AFTER THE BALL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1735, 5 September 1919, Page 2

AFTER THE BALL.

CLEANING UP AT OSTEND. BARN YARD ODOUR PROVES TENACIOUS. Ostend, the city beautiful and the Atlantic City of Belgium, although badly bitten by the German mad dogs of war and silently suffered during the four years it had to endure German kultuj and German-occupation, is fast regaining its peace-time stride, as a summer resort.

Since that memorable day' of last November that the Armistice was signed the hotel-keepers, merchants, and residents of the city have been as busy as bees cleaning up the ghastly filth and dastardly destruction wrought by the German military machine. Today some of the hotels are again opening their doors to the pleasure and healthseekers of Europe and America, although there-are a great many that will take another year before they can be put into operation, and some that never will be reclaimed.

The other night, writes Edward T. Gibbons in the Chicago '■' Tribune,'' I attended a concert at the "Kursaal"—Ostend'e palace of festivities. This mammoth hall, built somewhat on the order of an American casino, but much more elaborate in its decorations of oil paintings, draperies and richlycarpeted floors, was used as a barn for horses, by the Germans during their entire occupation. Although the whole building was extensively fumigated and redecorated from top to bottom, one can still smell the barnyard odour which 1 no disinfectant could drive out.

The manager of the Ocean Hotel, where I am staying, has told me that he had to redecorate and refurnish his whole hotel at an expenditure of 300,000 francs. His establishment was used by the Germans as a beer saloon. He had just been able to reopen his doors to the public a few days before I arrived. The Continental Hotel at Blankenberghe, just outside of Ostend, was used as a billet for German soldiers. A casual observer, not knowing what had happened to this hotel, - would think it had been used as a billet for horses instead of human beings. The floors, walls and ceilings of the rooms were covered with filth of every description. The beds were smashed and bent, chairs had legs and backs broken off, and the upholstery cut out with a knife.

All the bureaux and washstands were minus drawers and badly mutilated. It is said the Germans cut the 1 upholstery out of the furniture and wrapped their spoils up with it, and then, being short of boxes, they used the drawers out of the bureaux and washstands to pack the loot in for shipment back to Germany. The upholstery, in addition to being used for wrapping paper, was also made into clothes for German children.

Prior to 1914 Ostend was considered one of the best fortified cities in the world. It had a defence of hundreds of large calibre coast guns, which extended from the city proper to the port of Zeebrugge, a distance of about 20 miles. It was thought to be impregnable. But with the sudden onslaught of the German hordes, the vastly outnumbered Belgian forces had to retreat from the town with very little resistance. From the day the Germans occupied the city until the day the Armistice was signed they made it a paradise for themselves, but a hell for the Belgian citizens who had refused to leave the town.