dogs, which are -hiiiversally employed I in Belgium.

f 'Belgiair. LaMers * and cyclists were in strong force in the centre of the town, and the streets were 1 full of people, many of'them preparing of their own free will for the trek which afterwards became compulsory- and universal. Suddenly the ' peasants?, jpppiig.. round theif little carts, flung the •■cfjvei^ rags from the ■ contents;' and potii*ed it Kpul- : of lea,d into soldieTS. anxi civiliains; alike. As .war German side it' must bfe ' COuiited;: daring ami brilliant raid; for the result was carnage, with but little loss to. the raiders. . , ..■, - •' ; ' That night—which is last night, the night of Sunday—imperative orders', were given for; every person in Alos't and the villages to- leave on the following morning for. Ghent., From <!kybreak onwards they have been streaming out by the high road.- Yet even so, the pitiable . crowd hardly escaped bombardment. At- ten o 'clock - shells began to .drop. .into.the /town. The church is said to have been struck, but not badly

danikgfed. Wholesale Emigrations.

"From Louvain. and elsewhere' we have heard the heartbreaking story of these' wholesale emigrations, but the story of Alost is still impressive 011 account of the sheer weight of humanity witl>. ,wl}ieh it deals. , I have spent most of the flay at a point on the road to Glieiit less th'an'.'tWo miles from the townj watching' the flood of misery roll by. : ■ "As far as the eye could reach, the broad highway teemed with painfully moving people, bowed beneath the weight of their most necessary or treasured possessions. JSTuns and priests, middle-aged %ou.rgeoisebereft of the savings of a lifetime, peasants with their ox-carts, toddling children, aged women who should never have left their homes again in: this life —these and many more moved forward like way-worn cattle, in bewilderment and sorrow, helping one another, cheering one another, though bereft of any other power except the power of moving on, on, on, along the dusty road. , ; "And here in Ghent to-night, are many thousands of these poor people herded together on-straw rn the Palais de Fetes. What can.we do with,"them? What, can the world..-do'with them? Less than twenty miles away a little bit of the German, army, just as part of a comparatively small operation, is spitting—how else can I put it?—upon* all those material things that are closest to their hearts. "This is another of the figures in that sum which the world will not forget "by and by." .