A NEUTRAL IN BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1915, Page 10

A NEUTRAL IN BELGIUM.

A CLOSE FRIEND OF M, MAX. A TRAINLOAD OF RAVING MAD GERMANS.

(From a Lady Correspondent of the Press). London, August 26.

There is in London just now a very distinguished American, so well-known by. repute to the writer that without hesitation I went to her this week to see if she would talk to me a little of the evacuation of Warsaw, at which I knew she had been present. Then I discovered that she had been in Brussels when that capital was occupied, and knowing her to be an intimate friend of the intrepid Burgomaster of Bruxelles, M. Max, begged her to start with that.

"But I left Brussels under arrest," she said amusedly, "so maybe the lesß said about that the better."

Something of this story had reached me, as also her subsequent arrest in Germany, the matter having been made an international concern, and taken up by the American Ambassadors in Brussels and Berlin with the German authorities in America. And a mighty stir does one discover one slender and beautiful woman can make, the world over.

Refugees had been crowding into Brussels for days from the outlying country districts, which had been ravaged by the swift oncoming Germans, till the city was almost overflowing. Every night groups of messengers (i.e., scouts) went out and every night came back, but nearly always less in number, with news of what could be found out, and reported to M. Max, who then cheered on the crowds who gathered. Brussels, it must be remembered, was completely cut off now from all possibility of other communication with the outside world.

All the time relief work was being carried on night and day, to offer what little could be collected to the homeless, and all neutrals were giving their services.

"Every day," said my friend, "I saw M. Max, and he seemed never to rest and never to need rest. His fearlessness was beyond words, because it was genuine and simple. He felt no fear even on terrible night when the streets of Brussels were black with people, all straining their eyes for the road along which the messengers would return. "I was with M. Max' when a Mayor from a town near by (Ghent, I think) came up and said, 'lt's too late. No messengers will return now.' And almost at once we realised that the Germans were on us. Just for once I saw M. Max's spirit seem to fail when he said to the Mayor, 'How can I tell them?' However., we were told in the most characteristic way, for into the very midst of that tight-packed crowd of distressed people the advancing Germans actually fired one of their big guns. It was a blank charge, calculated to frighten us, and as a joke, at such a time, was as great a piece of devilry as they could have devised."

"FRIGHTFULNESS" ANSWERED. "Its effect was perfectly miraculous, however, and I have never looked on such a sight as I did a few minutes later, a most wonderful lesson as to the real Belgian fearlessness. When the smoke had cleared away the whole multitude broke out into one of the Belgian national songs. They had caught the spirit of M. Max. It'was such an answer to the- Prussians' frightfulncss that even they were apparently impressed, for they tried no more jokes of the kind."

Incident naturally crowded on incident after the German occupation, and the plucky American was destined to got herself into one or two scrapes, though, for the sake of any use she might be, she tried, "without selling her soul," to avoid fracas, One day, however, she was walking down the Avenue Louise, sporting the Belgian colours pinned to her coat when a Prussian colonel rode by at the head of a band of men. He pulled his horse up opposite to her, and, pointing rudely to the ribbon, said "Why do you wear that!" "Knowing my tongue would at once evince my neutrality," she said merrily, "I said 'Shure to show my admiration for the Belgians.' 'He said, still pointing, "Take it off!"

"What did you do?" the New Zealand' er could not but ask, with due tion of such an incident.

"Do!" she laughed. "I just puffed my American chest out to its manliest and said 'You take it off!' He didn't. Just rode away, and I never saw his lordship again.

"One day an extraordinary thing happened, and this, in conjunction with other similar things that I've seen, makes me think that the starvation of German men has often accounted for the blind way they've seemed to carry out their superiors' orders to loot and torture.

"A Belgian official whom I knew well came to me one morning and said that information had been received that a locked troop train, full of Belgians, who were apparently being tortured, was just outside Brussels. In company with five other neutrals, I was asked to be at the railway station to make my depositions. Sure enough, when the train came into sight we all heard blood-curdling sounds coming from the carriages. These were opened, and of those taken out—a number in all—then; was not one but was u German, and raving mad. It was an awful sight. "All this time M. Max was at his post, giving counsel, seeing. streams of people, all day at the Hotel de Ville, and wonderfully heartening us nil up. Onre I went with him on a glorious job. "Brussels was placarded with the famous posters—l read many a one—about 'French's contemptible little army,' and about the British army being in the sea, etc., and Max had caused to be put up beside each one a proclamation, from himself, telling Belgians not to worry over the Gorman ones, which were not true. The German authorities, as soon as they saw these pasted white paper over them. This day I went out with M. Max he had a vessel full of oil, and with a great paint brush he covered the blank sheets with oil. The consequence was, of course, that his words showed through at once, much to his glee and ours, who watched him!

"Things were very very bad at this time in Brussels for the refugees, of course. Fresh milk was not obtainable, and so terrified had the mothers been that they could no longer nourish their babies, so that there was a death roll soon of about ninety babies a day. It was so horrifying that I went one day, as the boad of a deputation of neutral women to the German general with a plan for procuring milk, "He was an abominable person, rude and overbearing, and almost aeemintf

lo make fun of nly story. I tried pathos, bribing and threats! After sympathising with him over his plight in having to arrange such gigantic details (!) I unfolded my plan—which was that I and a number of other willing women go beyond Uie city cacli day and bring in milk iu cans on our backs under, if ho choose, a guard appointed, by him—and when this iu its simplicity didn't appeal to him, I said I would undertake, if he'd grant my request that a full account of his generosity Bhould appear in all the American papers, he merely said:— "What you ask is absurd, taadam, and I utterly refuse to consider it. Now what will you do?"

He looked such a great brute that I just said, "Well I'd put ia a true story, your Excellency." And he had me placed under arrest. And that was the end of Brussels for me. Actually, later, when I got to Germany, I found myself black listed there—so complete are the German police records. It was in crossing the German frontier for Russia that the American, had another tusßle with the authorities. In Germany nothing serious had occurred. She found the people, as has everyone, stuffed, as children would say, with only good news, and that as often imaginary as otherwise.

She has always .worn as a pendant a very valued .miniature of her father. This is set in brilliants, and after being warned that the Prussian authorities would probably confiscate it if seen, she hid it.

AN AMERICAN BOX ON THE EARS. The searching of her nt the frontier as carried out by a soulless German woman who, not content with feeling things, actually ripped open the hem of every one of the American's dresses, nightgowns, dressing gowna and coats, so that they might have been a collection of rags. Added to this treatment were comments so haru to bear that matters were strained before the prime events of the drama. At last the German came on the precious miniature. The brilliants interested her not at all, but the miniature seemed to hold, to her conscientious mind, possibilities, and so she bit it between her strong teeth.

This was too much, and my friend, never noted for her meekness at the best of times, suddenly shot out her arm and gave her "a sound American box on the ears."

It was the beginning of much complication, settled in the end by Ambassadors, for she was the guest of one at this time. But when she was compelled t« leave Germany, and even her Ambassador could not save her from that it appears, as she was a black listed perßon, she bore numorous marks ot German officialdom about her neutral person in the form of bruises galore.