HORRIBLE SCENES IN POLAND.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14698, 1 September 1915, Page 5

HORRIBLE SCENES IN POLAND.

A NATION DOOMED TO STARVATION.

A neutral correspondent from Poland writes:—

The words “Firil.S'Poloniac” are attributed to the fallen-' hero of Poland, Kosciusko. These words could' never bo more appropriately used than now, seeing the present ruin and devastation of Poland. I had travelled across Northern Poland and Galicia, and saw all the bigger cities, towns, and villages. On an area-of 10,000 square miles between the Austro-German fighting lines up to the Vistula, Bzura, a fid t Nida , .stretches one huge, endless:,cCmefferv, ohe vast desert, with only, ’ind ' heaps: o'f .ruins, which show that (bis was an inhabited country, where human beings lived a peaceful life/' From Warsaw to Sandomierz, from north of the Vistula right up to the Prussian border, nothing else can be seen. On a territory of twenty miles south of the river Vida,, eighteen out ot twenty villages were burnt to the r ground by the Austrians, in order to keep a clear space, for the guns. The people wore giveq, ,qnly ’ ten minutes’ time to evacuate tlicir homes. They fled without even being able to save clothes or food. Around Lodz, on the space of 30 miles, only five villages were left unburnt. Poland suffers- as, no country in Europe has suffered yet. Every second inhabitant is left-without’shelter and without bread. Hundreds of thousands of the terror-stricken population wander about this desolation, through thousands of miles of ruins and graveyards. What has become of the proud Polish nation? It is a nomad tribe, living like wild beasts in underground caves and hollows., The roads are crowded 'with thousands of miserable paupers, who beg for pity and help from others who are likewise destitute. Near Skaryszcw 10,000 of these ■stricken beings live in abandoned trenches. On the road to O'strowicc I saw an iwful procession—old men dragged their weary legs clad in sheepskins only, women half-naked carried little dying children, followed by boys and girls in rags. A Cossack patrol was passing; the starving children with a- last effort tore towards them begging for bread. The Cos-, sacks threw pieces of bread they carried, and galloped away, escaping from the horrifying view of those., dying skeletons and their moans. .1 -do not think the poor -creatures lived long after [ 'saw them. I heard almost in every province blood-curdling stories, how the childrefi were trampled to death under the hoofs if the armies’ horses, and the population doomed to starvation committed wholesale suicide,, how thousands ' of them were driven to-madness. Such is the present condition of Poland. Tlie future will be still worse. Forests, roads, and cultivated fields have disappeared. Not a grain was sown, as no grain was to .be got. In addition to this, the soil was turned, up through trench digging; and all the poor sandy or clay soil was brought on the surface. The destruction of forests is indescribable., Tne trees were either cut down to bridge the marshes to. enable the artillery to pass through,' 1 and for the building up of trenches) or for fear they can be used by ’the enemy for shelter, or exported to Germany- In other parts, miles of finest forests were burnt down. If Poland'was hot shut up in Centra) Eastern Europe, if it. was like Belgium, -Toso to friendly French, English, and ' Dqtch shores, the misery, the starvation of the people might have been i checked, as it was done in Belgium; but it seems to mo that, unless the world realises fine condition of uuparalelled sufferings of this Crucified nation, Poland, with its 25 million' souls, will cease to exist. ' ' ' ■--■■■■■