A TREMENDOUS ARMY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 133, 29 October 1914, Page 6

A TREMENDOUS ARMY.

MILES OF GERMAN SOLDIERS. AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT'S " SCOOP." (Early in September <l3id censor passed it cable message which told of an American correspondent having motored for hours through the German lines. The following is the essential portion of the story, which was sent by E. A. Powell to the Chicago Tribune. The writer explains that lie was asked by Ceneral van Boehn, Commander of the Ninth Imperial Army, to interview him on the subject of tiie Belgian atrocities, so that America would be placed in possession of the facts). September 12. Half a mile out of Solteliem our road debouched into the great highway which leads through Lille to Paris. We suddenly found ourselves in the midst of the German army. It was a sight never to be forgotten. Ear,as the eye could see stretched solid columns of marching men, pressing westward, ever westward. The army was advancing in three miglity columns along three parallel roads. These dense masses of moving men in their elusive blue-grey uniforms looked for all the world like three monstrous serpents crawling across the countryside. .. x American flags which fluttered from our wind shield proved a passport in themselves, and as we approached the close-locked ranks they parted to let us through. For live solid hours, travelling always at express train speed, we motored between the walls of the marching men. In lime the constant shuttle oi boots and the rhythmic swing of grey-clad arms and shoulders grew maddening, and I became obsessed with the fear that 1 iv< uld send the cur ploughing into the human wedge on either side. ENDLESS RANKS. It seemed that the ranks never would end, and as far as we wore concerned they never did, for we never saw or heard the end of that mighty column. We passed regiment, after regiment, brigade after brigade of infantry, and ' after them hussars, Uhlans, cuirassiers, field batteries, more infantry, more field guns, ambulances, then siege guns, each drawn by thirty horses, engineers, telephone corps, pontoon waggons, armored motor-cars, morp Uhlans, the sunlight gleaming on their forest of lances, more infantry in spiked helmets, all sweeping by as irresistible as a mighty river;. with their faces turned toward France. This was the Ninth FieM Army, and, composed the very flower of the Empire, including the magnificent troops of the Imperial Guard. It was first and last! a lighting army. The men were all young. They struck me as being keen I as razors and as hard as nails. The' horses were magnificent. They could not have been better. The field guns, of the Imperial Guard were almost twice the aize of any used by our army.

THIRTY-TWO HORSES TO OVH GIANT HOWITZER. But tlic most interesting of all, of course, were tlio five gigantic howitzers, each drawn liy sixteen pairs of horses. These, howitzers can tear a city to pieces ) f.t a distance of a dozen miles. {

Every contingency seems to have been foreseen. Nothing was left to chance or overlooked. Maps of Belgium, with which every soldier is provided, are the finest examples of topography I liave ever seen. Every path, every farm 'building,- every clump of trees, »nd every twig is shown.

At one placo a huge army waggon containing a complete printing press was drawn up beside the road, and a morning edition of Deutsche Krieger Zcitung was being printed and distributed to the passing men. Ifcontained nothing but accounts of German victories, of which I never had heard, but it seemed greatly to eheer the men. Field kitchens with smoke pouring from their storcpipo funnels rumbled down the lines, serving steaming soup and coffee to the marching men, who held out tin cups and had them'filled without once breaking step. COVERED WAGGOXS HIDE .MACIIINT GL'XS. There were waggons filled with army cobblers, sitting cross-legged on the floor, who were mending soldiers' shoes just as if they were hack in their little shops in the. Fatherland . Other waggons, to all appearances ordinary twowheeled farm carts, hid under their arched covers nine machine guns which could instantly be brought into action. The medical corps was as magnificent as businesslike. It was as perfectly equipped and as efficient as a great city hospital.

•Men on bicycles with a coil of insulated wire slung between them strung a field telephone from tree to tree so that the general commanding could converse with any part of the fifty-miles long column.

The whole army never sleeps. When half is resting, the other half is advancing. The soldiers are treated as if they were valuable machines which mußt.be speeded up to the highest possible efficiency. Therefore they are well fed, well shot, well clothed, and worked 33 a negro teamster works mules

SOLDIER GIVEN TERRIFIC EEATLVG

Only men who arc well cared for oa i march thirty-fire miles a day week in and week out. Only once did I see « man mistreated. A sentry on dutr ii front of the general headquarters failed to salute an officer with sufficient promptness, whereupon the officer lashed him again and again across the fac. with a riding whip. Though weld rose with every blow, the soldier stood ngidl-y at attention and nerer quirered On the correspondent's arrival at General von IJoclm's headquarters the general began l>y asserting that the stones of atrocities perpetrated on Belgian non-combatants were a tissue of hes. "Look at these officers about Ton" ne said. "They are gentleman like toutso.f Look at the soldiers mar'ehin» past in the road out there. Most of them are fathers of families. Surely you don't bclicre they would do the they hare been accused of." KPLAIHS AERSCHOT CRIMES. "Three days »go, geaern.]," I e»id. "I wa« in Aerschot. The whole town it kut a ghastly, blackened, blood-stained [ rain." "When ire entered Aerscliot the son •1 tho burgomaster came into the room drew a revolrer, »nd assassinated my chief of staff," the general said. "What followed wat only retribution. The townspeople c*ly got wiat they deterred." "By why wrea* your rengeane* »« women and children?" "Sone has been killed," the geiertl Mserted" positively.

"I am sorry to contradict you, gen- : cral," I aiserted with equal poaitiveness, "but I have myself seen their mutilated bodies. So has Mr. Ginton, secretary of the American Legation at Brussels, who was present during the i destruction of Louvain." i "Of course, there always is danger of women and children being killed during street fighting," said General von ■ Boelin, "if they insist on coming into i the street. It is unfortunate, but it is war." I DATA STARTLES GENERAL. ' "But how about a woman's body I saw, with her hands and feet cut off t How about a- white-haired man and his son whom I helped ibury outside Sempstad, who bad been killed merely because a retreating Belgian had shot a German soldier outside their house? There were twenty-two bayonet wounds on the old man's face. I counted them. How about the little girl two years oil I Who was shot while in her mother's

arni3 by a Uhlan, and whose funeral I | attended at Buystopdenberg? How about the old men who was hung from the rafters in his house by liis hands and roasted to death by a bonfire being built under him?" The general seemed somewhat taken aback by the amount and exactness of my data. "Such things are horrible, if true," he said. "Of course, our soldiers, like soldiers of all armies, sometimes get out of band and do things which we would never tolerate if we knew it. At Louvain, for example, I sentenced two soldiers to twelve years' penal servitude , for assaulting a woman." LOUVAIN LIBRARY INCIDENT. "Apropos of Louvain," I remarked,! "why did you destroy the library V It was one of the literary storehouses of the world." "We regretted that as much as anyone eise," answered the general. "It caught fire from 'burning houses and I we could not save it." ' "Kut why did you 'burn Louvain at all?" I asked. " . •'Because the townspeople fired on our troops. We actually found machine | guns in some of the houses." And, ' smashing his fist down on the table,- ho continued: "Whenever civilians fire up-] on our troops we will teach them a last- j ing lesson. If women and children In- j sist on getting in the way of bullets, soj much the worse for the women and I children." J

"Uow do you explain the bombardment of Antwerp by Zeppelins?" I queried.

"Zeppelins have orders to drop their bombs only on fortifications and soldiers," he answered.