BELGIANS CONFIDENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 215, 18 February 1915, Page 7

BELGIANS CONFIDENT.

NEW ARMY FORMED. RUIN OF THE WAR. A correspondent of the London Times, whi'e journeying to Belgium, was asked by a fellow traveller whether Belgin:.! still existed. He could not" give .it certain answer then, but a visit, he writes, proved that Belgium was never more alive, alert, united, cr confident regarding tlie future. The same spirit is manifested from the King down to th- latest, recruits flocking to the colors —a spirit of cheerfulness, hopefulness, and readiness for hard and sustained work, and a quiet, but firm, determination to restore to the nation its rightful own at whatever cost of life, toil or suffering. Despite that the Belgians bore the first shock of the German offensive, they are inspired today with immense confidence, and, are not discouraged. Having enlisted a vastly greater army than they ever before possessed, and better organised and better equipped .too, the Belgians are preparing for the task of throwing out the invaders.Motoring along the Belgian front tin* correspondent noticed .Belgium's various activities. The soldiers are not spruce and arc not carrying any litter of war but they, are workmanlike, cheerful, and exceedingly happy in the driving snow and bitter cold. "Arriving at the Belgian lines," he writes, "I enter a village. Not a soul is in the streets, except a few soldi"? Every house is damaged, and some are a fallen jumble. The church is a pitiful sight. The churchyard has been devastated as if by an earthquake. There are great pits.'- and tombstones arc throw n i" «vcry direction. - A ficure of Christ is lying almost intact at the foot of a cross. Only the walls of the church remain.

"Walking towards tlifi first lhic of defonco, I interviewed-some of the'defenders of Belgium. They were huddled* .in a, hut round a fire, redlining on straw floorboards, beneath which were mud and water. , Despite the appalling monotony of their life,-the men were laughing and cheerful. They had been living for weeks in thousands of huts. Never a brush with the. enemy, only the low thunder of. distant guns reminding them of the battle ahead. These huts, wliicn, when a thin sheet of ice begins to cover the flood doors, stretch for miles, mid beyond them you can just see the trees of the horizon where the German out-, posts are.' There, are a few batter"' farmhouses, and marooned waggons half sunk in water, otherwise tie; dreary stretch is the same as when the sluices were, opened, and the sea poured down, covering heaps of dead and wounded between the rival forces, and overyhelming 50,000 Germans. : "When the 1 spring comes, the Germans, lin boats, may crowd over the water. In the meantime the Belgians. must wait, watch and shiver."