Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 296, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1915 — IN BELGIUM TODAY [ARTICLE]

IN BELGIUM TODAY

People Confident Day of Deliverance Will Come. Young and Old Are Learning to Speak English—No Personal Relations Between Belgians and Germans—Boys Are Deficient. London. —The following account of conditions in Belgium is from the pen of an American who has arrived in London after a year’s stay in the Belgian capital: “Belgium today is learning to speak English. Everywhere you go, you can see the old and young usually carrying notebooks, studying in the streets and trams, in the cases, restaurants and in the homes, all talking English, using English expressions and words on all possible occasions. “Belgium is confident. You have only to look at their faces to see it, and if you talk with them, they say, ‘Just wait. The day of deliverance is coming, it may be this summer or next summer, but never? Vous etes fou!’ “From the German military standpoint, Belgium is organized into three districts, the first, the Gperationsgebiet or the zone of operations, which extends some fifteen to twenty miles behind the actual line of fighting; the second, the Etappen, which is an intermediary zone where all the supplies for the front are collected and distributed; and the third, the Occupationsgebiet or the occupied territory organized with both military and civil governments. No person can go from one to the other except on special permission, and then only by train, which includes as one of its comforts a thorough searching. “No person can leave the town in which he lives, except by train or on foot. Those who wish to ride in automobiles must pay twenty marks a week or more. In the fortified cities of. Liege. -Namur and Antwerp, you must be in your houses at nine o’clock in the evening. “Naturally no Belgian can go to Holland except by stealth, and I have good reason to believe that some sixty thousand have passed the frontier since the first of the year. Sometimes this necessitates the killing of one or two sentinels. “Above all it is strictly forbidden to sing or play the Brabanooh, the Marseillaise, and Tipperary, as a result of which nearly every Belgian can sing Tipperary and does so very often. On the Boulevard Anspach in Brussels -one- day four Httle boys were marching towards the bourse singing at the top of their lungs the Brabanoon. It was not long before some German soldiers chased them, catching one, who. as he marched away to the kommandatur, cried out to his friends: ‘Run

and tell mamma that I am a prisoner of war.’ The young Belgians all wear caps modeled on the soldiers’ rest caps and are very independent. “The German government of Belgium has expressed its desire that all Belgians should return to their work, but if it be work that can profit the Germans, they find something else to do. Then, besides, every piece of ma, chinery that can be used in Germany has been stolen long since. “It is easy to say, 'Go to work,’ but it is another thing to have work to do which is not of direct benefit to the German military authorities. In Charleroi there were about fifty locomotives which had been damaged more or less. The Germans offered the work of repair with fair pay to the Belgian workmen, but they absolutely refused, as the locomotives could be used in sending supplies and troops to the front. It was nearly a month later when after failing to persuade the Belgians to work the Germans were compelled to bring workmen from their shops in Germany. “I have given you some idea of the general relations between the Ger mans and the Belgians. As for per sonal relations, there is none. “During the week before I left Brussels. I was a spectator of an incident which perhaps shows the distance between the two better than I can ex plain. I was standing on the platform of a tram coming up from town. It was crowded with both Germans and Belgians. A German subofilcer took a cigarette from his case, and, having no match, asked the man standing beside him for a light The Belgian had nothing to do but offer the German his lighted cigarette. .When the Geri man went to return the cigarette, the Belgian very politely informed the German that he did not care to smoke any more. The German could do nothing, although he felt the insinuation. He left the tram Immediately. ’ “For our real news we have had to depend - upon the. Dutch papers and above all the London and Paris journals which were smuggled in from time to time. The German authorities have done all they could to stop these papers coming in, even making it extremely punishable, but as fast as they would stop up one channel of the supply another would be found. We were never without an English paper for more than two weeks since the first of September of last year. “The ’ commission for relief of Belgium has, no doubt, saved a nation from starvation, and under- the difficult circumstances, have done a wonderful work. The Belgians know and really appreciate the help, even if ths Germans have tried to claim the credit by publishing pictures of the commls sion’s work and labeling them as som« of the fine work Germany has done it Belgium.”