TERRIBLE TRAGEDY OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1919, Page 5

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY OF THE WAR.

I GHOSTS OS 1 ONCE PJIODDCAEH FITIi' ■BELGIUM® 'ROADS." HUNGRY AND FOOTSORE, BUT j WITH HOPE IN THIiLR EYfiS, (By Philip Gibbs.j I With the British AVnnes, .Nov. £i. By slow stages, leaving it ppacv ot six and a half miles or so between th»m and tiie retreating enemy, our troop* of the 2nd and 4th Armies ar« drawing near to the German frontier. Going out from .Namur yesterday I went to our further outpost line held by a cavaVy screen at the town of Huy ob the Meuso, some twelve and a-lulf miles beyond Narnw itself. Later in tho day I saw the arrival of the first patrola of Canadian infantry. "Where is our front line!" asked oa« of the men, and not trying to be fwinv, but with a military gravity, he said; "In the centre of the high street, sir." Remembering the old front linu which were drawn across the infernal ruin of battlefields and where no man showed his body without death, tin new front line struck mo as being vefy funny, and 1 enjoyed the joke of it ft I went through Huy and looked througi plate glass windows (there was never i window-pane within fifteen miles of till old front line) at boxes of chocolate! and sweetmeats; at Tauschnitz editioni of English authors, at portraits of ICinj Albert and his queen and at fanoj goods in many bright shops, all huuj with flag's, such as one might find il. Canterbury or Exeter the week ibefori Christmas in times of peace. It was a good place for the front line and that was certainly the opinion & the cavalrymen who strolled up aa« down the streets under the glad eyes ol Belgian girls, who greeted them av. heroes and deliverers, according to the words of welcome which hung in streamers across the roadways. Tho same of Huy, this stopping-place on the way to the Rhine, is not faraou* in world history, as far as I know, but is a picturesque old town of considerable size, where broad Meuse sweeps around in a sudden curve below the high, limestone cliffs, which all the way from Namur are sheer above the deep gorge of the rivor valley, rough-brown and jagged, like the battlefields and keeps and watch-towers of mediaeval castle*. —Packed With Prisoners On the broad waters of the Meuse are many barges which pleasure boats pass in time of peace, and down the stream from Huy came some of those small steamers to-day, crowded with passengers. They stood tightly together on ihe upper and lower decks, and by a glance I knew what manner of men tliey were. They were boatloads of liberated prisoners—French, British and Italian —coming to Namur to swell the crowds which, as I write, and all day long, are gathered outside the railway ; station there waiting for trainß to take them to another station on their homeI ward way. These boatloads on the Meuse were lucky ones, eased at last of their padks and able at last to rest their weary feet. Scores of thousands of their comrade* in misery are tramping along the road back from the German lines. They come straggling along in small groups, keeping company by some tie of comrade* ship made by the roadside, the easing of one man's load by stronger arms, the sharing pf a bit of bread, common memories of misery, or a word of greeting in a tongue they understand. On my journey to Namur, and yes- ' terday outward from Namur, I met thousands of them, and they all "had the same look of men who were pushing on to some goal of their hearts desire. Though the packs on their shoulders press hard, and their tired feet stumble over every stone and rut, they were homing birds, but with a far call still to Manchester and Shropshire and Padqua and Mantua and Poitera and Toulouse. —Human Pack Animals,— One could not tell to what army they belonged by their clothes, for many of thorn were in German prisou camp uniforms, with the long black coats and roimd black caps served out to them after six months' captivity, and others in Qerman tunics, and French soldiers and Italians with British khaki, while British soldiers had odd garments of all nations, picked up on the way back or doled out to them in German camps; but some still wore the clothes they were captured in, stained and tattered in months of captivity. There was a Cossack in a gray astrachan cap and a long-waisted coat above heavy boots, and there were Chasseurs Alpines in blue bonnets and knickcr-bockers, and Belgians in slacks and tasseled capsEach man had a story to tell which would hold so much of the drama of this war and tragedy that it would take a year of telling; but those to whom I spoke; the men of the British armies,put it all into a few words of bitterness. "We had a bad time," said one of them. "They starved us so that we had to stew nettles and mangel-wurzels to • keep ourselves alive. Many of us died. They worked us hard to the end, and when we could not work they lashed us." ' Two men I met to-dnv had been harnessed to carts and made to drag a transport on the German retreat from Demappe. They wore ill and weaklooking fellows, once of the 3rd decision, and afterward attached to the 19th and ' 63rd divisions—Shropshire lads, both of whom had been captured after March 21. 'j