LOUVAIN HORROR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 126, 21 October 1914, Page 8

LOUVAIN HORROR.

UM)(X> WOMEN UG6T. TfiKiLUiNG STORY TKXLjD BY SURVIVOR. The Hagu.i, iiapt'emfcor SOn Ai.;g',iot 24, Luuvaiii, in Northern -U.-_iy.um, wag a splendid city of over 50.1KX) people. On August 2G, 27 ami- 2S it wag a city in .i—iei, an kupufiahftble monument u ie liorwr of war". A uniMffsity important as Harvard was oi-Kuoycd, the Lmuiciise ojhl price- ■■■■■ i, a 13th "i-utury Cathedral fan.o..M ..f Its an nviitmrea, Mid. the holies jple who had sc.yi'.i ,i war, v,no ber® aggros sive iu otiuir nation and who bae quaneil, witih none. M»iy i'.il s'.ii. not one noul of that s«\ . .ling popaia ion remains U testify to what had happened! In viilagm only three milon away, in the important town of Tiremont, fifteen miles to the east, in th« capital— Brussels tuen miles to title w<'nt, »b solutely nothing is known of tho lost pcoole of Louvain! J.ot«>: n sun.-et and sunrise the men, wemm, children and babies of a. city as populous as Sarramercto. Gal, but more sp . n.1i.1, simiply disappeared! Regardless of sex or condition, entirely reffardli 9« of all human rights they were crowded into troop trains and railroaded to God only knows what fate. The van of that army of exiles, 10,000 and children, left the doomed pitv on tne night of August tfi. Five Am rican journalists, practicaJlv p:soners of war on a trooip train, saw ,the lieart-stricken victims assemble. Tliwi? ««•; we.r 0 Richard Davis. Arno Dasch. Xi 1 Irwin Gerald Morgan and Mar>- P,o le O'Reilly. ARRESTED IX HOLLAND. On A.., o dai 30, a llieavy train filled with i.u..d irom Louvain was stalled at i kuo.v, because 1 was there to in , ,i. Ana iam not ft G-cimtin khi taougli 1 was at .Ueg:. i.ei... ,eu v.i.u uie on her corresponder.ts from tho troop train ia Germany, i ikiu c..j. -ioJ in.o tioiiaiiu, been arrests us loiiniai.s.ie suspet't in .Viaast>" '•<* •>• " Riv.-u a healing, and was l'ek.,.-, i. . i was so densely igiH.itin. .n i eart.ess of luilitaj-y movjUMlltfl.

r.i.. t ; i'. e, I hurried down the river to 1..... in a bombarded city filku wi.li -i..i;,ees and invaders, a stranger, more or i at ■raets no attention. No ,one oiia.Ynged the presence of a woman whoj-e -vnii nean eunspoi t, moreover (but that's another story), bore a German military governor's pas a to cross tlu frontier.

J il .lie railway cut heavy train tilled with the women of Louvain. A few ovor-driven Red Cross workers distributed bottles of water. To secure a bucket and a cup made me a volunteer.

Their 'throats parched •with sobbing, their eyes saturated witlh tears, the prisoners hundreds of them mere girls—crowded the train windows.

Refusing food, deaf to pitying words, they pleaded only Ho he told where they were bound. One, calmer tJlmn the rest, cried as a terrified child cries; whispering her story to me, "This Sunday, ydil Say. Ten days ago the German# entered Louvain. Then wo knew wo must suffer. The citr.i had been King Albert's headquarters. When the King and our army withdrew Louvain was an unfortified city filled with women and children, old ipeoplo and priests. Never was such a city for learning. Louvain was the schoolhouso of the Low Countries.

CIIUECHBS BECOME BARRACKS. "The Germans arrived—'tlie Ninth Army Corps. They made barracks od our churches, stabled their horses in ouir schools, stacked their stores in the halls. Tlie Oatlhedral orypt. was filled with infantry and ammunition. "Immediately all n'he citizens were disarmed. A man was shot dead for concealing a revolver. Night after night the Uhlans searched the houses for rifles. Then tfoey made us prisoners. Only one member of tlie family could leave the house once a day; it was forbidden to ligWf a candle after dark', lest the flume serve as a nigroil. In the sweets were 49,(.WJ soldiers. "We knew \he worst must crane. "Tlie Germans, repulsed at Vv'avre. routed at West, fell back on l.uuvain. These wire all-day cavalry lights. Tlie returning Uhlans were wild. And the German G'overnor forbade us to s'hut. 1 our house doors at night. Without many of our men, witliouv a weapon, we women Uvea in terror. This was war, but wo were only Hmman womeai. •'Tuesday night, August 2.5, tlie city was in an uproar. Some claim that defeated dragoons were coining in from Tirlemont. Some cried that students had fired 011 the soldiers. Xo 011 c had time to learn tlie truth, because before midnight Uhlans with bayonets drovj us from our homes.

"lien, women and were driven to the fields near St. Veronica. "There we sank down in a vast crowd —tens of thousands of us. Only tlie children cried, none others dared even moan. There were armed guards and guns all about us. "\Yo fould hear the soldiers shooting tin; people. During one night we were told they killed tiCIl). Tins was to be an example, the soldiers told us. ''At dawn all the men were ordered into the road. Then they were marched away. Thousands of them wtqit and shrieked, heartbroken, looking backward to their wives and little ones. The soldiers prodded them with rifles. "How the women wailed! It seemed that we must go mad. "The common German soldiers seemed sorry for us. I Baw tears in tlie eyes of more than one, but the olliccr laughed. One soldier who showed emotion was slapped over the shoulder briskly by an oflicer's sword. "Many wivos thus left bereft begged the oflicers to tell them what was the meaning of it. I heard officer after of!icer laug'li and tell them that they would never see those men again—that they were going to Germany to the mines. "ilany women died that day.' The.v could suffer no more- -therefore God took them. "Before noon the women and children were called out of the fields. Weeping,

itliey staggered to the roads. It took htiurs to gather all who must go. "Tho frightened children never Btopped crying and screaming, thousands of them together. When all seemed ready one woman, seeing a ploughed field, ran to it, and, kneeling, Bcooped up a handful of her native earth into her handkerchief. Hundreds of others did likewise. "A few tried to escape. These were beaten with gun stocks and roped together , One killed herself before us all. She was crazed, poor soul. Requiescat in pace, to SICK BABIBS Df HN'E. "I could not count how many women carried sick foibies. All the women with children went away. Tho soldiers told us a hundred trains were waiting to carry us across Belgium into Germany. They said we would go by way of Liege and the hill passes around Vervores to the frontier, and by way of Cologne, so that no one would ever know what had happened—not the Fremh nor even our own people. All that country, said, was held In' the Germans. "Some of our guards acted like men ashamed. Over their meals they said | one to another: 'la this war? Are we devils, that we should do this thing? What would our wives sav to us if thev knew ?'

| "After two days or three—l can't .remember we, too, were put in trains. | "We do not know wlmt we have done ito be treated like this. We do not know where our nearost relatires are, or how we shall find them. We do not know where we are being taken. If we | could only die! Being prisoners, we can do nothing but wait and pray, prav, lest le bon l>ieu forget the women of Louvain!"—Mary Boyle O'iteilly, in the San jiraucisco News.