A PRISONER OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2607, 1 November 1915, Page 3

A PRISONER OF WAR

A BELGIAN WOMAN'S ORDEAL. Mme. Carton de Wiart, wife of the Belgian Minister of Justice, and probably the most dominating woman in the tragedy of Belgium, has just reached here, after throe mouths and a half enforced stay in a Berlin criminal prison (writes tho special correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle" from Basle, on September 7). | '1 ho terrible ordeal that- sl\o \inderire/it leaves her spirit unbroken, her outlook serene, and her faith in tho future of Belgium unshaken. A fragile figure, with -hair silvering a little, Mme. Carton do Wiart told me this morning, with many assurances that she had merely done her duty, the story of her activities in Belgium, her warnings from von Bissing, her arrest, the trial behind closed doors, I'cl'oro eiglit German officers, in the Brussels Law Courts, which her husband once controlled, .the hectoring cross-ex-anr-uatiwi, which lasted eighteen hours, tho sentonco, the removal to Germany, her life at tho criminal prison, one among 400 women murderers, tnieves, rogues, and criminals of all kinds, and finally her reunion with her relatives in Switzerland. Charged with writing to her husband and thus in effect conspiring against German rule in Belgium, Mme. Carton de Wiart was arrested oil May J.B, and was arraigned before her military judges three days later. "I told my judges," she said, "that I would not lie to them, but my evidence would be given in the following way. If I could conscientiously answer their questions I would answer them promptly. If I had not the information they wanted I would tell them so, and if my honour would not allow me to divulge secrets of which I had knowledge I would say, 'I know, but I shall not tell.' "

Tho, result of, the trial was a foregone conclusjpnj although eight uniformed ollicers solemnly deliberated together over the evidence before the presiding judge passed sentence of three rcontlis' imprisonment in a criminal prison. A day or so later Mme. Carton de Wiart was hurried olf to Berlin in company with a female member of tho German seoret police. She was lodged among women of all nationalties, including many quite young English girls, whom the German authorities suspccted of_ spying. 'Later she was removed to criminal quarters.

"The life ivhicli I led for the remainder of my term of imprisonment," said Mine, de "Wiart, "was severe byt not harsh. It was just the life which the. fallen women round me lived—a separate cell, perpetual silence, two hours' exercise in the prison yard daily, plain food, with the chapel on Sunday our one common meeting-place. "It was the original intention, of the German Government to keep me in Germany until the end of the war, but, thanks to tlio intervention of Kin;; Alfonso, I was allowed to leave. I have been banished from Belgium, however, until' the end of the war." Mine. de 'Wiart was not permitted .to return to her home in Brussels to see her six young children, one of whom is only two years old. : \