DRAGGED TO THE FRONT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2489, 16 June 1915, Page 8

DRAGGED TO THE FRONT

UNWILLING AUSTRIANS. An Austrian business man who reached Amsterdam recently declares that Austrians have lost all their enthusiasm for the war. He says that terrible scenes are daily witnessed in the streets of Vienna when the men are being collected and sent to be prepared to go to the. front. Men of 45 years of age and over are forced to join tho colours, in spite of strong protests that they are married, and have largo families to feed and protect. Any who carry opposition to any length are swept up by the military police and spirited —nobody knows where. There are now many wivee in litter ignorance of the iate of their husbands. The worst scenes occur when the men are being marched through the streets to depots tor training and equipment. They arc forced to march onward by armed guards, and compelled to turn a deaf ear to the heartrending appeals of their wives and children not to leave them. The guards are constantly obliged to drag women and children away by force from husbands and fathers, to whoso ooats they cling in a last piteous effort to stay their departure. The Christchurch "Press" relates as ; ™»lows tho annoying experience of two [Christchurch pressmen during tho de- : parture of the "Seventh" from Christchurch:—"On Saturday night at the city railway station, during the departure for Trentham of the Kaiapoi quota of the 7th Reinforcements, the public were excluded from a portion of the sta_ tion.. Two Press representatives whose duty took them there were granted permission to stay inside. After they had been there far a few minutes ,a Territorial officer came upon the scene, and noticing the pressmen, marched up to them, and half-drawing his sword, brusquely demanded their business within the area. They informed him that thoy were Press representatives, and the officer thereupon turned round to a guard of Territorials, and called out: "Here, some of you men, put these fellows over the barrier. 1 will stand |iiouo of their nonsense." Tho pressmen left, and some time after one of them caught the eye of a member of the Defenco Staff, who immediately ga,ve him permission to enter the closedin space. In the meantime it was noticeable that a large number of civilians who appeared to have no duties to take them there, were allowed to enter the enclosure by tho officer who had ordered the pressmen away."