GRAVE OF 12,000 MEN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 110, 2 October 1914, Page 3

GRAVE OF 12,000 MEN.

HOW THE GERMANS FELL AT lIAKLEX. A SOLDIER'S LAST LETTER. Brussels, August 15. Across the battlefield of Diest there is a brown sketch of harrowed land, half a furlong in length. It is the grave of twelve hundred of the Germans who fell in the fight on Wednesday, wrote P. J. Philip, special correspondent of the Daily News. All over the field there are other graves, some of Germans, some of Belgians, some of horses. When I reached the place this afternoon the peasants with their long mattocks and spades were turning in the soil. For two full days they had been at the work of burial, and they were sick at heart. ! Their corn is ripe for cutting in the battlefield, but little of it will be harvested. Dark patches in their turnip fields are sodden with the blood of men and of horses. The battle ground should be called Haelen rather than Diest, for it was in and through and behind the village of Haclen that this deadly test of strength. took place. The battle ground is, roughly, three niilc« long. Near one end of it is the vil'age of Haelen, which was held on Tuesday morning by the Belgian troops. On Tuesday iifternoon, it was attacked by a large body of Uhlan cavalry, artillery and infantry, and eni tored late in the evening. The Belgian troops retired at nigat across the rail--1 way track, a road and some open fields sloping towards the village, to a position in a wood about a mile and a half distant. There they placed their guns and stormed the village. The walls arc pierced by bullet holes, and the windows are all broken. The church spire stands half uncovered, tho work of a passing ball, and the clock is wrenched from its place. The Belgians shows good marksmanship—incidentally they despise the German shooting—and in a very short time they force the Germans to retire or attack again. The enemy chose the latter course, and to do so they had to come into this open country by three routes —one over a little bridge along the road, another to the left behind a wood, and the third to the right in shelter of a wood and low-lying lane. BRIDGE OF DEATH. | Over the bridge they had to eome I in solid column, and the machine gun?, f masked in the wood, mowed them down | like oorn. Probably, but none of my ; informants, peasants, and soldiers, were ; gurc— the attack failed completely.. At j least there were moat dead by the bridge. I The charge of the three hundred Uhlans j who were held in check for a Bhort time ! by seventeeen-Belgians seems, however, \to have como near success. The dere- ; lict helmets and lances that covered the field showed that the charges were pressed well up to the guns and to the trenches in tfie turnip fields where, the Belgian soldiers lay, but the German shooting appears not have been accurate enough to cover the advance of infantry.

THE BAMBOO LANCE. From the result, of tho cavalry attack, a curious and interesting point about the German Army is obvious. Their lances, which are made of tube iron, light to hold and exquisitely finished, lay about, most of them twisted and bent. Tho Belgians use bamboo, and these, one oftheir officers stated, were very much better, for they yielded to a tlirust, while the German weapons if used hardly beat in the lancer's hand. One lance, from which I took the b!a-:k and white pennon, was bent like a bow, as if the man had been shot, and in falling from his horse had leaned his full weight on itj as tho point struck the ground. By afternoon the Germans retired be youd tho village, and there they are still waiting for another effort to pierce this gallant line.

So much for the battle. It would bo easy now at the beginning of the war to write of its tragedy. The villagers hare each a tale to tell of their loss. All the twelve hundred men in the long grave were men with wives, sweetheart?, or parents. All the Belgian soldiers and tile others who were buried where thev fell have mourners. A letter which 1 picked up on the fields will speak for all. It is written in ink on a half sheet of tiiiu notepaper. There is no date, no place, probably it was written on the ev» of the battle, in the hope that it would reach its destinatiou if the writer died. A BRIEF FAREWELL. This is the translation: '•Sweetheart (chcre amie), Fate in this present war has treated uj more cruelly than many others. If I have not lived to create for you the happiness of which both our hearts droamed, remember that my sole wish is now that you should be happy. Forget me. Create for yourself some happy home that may restore you to tome of the greater 'pleasures of life. For myself I shall have died happy iu the thought of your love. My last thought has been for you avid f»r thoso I leave at home. Accept this, the last kill from him who loved you."'

Postcards from father? with blessings on their gallant sons I found, too, on the field, and little mementoes of people and places carried by the men as mascots. Everywhere were broken lances -German and Belgian side by side, scabbards and helmets, saddles' and guns. These the peasants were, collecting in a pile to be removed by the military. High up over the grave" of the twelve hundred, as we stood there, a German biplane came and went, hovering like a carrion crow seeking other victims for death.

In the village itself, death was still busy. A wounded German died as we stood by his side, and a Belgian soldier placed a handkerchief over his face. The soldiers who filled the little market place may bo fighting now as I write. The. enemy in force is not a mile away from them, and at any momentt they may be attacked. It was not to be wondered that they asked a little anxiously where were the English and the French".

PRISONERS AT BRUGES. By the courtesy of the authorities, T was able yesterday to visit the caserne at Bruges, where there arc four hundred German prisoners of war. 1 never saw men sleep as these men did, the soldiers of the 7th, Bth, oth, 10th, and 11th Corps of the German Army, who are prisoners of war here in' quiet Brug«s. They lay like logs, and logs long weathered and sunk in the earth :il. tnat. -Poor fellows." said one cf the custodians, -thev told us when thev came that they had had hardly any sleep for seven days and nights." There were about 400 of them in all in the caserne, and in tho matter of its treatment of war prisoners, as well as in defence' Sefeiuni' is settiufg a Bplendid example.. The soldiers feel they can afford to tthow bunjanitv towards* evea

"lea barbares." Most ol tho priseners came from Liege, though some had been token in the outpost skirmishes, and wore are expected from Diest. Thos» who had arrived first had had their sleep •ut, and when I visited the caserne by eourtesy of the authorities they were eager for news, and Bome were anxious to tell me what they thought of it all. VICTIMS OF A SYSTEM. Only a few, however, would describe their capture. They were ashamed, but I am certain that everyone was a man of good courage. Their surrender was no fault of theirs—it was the fault of the. German system which was to beat the world. They had all been gooscsteppod and drilled for years—they were trained Boldiers, most of them third year men on tho active list, but their capture in every ease was due to the fact that they bad been drilled out of all independence.

At Diest 300 surrendered the moment they lost their officers. Some were caught in a cross-fire, and they immediately cast awaj' their rifles and threw up their hands—they did not know what else to do AIM OF TAKING COVER.

From what they told me I gathered that none of them have ever been trainid in the art of taking cover, unless they are fighting in the trenches, while the Belgian soldiers are cleverly making use of their hedges and ditches. If tno English soldiers arc going to distinguish themselves in this campaign it will be quite certainly by applying the lessons learned in South Africa. Five hundred marksmen across a line could without fail demoralise a German corps by pick ing of! the officers—that is the way it is being done, and it is the way it should be clone, for if there is a quarrel at all in this way it. is the quarrel of democracy with Prussian officcrdom. The prisoners in the caserne had very little comment to make on the cause of the war. One old Colonial veteran, a jolly fellow with four medals, whose trade was war, was ready to give best to tho Belgians without a murmur. Their fighting was an "eye-opener," be said, and there was almost a chuckle in his voice as he added: "Our War Office will never learn.''