GIBBETS FOR 110 GERMANS

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 144, 11 February 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

GIBBETS FOR 110 GERMANS

— RETRIBUTION* TOR HUN CRIMES IX POLAND. ENGLISHMAN WITH THE RUSSIANS How nn Englishman sixty-four years old fought for ten montlis as a volunteer with the Russian armies last year and this spring is told vividly, and with no lack of gruesome detail, in "An Englishman in the Russian Ranks," by John Morse, published by Duckworth and Co. It is a most astonishing book. It reads like a romance. Mr. Morse was in Eastern Germany at the time war broke out, and he only escaped into Russia by a series of fortunate chances. He was surrounded by German troops fo» days, and the things he saw them do made him mad to avenge on as many Germans as lie could the vileness of the Hun army. We have heard much of the outrages in HelgUim. Here are a few incidents in Poland : A provost and a party of military policemen were closing the publicbouses by nailing up the doors, and I saw a man only partly dressed —the proprietor of one of these houses, I supposed--murdered. He made an excited protest, and a soldier drove his bayonet into the poor man's chest. He uttered a terrible scream, and was instantly transfixed by a dozen bayonets. A woman, attracted by the fearful cry, came rushing out of the house screaming and crying. She had nothing on except a chemise, and the soldiers treated her with brutal indecency. Young Polish girls were forced to drink until they were hopelessly drunk, and in this dreadful condition were outraged to death. The body o; an aged female (.no doubt a natron) was found hanging front a tree by the feet, disembowelled and trussed as a hog, with tins notice pinned to her: "An old sow left to be salted." One sturdy dame seemed to have attempted to light for her life, for she held a hoe in her dead Irmr.v Her body was riddled with bullets. GERMAN SPITE. The miserable pettiness of German spite is nowhere better illustrated than in this incident: — At a house where Captain Lofe and I spent the night, and from which some billeted Germans had run at out approach, these miserable creatures had killed the little girl's canary. These are but one or two out of many such incidents, and it :s bmall wonder that Mr. Morse says:— On the other hand, the Russians retaliated; and I say, hat wonder that they did so? 1 believe in retaliation. it is a powerful weapon to light with. It frightened the Germans, and afterwards, to a very marked extent, put a check on their atrocities. I stood by and saw ten officers and 100 soldiers hanged; and as 1 did so I remembered that the first murders I witnessed in this horrible rar were those of Russian subjects by the Germans at Kalisz; and it by holJing up a thumb I could have <aved tlio lde of any one of these 110 seouudrcU ! would not have lifted it. The adventures of Mr. Morse weir, of course, confined to a smalt section of the great R-ussian line, and the fact that he spoke no Russian was a great handicap, so that his story does not pretend to be a military criticism, but those who want to read about grisly horrors and revolting sights will find them ill plentN. WITH THE COSSACK*. Air. Morse served with the Cossacks, whom he found "terrible fellows," with the artillery, and when horses were not to be had he became an infantryman. He tells us of the woman colonel of the sth Regiment of Cossack:, of the Don--who seemed to be not more than thirty years of age. She had adopted male costume, and rode astride like her troopers. She was a pleasant-faced woman, but not a beauty in my opinion; and there was nothing fierce or commanding in her appearance. She was said to he of unflnching courage under any circumstances, and to In l almost worshipped by her soldiers. Of other Rus-ian amazons he say.? There was nothing particularly romantic in any of tliein. Mo>t of them had the appearance of big. lanky, raw-boned boys; faces oval, features "puddetiy," and complexions pale. One girl, sa : d to be only eighteen years old, was quite six feet high, with limbs that would tit a grenadier. Mr. Morse took part in all the fighting in Poland and in the struggle for Warsaw during last autumn and winter, with the exception of a week or two in hospital, and in the end had to give in ow.ng to the havoc wrought on iiis feet by frost-bite and long marches. At the beginning of April he was provided with tiie means to leave Russia, but even then Kate had another buffet in store for him. and he was taken |>ri>om r by the Germans. To say that the story of his escape from them reads like a chapter by a romantc novelist is to do it si ght justice. Things seem to have fallen out exactly as they always do in romantic novels. Mr. Morse finally left Russia at the end of May, and has been practically an in valid ever sin<e.