THE GREAT EXODUS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1915, Page 6

THE GREAT EXODUS.

FROM WARSAW. " THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING LIKE IT SINCE NAPOLEON'S ENTRY INTO THE GRIM SILENCE OF AN EMPW MOSCOW." "In the Church of the Holy Cross, Krakovski street, Warsaw, reposed in a vault Chopin's heart. The vault was opened, and the precious relic removed to Moscow." "The three bridges which span the Vistula by Warsaw were blown up by the Russians as they left the city at three o'clock on Thursday morning of last week, and at sis a.m. the German cavalry entered the famous capital of Poland." The honor of describing the tragic and dramatic scene of the great exodus from Warsaw of its inhabitants belongs to Mi-. Stanley Washburn, the Times special correspondent. "His narrative of the final scenes, with shells bursting in the suburbs and a squadron of aeroplanes dropping recalls in some respects the fall of Antwerp," says the Times. "The enemy have gained possession of a desolate and depopulated city. Warsay has been stripped of its wealth, of much of its machinery, and of all metals useful in war. Such -plant as was too heavy to remove has been destroyed. "The exodus of the inhabitants seems to have begun three weeks ago, and the greater part of the million citizens of Warsaw is now scattered throughout the interior of Russia. The mournful flight of the people of Antwerp must have represented considerably less than onethird of the numbers of this extraordinary dvacuation. There has been nothing like it sitjee Napoleon's entry into the grim silence of an empty Moscow. The Germans possess the husk of Warsaw, but they have failed to destroy the indomitable armies of Russia." • THE LAST DAY. "The net is drawing tighter each moment, and the fall of the city is a matter of a few hours. Standing on the new bridge .one can see great German shells and volcanic fumes, while heavy reverberations shake the city," writes Mr. Washburn on August 11. "Acrost the Vistula hangs our observation balloon, while the sky is dotted with German aeroplanes, soaring hither and thither amidst smoke puffs of bursting shrapnel from our guns. I counted fourteen shells aimed at one aeroplane. "From the roof of the Hotel Bristol is visible the smoke of burning buildings in the suburbs which have been fired by the shells from German artillery. The city is deserted by all but the Poles, who intend to remain, and the evacuation, save for the last of the Inlantry ana guns, seems to be practically completed. The last train departed for Petrograd yesterday, and the last to BrestLitowsk goes to-night. Meantime the German aeroplanes continue their senseless destruction of lives and property. "While I was crossing a bridge this afternoon four bombs fell on iPraga, the suburb on the eastern bank of the river making terrific detonations and sending the people in every direction. The copper wires of the telephone and telegraph service and the trolley wires of the tramways are being taken down, and for those who have been here watching for the fate of Warsaw for many months the spectacle of the preparations to abandon it into the hands" of the enemy is very depressing."

THREE MILLION POUNDS REMOVED.

Another vivid narrative of the exodus from Warsaw is sent by the Chicago Daily News correspondent, Mr Bassett Differ.

"Most of the High Cdurt officials, together with the court archives and treasure amounting to £3,187,50n, were carried on the train, many of the refugees travelling in cattle trucks. Periodical scares possessed Warsaw since the last. week of June. A number of Russian officials sent their families eastward, and it was almost impossible to induce many shops to accept paper money on account of the hoarding of silver. 'The Consuls of the Allies, having in mind what happened last December, when the evacuation of the city was ordered at three hours' notice, kept in dose touch with their Embassies.

"Free transport was provided by the Government, and measures taken to meet the needs of the less well-to-do. The police showed every kindness and sympathy to the unhappy people Called upon to leave their homes. During many weeks freight cars had been accumulated in thousands on the sidings, and during Friday, Saturday, and Sunday trainloads of refugees were despatched east as fast as the fleeing men, women, and children could be packed into the waiting trains.

HALF THE GHETTO GOES. ''Some three hundred and thirty thousand, including nearly half the Warsaw ghetto, thus departed eastwards, while another third of a million" 6T the peasantry came trooping into the Polish metropolis from the surrounding districts-. Practically the entire rural population left their homes, and north, south, east, and west came in ceaseless procession day and night to the shelter of the citv. Dead-tired, dust-whitened peasant families came with cattle, portable goods, and chattels, thronging every road that converged upon Warsaw.

FACTORIES STRIPPED. "It is reckoned that in the city itself tens of thousands of houses were instantly broken up. I know four cases of men worth more than a million roubles last month who are now nearly penniless. Simultaneously with the evacuation, all property likely to bo useful to the enemy, especially metal machinery, was removed or destroyed. Factories were feverishly stripped of their plant, and the owners granted free transport for it to the east. "Day and night one heard the muffled roar of dynamited factory plant that was embedded in concrete or too cumbersome to dismantle by other means. Every fragment of this dynamited metal was transported eastwards. NEWSPAPERS GO. "The newspapers made their last appearance with the announcements of the evacuation, after which the linotypes were - uprooted and the floors carted away. .Police and soldiers visited every printing office, taking away founts of type and dismantling presses. Hardly a ton of copper fltting3 was left in the city. All stocks of copper-piping in factories, plumbers' shops, ironmongery establishments, as well as household and hospital utensils and fittings, were taken away. "Warsaw knew no sleep over that week-end. The huge pOBt-offiec, banks, telegraph office, Law Courts, and various

municipal departments were scenes of universal dismantlement, packing archives and portable equipment for immediate transport to the interior. "Through the streets pased endless columns of carts and lorries, heavily laden, converging iipon the Praga and Alexandrovsky bridges across the Vistula, only soldiers, with their legs swinging over the side, distinguishing a wagon land with millions of roubles in paper money and irreplaceable records, from those containing peasants and their sacks of potatoes.

BRONZE BELS RINGING. "Day and night gangs of soldiers were busily employed stripping league after league of copper telegraph wires from their poles. "Church doors flung open revealed the interiors filled with weeping, praying Poles and Hussians, amongst whom passed ministering priests in their gorgeous vestments. Aloft in the towers the hugh bells had been unslung, lest they should become food later for Krupp's furnaces. Not only the bells, but all archives and church plate, precious vestments, and ikons are being transported into the interior. LET NOTHING REMAIN. "The telephone exchange was dismantled, and dynamos supplying power for street cars removed, together with all wheels and detachable fittings connected with the tram service. "Wherever possible troops were sent out to garner the crops in surrounding country. Where this was impossible the harvest Was destroyed, villages being razed to the ground. "Food costs ten times as. much in Warsaw as it did a month ago, and there is no public water supply, the pumps for operating the machinery having been despatched eastwards. Since July 21 every wheeled vehicle has heen transported against the Vistula, and nearly all the horses. Two thousand hackney carriages have been driven by their owners out of the city to find refuge somewhere on the Moscow road. "Thousands of the poor were ferried across the Vistula and stream eastwards on foot unable to afford bread. Jewellers have buried their stocks, and necessary trade being done by barter." ■ "Poland has in the last twenty years been rapidly undergoing industrialisation; it is, indeed, the most industrialis. Ed part of the Tsar's dominions," says the Mancheter Guardian. "All this industry looks eastward and finds in Russia its market. Separation from Russia would strike it a heavy blow; it weuld not lose its present market, but it would meet in Germany with far more severe competition than it knows in Russia. But the great question for the Poles is: Will the work of Germany or of Russia proye the more durable " "The ruin of Poland is probably the most unrelieved of all the tragedies of the war," says Mr. John Buchan in his history of the war. "The material damage can scarcely be estimated, the human suffering can scarcely be imagined, An area seven times larger than Belgium was far more comprehensively ravaged."