THE EXODUS FROM ANTWERP

New Zealand Tablet, 10 December 1914, Page 23

THE EXODUS FROM ANTWERP

A TRAGIC STORY.

HALF A MILLION PEOPLE IN FLIGHT.

‘ It is announced that the Kaiser has telegraphed to his aunt, the Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, as follows,’ says the Rotterdam correspondent of the Daily News. * “Antwerp was occupied without fitting. God be thanked in deepest humility for this glorious result. To Him be all honor.” ’ ’

Each of us has his own conception of God, but few people on this side of the Channel will imagine that there is much rejoicing in Heaven over that tale of human woe which is the sequel of ‘ this glorious result ’ which leads the Kaiser to remember that he has an aunt.

One pleased aunt (says Public Opinion is a poor substitute for an agonised people driven from home and country and the very means of life.

To Be Paid in Full.

‘ No more mournful spectacle has been witnessed during the war,’ says the Times in a leader. ‘ The world, when it learns of that miserable flight of swarms of innocent people, will not fail to remember that they are flung forth homeless and destitute in pursuance of the senseless ambition to place “Germany over all.” All the woe . which Belgium is enduring is the result of the spirit of Prussian militarism, which has sought to dominate the world regardless of the misery it is inflicting. The account against the Prussian officer caste is a growing one, but it will have to be paid in full.’

Half a Million People in Flight.

‘ There were probably 400,000 or 500,000 people still in Antwerp on Wednesday afternoon, and all but a few hundreds had gone by Thursday. noon,’ says a Times correspondent. ‘By seven o’clock on Thursday morning 'a crowd, which probably contained 100,000 people, blocked the Quai St. Michel and the entrance to the Gare Waas, whence, alongside the pontoon bridge (reserved for the military), the . ferry-boats conveyed passengers across the Scheldt to the trains for Ghent and Ostend. The bombardment, it must be remembered, had been going on since the preceding midnight, and the, crowd jostling there in turn while the shells broke over the city was an extraordinary spectacle in the early morning light.

Every Kind of Vehicle. ‘ If 100,000 people fled that morning from the city by the ferry and trains and highways to St. Nicolas, Lokeren, Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend,.(not less than 250,000 probably many more pushed out by the roads by Wilmansdonck and Eeckeren to the Dutch frontier. It was there that the real tragedy of the evacuation was seen in all its nakedness.

1 Scores of pens are doubtless trying to describe that quite indescribable scene. Moving at a foot’s pace went every conceivable kind of vehicle; great timber waggons, heaped with household goods topped with mattresses and bedding, drawn by one or two slow-moving stout Flemish horses, many of the waggons haying, piled upon the bedding, as many as 30 people of all ages carts of lesser degree of every kind from the delivery vans of fashionable shops to farm vehicles and waggons from the docks; private carriages and hired cabs; occasional motor cars, doomed to the same pace as the farm team ; dog-carts drawn by anything from one to foUr of these plucky Belgian dogs, the prevailing type of which looks almost like pure dingo; hand-trucks, push-carts, wheelbarrows, perambulators, and bicycles; everything loaded as it had never been loaded before and all alike creeping -along in one solid unending mass, the long white roads into dark ribands, 20 miles long, of animals and humanity. A happy thing it is that this is a flat country. Happier still that the weather has been perfect.

Those on Foot.

‘ Between and around and filling all the gaps among these vehicles went the foot passengers, each also loaded with bundles and burdens of every kind, clothes and household goods, string bags filled with great round loaves of bread and other provisions for the road, children’s toys, and whatever possessions were most prized. Men and women, young and old, hale and infirm, lame men limping, blind led by little children, countless women with babies in their arms, many children carrying others not much smaller than themselves; frail and delicate girls staggering under burdens that a strong man might shrink from carrying a mile; welldressed women with dressing-bags in one hand and a pet dog* led with the other; aged men bending double over their crutched sticks.

Cattle, Goats, Dogs, Birds.

‘ Mixed up with the vehicles and the people were cattle, black and white Flemish cows, singly or in bunches of three or four tied abreast with ropes, lounging with swinging, heads amid the throng. Now and again one saw goats. Innumerable dogs ran in and out of the crowd, trying in bewilderment to keep in touch with their masters. On carts were crates of poultry and chickens, and baskets containing cats. Men, women, and children carried cages with parrots, canaries, and other birds ; and, peeping out of bundles and string generally carried by the elder members of the familieswere Teddy bears, golliwogs, and . children’s rocking-horses.. It was impossible not to be touched by the tenderness which made these wretched folk, already overburdened, struggle to take with them their pets and their children’s playthings.’ Similar stories are told by other correspondents. They vary in detail of pain, but all agree in the monstrous nature of the woe of these poor exiles.

A Barren Victory.

‘ Antwerp has fallen, but it has fallen with honor,’ says the Daily News. ‘ All that the enemy have achieved after a fortnight’s costly striving is the possession of an empty city, from which every hale soldier and every sound gun have been removed. The forts have been blown up, the ships have been ruined, the harbor has been blocked, the supplies have been destroyed. A barren victory like this was not the thing which the Germans painted to themselves,' when on September 26 they began their attack on Antwerp. They owe their disappointment to the intrepid resistance of the Belgian Army, supported in the last week by the skill and courage of British sailors and marines. Every British heart will glow with pride at the knowledge that in this, the latest and most obstinate fight for the preservation of the national life of the Belgian people, British troops stood side by side with the brave soldiers of Belgium.’ Pride of Humanity. ‘ Belgium has sacrificed herself to the liberty of the world,’ says the Figaro. ‘ The world will remain her debtor until all the crimes committed against her are punished, and the loss she has sustained has been repaid a hundredfold. Never was there a more sacred duty. ‘ The Belgian nation has thrown herself magnificently into the foremost ranks of civilisationthe living image of right imperishable, right which will resist all assaults, and which will triumph over them.’ Sacrificed to Perfidy and Ambition. The New York Tribune finely says that: ‘History can afford no more glaring instance of the welfare .of an innocent and: neutral nation being sacrificed to the perfidy and ambitious military policy of a more powerful neighbor. The more complete is Germany’s triumph over Belgium, the deeper will be the stain on Germany’s honor. Every Belgian soldier killed and wounded every, woman child, and civilian sacrificed every bit of Belgian, property destroyed; every refugee driven out of the country adds to the immensity of the 1 score which Germany will have to settle.