Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 109, 1 October 1914, Page 6

■ 1 I 11 " ' ' ' ' ' , ■WITII THE VICTORIOUS BELGIANS. DETAILS OF FURTHER FIGHTING. (Daily Xews Special Correspondent). Hasleti, August lj. Fine feilows, these little Belgians; intelligent and quick to respond. Rather weary now and strained, for many of them have already been long in the field. Day and night they have been fighting at odds of ten to one. They are. men who think, and tiicy fight tlie better for it. A desperately exhausting fight it is. Dispersed in parties over their immense front, they have to rush and concentrate the moment that one of the the small squadrons of the German cavalry, infinitely scattered, is signalled. Some, thus, have been in three separate engagements in one day, in different places. But they arc as stouthearted as ever. Tell them what the world thinks of their heroism, and they smile with half humorous pleasure. Tell them what we guess of the nearness of their allies, and they crowd round with unselfish delight; that is not for themselves, but for their nation and their cause. BELGIAN* FIG HTIXG MEN'. , As we pass along them, in their 'rest' moments, it is easy to make them cluster, laughing like a crowd of alert boys; hut in the fighting line they are as tense as wires, with a concentrated sternness that the Germans are learning to respect. "I have sabred two this morning," a powerful, bronze-faced lad, a cavalryman, who lias just finished bandaging a German dragoon with a broken back, said to me, quite simply, to-day. Tina was in a cottage at llaelen. Ilaelen, the wrecked village, tue scene of that desperate fight two days ago, where the Belgians proved their heroism in the field, has to-day again been the scene of renewed attacks and un- | shaken resistance. The Germans had to fall back upon the base of their army corps at Kermpt; but they have been pressing, pressing forward again j with even more overwhelming numbers. As we moved across the l;.ng contested bridgo and 111) tii<• broken, hu"r.t-

mra!tion.puari.l }'"■ ••! u.-. On t' ttt..rv: under th.; wai'-. ; ■ of suhiii-iY.. too v.enry to shift -'eir leit, lay s'eeping i!urs< their i«,ur rf n l'!i-e frooi tile front.

lAL ::ii -rv:i!s r»nr. I lit* toil-ivd ehuivli wall <-• us•• '.lie stivt. lii-rs, w.IU the still mift e.litr dead.

ami.-xg Tin: wounded. Fcr L'.-.e f.e.wt'ii tie.i.- in tl.i< long, harried (ley. I w:w to Uie ta;.iovised amhtl-sH e r<.< r.s. well know r.;t whal 1 .-iifild find. Fit I.lie "i----n u';v. !:r.e to his ehlii-ai.i»n. T!ie Wuuudcd (j.Tr.i.n priso.:i;«, as ii y

in. were t;■:< -l wit': j-.i.-t ;,;i :ie c.'.rw their d"aih nlt'i >.;« respect as that of oi;r fri, n..:-. .-.r.1 yet, the str-rins that ere to'.d ui tl.eir cruelty to the peasants, and sincerely believed by the soldiers, are terrib'e. "But," —said a little, rough, unshaven peasant infantryman to me —"we are men who feel. Whatever our enemies do. we shall continue as we have begun —to the end."

I was even allowed to speak to some of the wounded in their own language. Not one. had a word of complaint. Poor fellows, they all believed they had been fighting against the French! I think two of the finest men I nave ever seen wero a Belgian corporal and a German private, who lay dying to-day of bullet Wounds, in half-burnt villages ;v few miles apart. On the cottage yard, a peasant woman, with four children round her, who had seen her house sacked, was making coffee over a wiod fire for the wounded Germans.

GERMANS CLOSING IX. But the air around us was overcharged. The Belgians had been surprised in some woods as they advanced from fee village early in tin; morning. They had lost heavily. Xow they wen; holding the position well, hut the Germans, in spite of losses, were closing in. Their advanced firing parties were at the moment within 390 yards of the village. At any initant, their cavalry, whose helmets and lances lay mixed with smashed bottles about the village square, relics of the past day, might sweep round the defence. All of u sudden one of the changes of mood common to nerves at such crisis came over the soldiers about us. The faces 'hardened. We were under arrest. The major commanding, furiously issuing orders, sending out supports, etc., from the parlour of the last house in the street, was too occupied to give us full attention. Aftr a hurried, unsatisfactory talk, I moved outside, and wailed, among sullen faces. And I could see, a few yards off, the little sunlit glade of trees, where the Belgians were moving and firing: as llay covered the entrance to tile village. A POLITE COMMAND. An important prisoner was hurried in, and then away in a ear. In the bustle some change occurred. Another major, was in command. A tall scholarly-look-ing man. utter Iv incongruous in such a gcene, shouting abrupt orders in a cultivated voice. At last, he had a moment for us. "I am perfectly satisfied; but we are in war. You will, I hope, excuse my forbidding your advance; in fact, it is impossible; the enemy command the road; good day"—lie' bowed me out wiih my guard. It had not been our wish to advance further. In fact, the car was already turned, ready for a race back if the Germans broke in. We moved slowly back along the continuous line of ruins, traces ot battle and death, that madi hut a single battle-field of the fight of today and the lights of two days ago. As we passed, the sleeping soldiers still lay unstirring on the cobble stones. The roar of a German aeroplane -paused again over our heads, and the cannon boomed in the distance.

ANXIOUS WOMEN. The roads are now choked with munitions and reinforcements. A column of infantry wheels to tal*i up a position in a beet field on our left. A squadron of cavalry in tho brown busby clatters ofT to head off the Uhlans reported on our right. The village streets are barricaded with -waggons; but the crowd of anxious waiting women, bovs, anil children laugh and chuff hack at lis, as we wait for a gap to be made for our passage.

Supports, and more waggons,' and tile constant rushing cars of olliucrs. The orchards are full of cavalry horses, many of tliem captured from tlio Germans. The waiting soldiers laugh as I remark on the fact that some of them are wearing the boots of German prisoners, even German regimental breeches.

of the only two survivor's of the party of seven who fought hand to hand with and killed the ssven or ntoro Germans who rode into Liege to assassinate General Letnan. "We watched thsm riding up the street; they were waving a white flag. My friend said. 'Thcv have just killed a sentry.' We fired thus, and they fired, and their four officers foil, and the otherl we killed, hut only two of us were left." As the sun set, Ion;' processions of Red Cross waggons, followed by lines of trudging assistants, ai'.d some priests, blocked the roads. Tile troops were movlni.' back in cantonments. They swan.:-; m ertho fields and surged round the c.i:' for news. A number of wives and mothers, who had come long distances for a last flight—some of them had walked over twensy miles to find the right quarter—were thrust at us enthusiastically from the roadside, and the ear was i'illed so as to save, if only a few of tliem, the twelve miles of tramp to the railway. WAITING FOR NEWS. As we passed, the towns «pomed full of silent women, waiting for news; and small bodies of troops moved out now and again across the market squares to repulse approaching Uhlans. At one town, we traversed the King was acclaiming a- joyful report that sent us too on onr way with vc-ry particular reason for cheering. In the last run in, though the dark, we were made use of; this time to convey a serial mission to the War Ofliee. lAt Haclen the grim little fight is going on.