TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR.

North Otago Times, Issue 13236, 6 March 1915, Page 7

TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR.

■ > i . WHAT INVASION MEANS TO FRANCE. MrjPhilip G'ibbs, who ; has sent B some of the best dispatches from rW war, gives this vivid picture 'in the "Daily Chronicle" of ; what the in-i vasiou of their .country' is meaning to the Preiu'li people. "England is sending the best of hor sons to fight for houour's sake and civilisation; and the imagination;of our people is beginning to realise, though still slowly, I think, the tragic significance of this .worst, of wars," he writes, "But it is impossible,' I am sure, for people safe at home in England, in the pence of obi country towns ■ and the quietude of English villages, to understand, even dimly, 1 the meaning of • invasion by hostile armies. . ! Its" Misery' and ■? Horror. •' ; ' ■' ■; " They understand it here ihhiorthern - France.- They ',.h\o\\* the', .misery' and. •, the horror-.of *it.- ..jit is. a. great'fear; ; wliieh-spreads like.a,,plague,(though more swiftly, and terribly, iuadvanceof the enemy's'tr'odpsl. It makes the ': bravest men sick' with-cowardice, when; they thinkof the,women-:and children. .. it makes,the most, callous.niau pitiful when he,sees those, women with their' little ones and old people','whose place is by the hearthside, .trudging along the highroads, faiutwith hunger, and weariness,, or pleading for:,places in cattle-, ■trucks, already oyerpacked with fugitives, or wandering about, uhlighted towns at night'forany kind of lodging, i ami'then, finding none,.sleeping!ou the j doorsteps of shuttered iioilses.aml under! ■' 'the poor shelter of-.overlmugiug;gables.; I Missing! ,' .> ! 1 "At the present time in this pnyt of i Prance there are thousands, of husbands; I who have lost their Wives 'aud: children, 1 thousands of families, who have been J divided hopelessly in' the .wjld, confusion I ( of these retreats frOm a brutal soldiery, [ They have disappeared ' into ■ the maeli stroni of fugitives—wives, daughters, i sisters, mothers, _ and old'grandfathers | and grandmothers; most of them withi out money, and all of them-dependent. i for their lives upou the hazard'of luek, Every day in the French, newspapers there arelong.lists of enquiries. [ " ' M. Henri Planchet would be deep- | ly grateful to anyone \vJio can inform i Lim of the whereabouts of his wife 1 Buzanne, and of his two little girls, [ Berthe and Umlhe, refugees from Aire- • sur-Lys,' .-.--.-, " 'Mmc.Tardien would be. profoundly grateful for information about her daughter, .'Mnie. des Roehers, who tied ; from the destroyed tcton of Albert on Octobei 10, with her four children.' .-' "Every day I.read some of these lists with a pain iu the heart, .finding a tragedy in every line, and wondering whether any of these missing people'are among" those whom'l have met in the guards-vans, of-.troop trains, huddled among'their'bundle's, or on wayside platforms, patient in their misery, or in the* lo.'jg columns of retreating inhabitants' front a little town-deep iu a wooded l valley below the hills where German; pus are vomiting their shrieking) ihvajjuel, . , j Imagine the English Case.. ' ••'lmagine such a case in .England.'! A man leaver his office in.London, and { lake-! the train to Guildford, where! his wife and children are waiting sup-1 >.n t'o.r him, At Weybridg? ihe train! comes to a dead halt. The guard runs j up to the engine-driver, and comes back j to ssy that the tuuuelhas been blown! up fiy the enemy; It is reported that I Guildford and all the villages around! have been invaded. Families flying from Guildford describe the bombardnout of the town. A part of it is iu | flames, The Guildhall is destroyed, I Many inhabitants have been killed. I Most of the others have tied, "The man who was going home to I supper wants to set out to find his j wife and childnn, His friends hold him'back iu spite of his struggles, 'You I are mad! 1 they shout. 'Mad. . , .' He has no supper at home that night, His supper and'his home have beeu burnt : to cinder's. For weeks he advertises in ! j the papers for the whereabouts of his j : I wife and babes. Nobody can tell him. j j He does not know whether they are!' j dead or alive, j Everyday Tragedies, j "There are thousands of such cases i in France, I have, seen this very I tragedy only yesterday—a mau weepj iug for his wife and children swallow- • I ed up into the uukuowu, after the dei struetion of Fives, near Lille. A newj bom babe was expected. On the first: I day ofjife it would receive a baptism: j of fire. Who can tell this distracted j man whether the, mother or child livesf i I "There are many villages in France!' I lo : day around Lille and Armenlieres, j St'. Omer and Amiens and Arras, I and over a wide stretch of country in { Artois and I'ieardy, where, in spite of ' j all weariness, women who lie down be- ] side their sleeping babes can find no j sleep for themselves. For who can say j what the night will bring forthf j "Perhaps a patrol of Uhlans, who shoot peasants like rabbits as they rim across the fields, and who demand wine, I and more wine, until in the madness j of drink they begin to burn ami destroy for mere lust of ruin. So it was at I Scnlis, at (Wpy-en-Valois, and last j week iu many little villages in the rej "ion through which I have lately passed. "It is never possible to tell the enemy's next move. His cavalry comes riding swiftly far from the main lines of the hostile troops, aud, owitig to the reticence of olficial news, the inhabitants of a town or village And thein■elves eugulfed iu the tide of battle before they guess their danger. They are trapped by the suddeu tenringup of railway lines and blowing up of bridges, as, 1 was nearly trapped the other day when the Germans cut a line a few hundred yards away from my train, If I had passed that'few hundred yards ten minutes earlier 1 should have'been taught in the trap, like-scores of poor people.who are now without any way of escape, 1 The Exodus Begins, i "Yet the terror is as great when no Germans are seeu, and no shells heard. It is enough that they, are coming. They have been reported -often falsely—across distaut hills, j So the exodus begins, and, with perambulate laden with bread and apples, iu any kind of vehicle—even in a hearse [ -drawn by poor beasts too bad fgrI army requisitions, ladles of quality 1 cave their chateaux and drive in the [ throng with peasant women from whiteI vaehed cottages. Perhaps iu a little i virile both the chateau and the cottage j vill be buried in the' same heap of I uins. The -Return Homo. . "In a week or two, - perhaps, the ■iieaiy is r beaten 'back, aud then the uost hardy of the townsfolk return home.' 1 have .seen . some .of 1 them voing home—at fic-alia, nt (Wpy, and ilher places.' VThey come badk doubtful j I" what' they will find, but soon they itaud stupefied in front of some charred irnbers which were once their house, fhey do not wasp, but just stare iu a [axed way. They pick over tho ashes .ml fiud burnt bits of former treasures • the baby's cot, tlie old grandfather's hair, the parlour dock. Or they go iito ioi'-ii Hill standing neat and perVet. .4ml find that-Jflfflf ilisanity of age, has''smashed up all■ their '. house.>old, as though baboons had been at , lay or fighting tnrough the rooms. The } .iicst of drawers lids been looted, or it's

j '.'' . i , i contents tumbled_ nut upon the floor Bto1;j?h gl,w>, l)i)ilie*, }m, ari miXPil up with a shattered uolin, Ihe medals ot n-ginnijfntlii'i who f o'i)ght m-'tO. the children's bioVei, toys, clothes ■ foodstuff, and pictuic .'mines, I have seen such houses after the arriving and gbing of the German soldiers. ' i "ijnin and -death eoine wilh this in- ■ vasion. Jn the war /.one there is '--nt safety. Sixty miles or lildre from the flor-. 1 man lilies hostile aeroplanes' skim - through the sky, dropping bombs,ovot , j quiet little villages; Yesterday, not 'far from where I write these wordit, a woman went out witji her baby' to speak with ,a neighbour. A' moment later the mother and child were both lying dead in the rondway. A German aviator had passed in tho clouds." I! '".' "■"-»■