UNDER HUNNISH HEEL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 20 November 1915, Page 3

UNDER HUNNISH HEEL.

SAD LUXEMBERG. PEOPLE HATE INVADERS. BUT CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES. The wanton brutality of German behaviour to Belgium, as well as her violation of the neutrality of the smaller State, has completely overshadowed the similar breach of her international obligations which she committed in the case of the Duchy of Luxemburg. Yet between the initiaJ crimes there was no difference, and without doubt Luxemburg would have defied, like Belgium, the German Emperor's sovereign will, and have suffered the same treatment, but for one thing. Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, her army consisted of only 40 men, 30 of whom were in the Ducal band. Resistance being therefore out of the question it only remained for her to submit, with the best grace she could, to the peaceful invasion of her territory, and since then hardly any news of the Duchy has penetrated to the outer world. Garrisoned by Germans. , The Grand Duchy, which has a populationo of a quarter of a million is gar ■> risoned by 16,000 troops of the German Landsturm, half of which are engaged in guarding the railways, roads, and bridges of the country. The other 8,000 are quartered in the capital, where there is afeo a Ducal Guard consisting of 600 Luxemburger volunteers. In spite of their defenceless condition the citizens keep up a brave, if rather pathetic, show of independence in their dealings with the foreign garrison. The Volunteers of the Guard, who often march through the streets, singing marching songs in Luxemburg dialect and proudly holding aloft their sabres, make a point of never saluting the Imperial troops. Proclamations are posted in the town forbidding the German soldiery to set foot in the courtyard of the Ducal palace, to which the civil population are freely admitted; if they try to enter it they are promptly stopped by the fixed bayonet of a Luxemburger sentry. If, as sometimes happens,, they are so injudicious as to offer any kind of insult to an inhabitant, the aggrieved person or his or her friends are quick to retaliate whenever they have the chance, secure in the knowledge that none of their fellow-citi-zens will inform against them. A favourite plan is to rob the offendir;soldier of his rifle or bayonet, < some part of his equipment. Destest the Huns. Next to the Luxemburg dialect. the language most commonly talked in the capital is French. In the streets adults as well as children wear tricolour badges and favours of the other Allied nations (anything but the hated red, white, and black), and go about singing the "Marseillaise" and the "Sambre et Meuse." They like to think that, in spite of the violation of their territory, they are a neutral nation like the Swiss, and constantly talk of them as "our brothers." The Germans they frankly detest.. When a citizen meets a soldiei he has a trick of mutteing, "Mode de

J Guillaume," which is another way of* 'saying, "Down with militarism," and 'if a German military 'band gives a concert in the open the natives never listen to it.

Photographs of General Joffrej President Poincaire, the King of the Belgians, and others of the Allies' leaders are on sale in the bookshops, but never a one of the German Emperor shows its face. During one of his visits to the town the Kaiser, accompanied by two aides-de-camp in mufti, was strolling along looking at the shop windows, and noticing this omission went into a shop and asked why there were no portraits of his Imperial self. "There is no demand for them," said the girl behind the counter. Another day he was visiting a hospital in which there were French as well as German wounded, and left a white rose on each bed as he passed. As soon as he was gone the French soldiers began to throw them off, but the nursing sister of the ward asked them not to touch the flowers, and said she would go and fetch a brush and dustpan. Loot, Gold, and Horses. On the whole, it is evident that the Germans, whose one object is to conciliate the Luxemburgers, are behaving themselves with comparative selfrestraint and decency. Practically the only articles of which they have taken forcible possession . are gold and horses, of which last there is a great lack in Germany, where ploughs and waggons are largely drawn at present by oxen and even cows. An odd .example of the topsy-turvy condition of affairs in this forcibly occupied country is that a frontier guard of Luxemburger volunteers has been formed to prevent the dominant Germans from removing to Germany or Belgium certain articles (the chief of which is horseflesh) the export of which is forbidden by the Ducal Government. Another grievance of the natives, but one for which there is no redress, is that they are forced to work in the factories which produce the munitions of war for the German armies.