UNDER GERMAN RULE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2353, 8 January 1915, Page 6

UNDER GERMAN RULE

PLIGHT OF BELGIUM HORROR OF CORPSE TRAINS j. The author of this article, in tho "Daily Mail," a well-known Bolgian author,- now living in England, has recently returned from a short visit to Belgium. The Germans ardently wish the Belgians'to return to Belgium and particularly that Antwerp should once more assume its normal aspect. The more Belgians there are in Antwerp the more the Germans feel secure against an eventual bombardment by the Allies. Therefore they make no difficulty about the entry into Belgium. Passengers can take the train in the morning at Roozendaal and travel in carriages labelled ''Neutral" slowly as far as~Merxem, outside Antwerp. There is no charge. Antwerp is a desert. For, despite all the invitation's of the Germans, more Belgians continue to leave Belgium than enter it. In the evenings all the Antwerp streets are brilliantly illuminated by electricity or gas. The Germans have ordered, this in the interest of their personal safety. But there is not a . soul in the streets, and nothing could produce a more painful impression than this blaze of light' illuminating emptiness. The Scheldt, which in normal times is so' crowded with shipping, now laps its desolate banks in silence. There is not a boat to-be seen on, the river. Were it not for a few German sentinels and some workmen looking after cattle stalled in the sheds of ,a ; shipping company the riverside would be utterly dead. . _ _ > Every morning a Germ.an military train which takes the reliefs.for the sentinels guarding the line leaves Antwerp for Lierre, Aerschot, and Louvain, arriving at the last-named place . at noon. Some carriages are attached for civilians. The train traverses a. hideously devastated region, nothing but burnt houses, gaping bridges, and razed forests. Throughout the fields on either side of the line may be seen little mounds of earth, surmounted 1 by wooden ■orosses, on which the kepi of a. Belgian soldier sways to and fro in the November winds. ■ . < The Horror of Louvain. The horror of Louvain is inde6crib.able. One might think one were at Pompeii. There aie nothing but ruins as far as the eye, can see. The stamp 'of the Teuton is impressed there witn more arrogance than anywhere.- . At the station the old name-boards in French and Flemish—"Louvain—Leuven"— 1 have been replaced by huge German inscriptions "Lowen." Outside the city on the' road to Tervueen many peasant houses may be seen with csirds nailed on the door bearing the printed notice in Germ nil: • "This nouse must' be preserved ; must be neither sacked nor burnt." In this quarter many housedoors bear the notice; "Heverle-Ter-banck," the explanation being that the houses belong to the property of the Due d'Arenberg, who is , a member of the Prussian Upper House and an officer in tho Guards. These placards show •with | what method i the destruction of Louvain was planned and carried out. I may add. that, the burning of Louvain wa3 delayed by twenty-four hours pending the i receipt of definite instructions from Berlin. , . . To-day everybody .knows why the Emperor and the German General Staff wished to destroy an entire ' city in which the army had spent four days and where complete ■ tranquility; prevailed. . German officers themselves havo confessed.. The idea was to terrorise Brussels, only a few kilometres away; to terrorise the King, and the Government at Antwerp, and thus lead the Belgian people to clamour for peace and put pressure on the authorities'not to allow Antwerp to resist further. By burning Louvain William II hoped to save 100,000 men and win three weeks of precious time. . ( The pretty little garden ornamenting the Place ide la Gare at Louvain is now a cemetery covered with wooden crosses. Here, it will be remembered, a number a civilians slaughtered by the Germans in the sfcreots dl'Louyaiu on that- tragid night were buried. But the Germans have planted in the centre of the garden a. groat: wooden cross bearing the words "Deutsche Krieger" (German Wariors) in order to make it seem that the murderers and not the murdered are buried there. ,' ... , _ A few days ago Herr von BethmannHollweg, the Imperial Chancellor walked through Louvain in company with one of the Emperor V sons and a M. Nerinex, who in the absence of tho 'municipal authorities, all dispersed or shot by the Germans, has taken over the; administration -of the 01 The Chancellor expressed _his horror at tie scene of desolation, but Bougnt to throw the responsibility for _the crime on the people of Louvain, who, according to the legend. invented by tho Teuton murderers, fired on .the German soldiery. M. Nerinex had no trouble in demonstrating the falseness of the charge. The Emperor's son was about to intervene impetuously .in the conversation, but with a motion of the hand the Chancellor silenced him. Tho Corpse Train. General von der Goltz, the German Governor-General, is doing his best, to get tilings in Brussels normal once more. Though the number- of unemployed necessarily increases from day to day owing to the total stagnation of trade, the lack of cash and the stoppage of all' communications, General von der Goltz insists that all workmen should work. He has therefore posted placards ordering the city authorities not to distribute soup to workmen who will not start work 'again •immediately.- -At present the number of recipients of soup in Brussels is estimated at 250,000, or about onethird of the population, and this number will be doubled before the end 'of this month. Three-quarters of the factories and commercial houses are closed. The landlords get no , rents ; people of .independent means no dividends. Some of the leading families in Belgium have clubbed together . to live three or four families in one house in order to reduce/expenses. Trains fall of the innumerable Gertnan wounded from the fighting in Flanders pass through Brussels day and night.. A few days ago one of these trains halted at tho level crossing at Schaerbeek as I was passing. It consisted of forty .trucks, and the wounded were, so numerous that they lay rolled up in blankets, actually on tho platforms of the carriages. A German brakesman opened the door of one of the trucks and I had a glimpse inside. It was a ghastly, an unforgettable sight. The truck was full of dead. So many are the dead that tho Germans can no longer bury tliemi in the plains of. Flanders. They therefore tie the corpses together, four at a time, ivith ropes at tho heads and the feet, and stack them erect in serried lines in these wagons of death. All the dead are sent through Brussels to tho smelting furnaces of tho Walloon country and are there cremated.