EXPERIENCES IN LENS

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 251, 23 October 1917, Page 7

EXPERIENCES IN LENS

GERMANS BLOW UP BUILDINGS

The French Deputy, M. Basly, wlio is also Mayor oi" Lens, has reached Paris T.vith a convoy of persons evacuated from the occupied districts by the f»<M'innns. He. was removed from Lens on April 12th at the time when the: British offonsive was causing the enemy a great deal of :u!"><>ty. The Germans only allowed f.ho ix-.rty of which AI.. Bfisly .was ii. member a few minutes to packup and leave. T'lie journoy of 11 'miles hoi,ween Lens and Dourgos was made on foot in a snowstorm nnd tprribly cold we.-r.ther. The next day the party had to wait five hours at .the railway station at Dourges with*sout.a fire .before leaving for Belgium

in cattle trucks with disgustingly filthy floors, in which they hud to stand for 22 hours, until they reached Hayelange, >vhere they were kept until August 4th, on which date they were repatriated.

Speaking of General Klotz, whose army occupied Lens, M. Basly says: —"This Klotz had a truly German soul. One day I objected to his demands on the ground that they were opposed to the provisions of the Hague Conventions. He replied, contemptuously and jeeringly: ' The Hague Conventions are for us, and not for you. 3 As the Germans will not fail to make out that it was the British artillery which completely destroyed Lens, I make a point of denouncing now the acts of devastation scientifically committed by the Germans. Thus they blew up a church, a theatre, the Banque de France, and the new Hotel de Ville. There was nothing that they did not carry, away, even down to "the rails! from the railways. , j

"The hope of liberation never for <i moment abandoned us, and on several occasions during the violent pushes of the English troops tare believed deliverance to bo imminent. I made an energetic protest against evacuation. Only three hours before our departure we were ordered to be ready, and as we were not we were expelled by- soldiers. Before leaving I demanded the municipal funds. The commander sent them to me some days later, but of the £20,000, £3920 was missing. When we left on April 11 the Germans blew up the arched craves where the Banque de France had taken refuge, as well as the church and the municipal offices. They blew up the mines as far back as 1915. There were no deportations of women from Lens.

"Every morning from seven to ten o'clock the Americans and Dutch sent in supplies, and the English interrupted their bombardment meanwhile. The remainder of the time we stayed in our caves. Since our evacuation we have lived in camps at Maffe, near Namur, where wo suffered terribly from hunger.".