FLEEING FROM BRUSSELS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 122, 16 October 1914, Page 7

FLEEING FROM BRUSSELS.

| THE ABANDONED CITY. WAITING FOR THE GERMANS. FEARS OF TILE POPULACE. "Brussuls lost her calm yesterday for the first time,'' wrote the London Times' correspondent on August, 19. "'l'h*s whole atmosphere oi town was t'ciwe, apprehensive and' charged with

coming tiiou'bie. This aiom-ng we learnt that communication by rail was cut off lctween Ostcnd and Brussels, which means that the capital is completely isolated. AH day long the Place de la Care, in front of tie Nord S.ation, was packed with a sombre, waiting mass of all ages and classes. " At times tlw

ciowd broke up into uneasy, low-speak-iig groups. At others it rushed to this point or that,, now to gather round those piteous little groups of refugees, each with their little tale of brutality to tell, now gazing up ati the occasional lawk-like German aeroplanes whicil Blowiy circle round tlw city, now surging round a papersellor in a state of feverish excitement terribly near panic, i il was as if we wore waiting for the end of the world, a. sensation of foreboding over all, on© had never experienced before.

"All day long the station was disgorging something to occupy the attaition of the crowd. JSoaic-lknes a few terribly wounded -(from the tranches, sometimes a weary, ibegrimed infantrvman back from tihe from, round whom the crowd eagerly gathered for news as lit, limped towards a cafe tor refri.«ument. All day long % tilled with officers lUiundercd up, stopped' a moment, and then leapt away on their steriom errands. Refugee trains poured out tiheir complement of homeless, heartbroken women and duildrem adKitho Garo du Nord. Alany of them jiad j never been in Brussels before, and one J could detect, beneath their hopeless I misery, in the way they looked vvonderi ingly around them, a consciousness of I tlw intense novelty of their experi[ences. Some were almost in rags, | oihers had obviously put on the best clothes they could dind. One old woma.i (85 years of age, wandered, weeping | through the streets in all her pathetic I Sunday finer)'. | "While the terrified peasants were rushing in, thousands of the Bruxcllois were rushing out. Places on the trains I for the coast and intervening stations j were simply fought for. Each train, | packed to suffocation point, hurried out rtgardless of the time-toible. It was necessary to run the gauntlut of the' soldiers and' bo|)i scouts, wlio kept every- | one back from the front of the station, I and secure a seat at least three-quarters of an hour before the train left.

| "I met a woman oil the boat, who told ime that Ghent was expected to ibe occupied to-day, and that! all who could v.ere leaving'. i'estwlay she ha-l eee.i a German detected in the act of sending off carrier pigeons to the Germaji lines. Ho was shot immediately and , publicly in the street, and his cage ; smashed to piteesi fc'hc hud horrible istories to tell of refugees who had eomu , into Ghent- aftej seeing their children ■ thrown into the flames of their burning buildings. "Everywhere one was asked almost hysterically as to' the whereaboiris of the eipeditonaxy force. *li. k time, they came,' a Belgium, workuum said. 'Little Belgium! has need of tliem.' The belief ic England: is pathetic in it« intensity. "A Belgian was down at. the Gare du Nord all yesterday, awaiting the arrival of his brother, whom he had heard was returning slightly wounded'. When the train arrived, to his horror he found that there (had been a mistake. A wounded, man was* taken out, buti it was noS his brother. He asked, the wounded man if he had heaxd any news of him. 'Monsieur,' said the oflieer, with tear n in lus eyes, 'he was blown to pieces within my sight.' "It is that nearness to tragedy which makes the atmosphere of [Brussels."