AUSTRALIANS VISITING COLOGNE

Evening Star, Issue 16994, 17 March 1919, Page 6

AUSTRALIANS VISITING COLOGNE

Although the Australian divisions as such have not been sent to Cologne, many Australians have individually visited the place during the past throe months. Arrangements are now being made by the Fourth Army for small parties of Australians to go there, the visit lasting about a week. To reach the Shine has long been the ambition of the Australians who have been lighting in this part for four years. There are men who, on enlisting, made private vows to do so. Two men of the 24th Batlalion, who have Cornwall through the war, fulfilled one of these private vows a couple of days ago. A party of us, in motor cars, last Tuesday drove to Cologne with a huge Australian flag flying on the back of the car. The flag, which has been carried by a certain Australian battalion through many battlefields, was flown in this instance from a long stick, cut from a thorn tree in the wire defences of Liege forts. It was treated on the long roads of Germany with great respect. Since December two Australian units have been stationed about Cologne, one being the Fourth Australian Flying Squadron, and the other the Australian Casualty Clearing Station. Both are serving with the Second Army. The British cavalry advance guard was to enter Cologne on 15lh December, but four days previously it was implored by the Cologne Burgomaster to enter the town immediately, in order to save the place from anarchy. This the cavalry' did, and Australian airmen immediately' afterwards flew into the city'. The Austrian officer cornmandingtook over from the German military authorities 150 German aeroplanes surrendered under the armistice conditions. These machines are of all types, . from large Gothas to small scouts, including an armored aeroplane with wings fusilage, made of corrugated iron, specially designed for attacking trenches from a low altitude. The llun pilots, in handing over the machines, expressed astonishment at the various flying, feats performed over the aerodrome, by the Australian airmen, particularly the remarkable stunts shown off in one of the latest-designed British flying scouts, which they declared they were glad they had not met or were not compelled to meet. The general attitude of the inhabitants of the Cologne area has been quite friendly towards the British troops, whom they regard as saving the town from the Gorman Bolsheviks. Whether this friendly' attitude will endure beyond the danger of the Bolsheviks in Germany remains to be scan. The long preliminary discussion at the allied Peace Conference is plainly restoring the Germans’ morale, and impressions recently received by various newspaper correspondents that tho Germans believe they have not yet lost the war are certainly true enough. The Cologne shops are well stocked, and are doing a flourishing trade among the British, especially in cameras, photographs, and material, which are extraordinarily' cheap as compared with prices in England and France. But the apparent prosperity of tho Cologne business houses is not a true reflection of the general conditions in unoccupied Germany, where, according to trustworthy descriptions, most of the poorer people are living in tho most, wretched conditions. Fatty products and woollens are almost impossible to obtain. Civilian suits in the Cologne shops are priced at nearly' £3O. The are prepared to do anything for a soldier who will give or sell them a cake of soap or a piece of chocolate. They say that outside the allied areas soap is impossible to obtain. Another noteworthy feature of this part of Germany is the absence- of very young children. In four days, along a good street, on a stretch of the Rhine, and elsewhere in the country west of Cologne, we saw no children or sign of children under three or four years of age. People say that this is quite general, and, owing to the lack of nourishment during the last couple of years, for a woman .to bear a child was tho seal of her death-warrant.