DEVASTATION OF POLAND

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 16 March 1915, Page 2

DEVASTATION OF POLAND

RUIN ALL ALONG THE GERMAN LINE.

PLOUGHED ROADS

(By Lieut.-Colonel Roustam Bek.)

Much has been said about the destruction of Belgium, the population of which suffered so heavily. Of course, the disaster to this small country is great, but it cannot, I fear, be compared to the terrible devastation of the whole of Poland.

Poland is the real war area on the eastern front, and 20,000,000 of her population are at present mostly ruined or tilled. In front of me I have a letter in which, in detail, the terrible disaster of Poland is described. The writer of this letter was an eye-wit-ness, Mr V. Belogorodsky, who describes the situation of Poland as follows:

"Fifteen miles from Warsaw tlio railway lines suddenly vanished, and thence right up to tne Gorman irontier it is impossible to lind many feet of the railway in order. It seoms as if a gigantic earthquake has passed along the hundreds and hundreds of miles of railways. The whole of the telegraph poles have been carefully hewn down, and lie like dead bodies, with wires cut off and insulators broken. The railway embankments are all destroyed, and most of them are similar to roughly ploughed fields. The drainage trenches for the water are carefully filled up with earth. All the signals arid semaphores are destroyed, and the Germans paid especially great attention to the junction points, which are missing everywhere or twisted out of shape.

SLEEPERS BURNED

"Traces of gigantic wood fires made from sleepers could be seen along all the lines. It is absolutely striking how carefully and mercilessly our enemies acccomnlished their destructive work on the retreat from Warsaw.

"All the huts and the water towers. i and stations, as well as the houses oc- I cupied by . the railway staffs, are in | such a state of ruin that they could not be remiired, and to rebuild them they must first be entirely cleared away, because the Germans used the j most powerful explosives and completely destroyed the foundations. They have not only destroyed the buildings, but to complete the destruction they also burned them down to the ground. "The stations of Gridish, Zizardorff, Staro-Itadziviloff, Skiernievice, and Lovicz are in such a ruinous condition that it cannot be imagined. The most beautiful station, Skiernievice, with the special imperial platform and retiring rooms, which was always the pride of the population and cost millions of money, is completely wiped out. Even the bridge over the railway has not only bsen destroyed to prevent communication, but has quite vanished.

"In the place where the station, of Lovicz was* the ground has been ploughed up. "Only quite close to the frontier the Germans have left some buildings standing, and destroyed the railway in a less barbaric manner —of course, in order to use thorn when they want to advance, and they intend to destroy them if they should be unsuccessful."

FLOODS

It must be noted that the country

of Poland was covered with a network

of good roads, and these made it possible for the Russians to concentrate

their troops by the use of motor cars. The Germans^ knew that, and also paid great attention to the destruction of this means of communication. Every road has been blown up for a considerable distance on the right side, then for a, similar distance on the left, so that the ends of the destroyed parts meet in the middle of the road.

Such is the state of the roads of almost the whole of Poland. But this was not enough for the harbaric Germans. The roads which they considered important strategic ways seem to have been ploughed up by a huge implement. The whole of the dams were opened and the water allowed to flood the country around. The beautiful trees" which bordered the roads were dragged up and strewn across the way. Villages, small towns, and big towns are absolutely destroyed, by fire and i shells, the cattle sequestered, and the i male inhabitants who refused to join the German army were shot. There is no doubt that Germany used the Napoleonic method for completing their army from the population of the invaded countries. But Napoleon, being a great administrator, succeeded in doing this in a humane way without any brutality, while the consequence of the German policy in the invaded country is that the population, when they saw the German army approaching, fled away to the east to save themselves from the bafbarism of the Huns. CALL FOB HELP. The Polish population must be supI ported, - and I would appeal to every one in Great Britain to give even the smallest help to those unfortunate people who are suffering for our mutual great cause. If only every Briton j would give one penny to support the, poor refugees it would be a considerable help to them, and I hope that my call will not be in vain. I Until quite recently. Russia was counted in this country as a barbaric race; recently, too, non-combatant Germans were frightened by the Russian invasion of East Prussia and Galicia; and yet what do we see? The Russians (as well as the western Allies) are gaining ground in Germany, avoiding* all unnecessary destruction, showing mercy and protection for noncombatants. Wherein lies the- reason of such a great difference of the morality between these great nations? I think ye must look particularly to the national literature. The Russian nation, for instance, has been educated by the works of Count Tolstoy, Tourgeneff, Dostoievsky, Gogol. Gorky, and many others, which introduced to the nation humanity and taught them what real suffering and sorrow are. And although the Russian nation was for a very long time far from Western civilisation, the soul of the whole Russian people was more cultivated in the human way than the soul of the Teuton races, whose gospel was the works of Generals Klausevitz, Bernnardi, and many others, introducing the annihilating method of warfare as well as the motto: "The whole world for Germany."