BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 March 1916, Page 5

BELGIUM.

A NEW ARMY. REVIVAL OP THE BELGIANS. Times and Sydney Sun Services. Received March 23, 5.5 p.m. London, March 22. Lord Northctiffe writes to the Times that he had been with the Belgian army soon after its long series of rearguard actions, and then it was weary and needed sleep and equipment, though it never lost heart or discipline. Today it is re-fitted and reorganised and the result is a perfect little army. Belgium is fortunate in having a man of vital force like M. de Eoqueville (Prime Minister) as Minister for War. The Belgian line, though the shortest held by any of the Allies, is in proportion to population much the longest. It occupies a most difficult and extremely uncomfortable position. In no part of the war zone is the mud of Flanders blacker and deeper than in the Belgian trenches. General Wielemans granted Lord iNorthcliffe permission to take a quiet and unobtrusive seat in one of the batteries during an artillery duel. The way thither was through Flemish villages, whose churches are shells and fragments. It was a thousand pities that kinema operators were not sent to prove to the world that German warfare was equally directed on the civil population as on the military. He then saw the marvellous working of the "seventy-fives," whose sharp bang was heard at many points. A quick order was shouted in regard to direction and elevation. Then there was a slight pause, and the little chamber with its Rembrandtlike Flemish faces was lit up for a moment like the flames of a smithy, and then came the roar, which was gentle after the earthshaking at Verdun, followed by silence, until kilometres away there was heard our shell bursting. A good artillery battle reminds one very much of a quick lawn tennis volley. In this matter of artillery reply the Latins are certainly speedier than the Huns, The improved Belgian army ia like the British creation after nearly nineteen months of war.