TRAGEDY OF THE WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 18, 23 January 1919, Page 2

TRAGEDY OF THE WAR

PLIGHT vOF : BPITpi PR^O,NER)S: GHOSTSOPONCE ■'. PROUD MEN. (By Philip Gibbs.) With the British Amies, Nov. .29. By-slow stages, . leaving a space of six and a half miles or so between them and i the , retreating. enemy, our , troops of the 2nd and 4th Amies, are drawing near. to the .German frontier. , Going out from Namur yesterday I went to our further outpost line held! by a cavalry screen at the town of Huy, on'the Meuse, some twelve and’., half miles beyond Namur itself. Later in the day I saw .the arrival of. the first patrols of Canadian infantry. “Where, i* our front. line?” I asked one of the men, and not trying to be funiny, ljut with a military gravity, he said: “In the centre of the high street, sir.” Remembering the old) front lines which were drawn across the infernal rum of battlefields, and where no man showed his body without death, the new front lino, struck me as being very funny, and I enjoyed the, joke of it as, I went through Huy .and looked through plate glass windows (there was nevpj a window-pane within fifteen miles of the old front line) at boxes of chocolates and „ sweetmeats; at Tauschnitz, editions of English authors, at of- King Albert and his Queen’, and at fancy goods in many bright shops, all hung with flags, such as oiie might find in Canterbury or Exeter the week be fore Christmas in ; times of peace. It was a good .place for the front line, and that was certainly the opinion of the cavalrymen who strolled up and down the streets under the glad eyes of Belgian girls, who greeted them as heroes and according to th» words of welcome which hung ' in streamers across the roadways.

The name of Huy, this stopping-place on the way to the "Rhine, is not famous in world history, as far as. I know, but is a iiic'-uresque old town of considerable size, where the broad Mesue sweeps around in a sudden. curve below the, high limestone; cliffs, which all the way from Namur . are ,sheer above the deep gorge of the river valley, rough-brown and jagged, like the battlefields and keeps and watch-tower!? 'of mediaeval castle:-..

PACKED WITH PRISONERS. On the broad waters of the Meuse are many barges which pleasure boats pass in time of peace, and down the stream from, Huy come some, of those small steamers to-day, crowded with passengers. They stood tightly together bn the upper andl lower; decks, and by a glance I saw what manner of men they were. They were boatloads of liberated prisoners—French, British, and Italian—coming to Namur to swell the crowds which, as I write, and all day long, are gathered ..outside the. railway station, there waiting for trains to take ihem to'another staion, op 'their, homewardway. These boatloads on the Meuse were lucky ones, eased at last of their packs and able at la&t to rest their weary feet! Scores of thousands of their comrades in misery,; are, tramping along the road back from the German lines. They come straggling along in small groups,. keeping company by some i tie of comradeship made by the. roadside, the easing of s one. man’s load by stronger arms, the sharing of a bit- of. bread,, common memories of misery, or a‘word of greeting in'a tongue they understand). . On xny , journey to Namur, Wnd yesterday outward from Namur, I met thousands of ifiem, arid they all had the same look of men who were pushing on to some goal of their heart's desire. Though the packs ofi their'shoulders press hard, and their tired feet stumble over every ; stone arid-, rut, they were homing birds, but with a far call still fo Manchester and Shropshire and Padua and Mantua and Poictiers and Toulouse!

HUMAN PACK ANIMALS. ■ One could not tell .to what army they belonged by their clothes, for many of them were in German prison camp uniforms, .with the long black coats and round black caps served out to them after "six months’ captivity, and others in German iuriics, arid French soldiers arid Italians with British khaKij while British soldiers had odd garments of all nations, pickednp bn the way back or doled out lo them in German Camps; 'but sdme still -wore the clothes They were captured in, stained and tattered m months d! captivity. There Vilas a Cossack in a grey astrachan cap arid a ‘long-waisted_ coat above heavy boots, .arid there were Chasseurs Alpines in blue bonnets arid knickerbockers, and Belgians 'in slacks arid tasseled caps. Each man had a. Story to tell which would hold so much of the drama of this war arid tragedy that it -would trike a year of Telling; hui those to whoiri I spoke, the irien of the British armies, put it all , into a few words of. bitterness..

“We had a bad time;” said, one of them. , “They starved/'tis sp, that we had to stew nettles and mangel-wurzel to keep' Ourselves alive. Many of us died. They worked ,us hard to the tnd, and wheri we could n6t work they lashed, us.”

Two men, I rnet to-day hadi When harnessed, to carts and made to drag . 6 transport on the German retreat from Demappe. They were ill and weaklooking ,fellows, once of;..the 3rd Division, and afterwards attached to the i9thj. and ' 65rd‘ divisions —Shropshire lads, both, of whom had been captured after -March-2lst. '

■ WOMEN AMONG THEM. Others Lmet .wero of .the Bth and 66th Divisions,, and, were taken prisoner at Marceliave, near Amiens, on the way of the British'retreat. There were women among those; plodders home, refit to prison ; in*• Germany for offences against. German rule,' or deported from Lille and Douai and other towns for enforced labour in the fields. As bravely as the men, they trudged ■ the weaiy miles with packs strapped over, their shoulders, dishevelled-but witli an eager look in their eyes. On© boy to whom I gave a, lift was 16 years old’ahd, looked younger, except - foi‘ his gravity, but he had been a prisoner for four years in a Germaiiyprison. i “Why ", I. asked, astounded, by his words, and ’ he. said.: “For smuggling .over the frontier to Antwerp, where ! belong.”. He was carrying a big wooden box and a haversabk, and the straps had cut his shoulders, and . he

had, a haggard, look, but in his eyes was strong i;. courage; of a man who, had won his way. thtbrigh suffering. Small boys wavedat Mrii and said “Good luck” as : he drove the last part of his journey to Namur, but; he never waved back or smiled at them. He had lost his boyhood. > All this human traffic pours along the roads, and on, the roadsides are vnhuraan tilings which tell of the tragedy of an empire and the fall of great ambitions. They are the material of var, left behind by the German army ■ recording to the terms of the armistice.

PLAY WITH HEAVIES. ' At Niveile I passed hundreds of German guns, limbers, ambulances, aeroplanes, and transport .waggons. One held nbar Nivelie had. been u German aerodrome and airplane factory, with enormous hangars built in brick and big workshops. ‘ All the plant was abandoned to the British, and airplape wings lay piled up with the iron cross painteol on them, and complete airplanes were standing as though ready for •light, as their pilots had left them. Belgian children v wero playing with long-muzzled anti-aircraft guns, elaborately camouflaged, and peeping up the barrels of long-range heavies. All along the way to Namur and beyond to Huy there were trails of these derelict guns and) transports, as though abandoned by the enemy in flight. Many of the waggons and.motpr trucks had been overturned by German soldiers and, some of them. were burned; and others smashed. _But, even stood whole and unbroken and!. they had.. a sorry look, for the enemy’s transport had worn out and been jbatched up in je makeshift way. His stiff cars, with the % German eagle on the panels, had irfin wheels or wooden rims, and his trucks were clumsy looking, and his waggons, potbellied and patchworked like a collection of ancient ‘carts falling to pieces in a backyard of a museum.

POLITE YOUNG MEN, This material, to fulfil the terms of the armistice, is being handed! over by Germain officers who have, safe conduct into the British ' lines'. ?•' A party of thirty Getman soldiers, with their officers, rode through Namur to-day under a with an escort of Australians 'to make an inventory of this and in the house where I apti staying there are three German officers on the floor below, and one under officer on the same-floor as myself. A British soldier stands guarr outside _ their door for their protection, winking at the chambermaid as she goes tip, with hot" water, but otherwise carrying out his duty with proper gravity. The German officers are polite young men, anxious to please. One of them has an English wife, and another is related to an officer in the French Mission, and they are fulfilling f the terms of the armistice as far as they are concerned' .-with scrupulous accuracy and without a show of rancour. In this beautiful town of Namur where the Sambre 'flows to the Meuse below the high citadel on the rocks the British soldiers have been well received, and they are walking about y the streets where long banners meet across the houses wondering how the enemy, who is supposed! to be starving, ran have passed by so many butcher shops, .where' meat is hanging in. abundance,/and «o jnany shops, where there ro buns £tjd takes of .many kinds, without stripping them bare, and only guessing the reason when they ask the price. German officers could buy such things en route, but not the soldiers.

KIND, TO OUR BOYS. To the prisoners of war on the tramp back, to liberty, the Belgian peop.e have been kind and generous, loading them with food at every village. This E'rist.. neyet be forgotten. As moil as tne Ger man a left, Belgian civilians went into the military hospital at Namur, where they found many sick Britishers utterly abandoned, without food and without blankets, and the -women, of Namur set to work at once to nurse them and feed them, Thus saving their rives. Tl e men are grateful, and in answer to the cvv of “Vive I’Angleterre,” they shout ‘‘Good Old) Belgium.” >