Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1919 — HUN SLAVE DRIVE [ARTICLE]

HUN SLAVE DRIVE

How Kaiser’s Minions Deported Belgian Peasants. Unfortunate PeopFe Herded Alongi Highways Like Cajitlfr—Dapper Lieutenant Found Much That Was Amusing in Spectacle. % John. Lowrey Simpson gives a. vivid little pen-picture of a German deportation of civilian Belgians In Cen* tury: “So we slackened pace, rolled by the outlying dwellings, and with & scuffling of brakes slewed around the corner into Waelhem Waelhem, wrecked in a battle. Up and down the long street, gaunt husks of houses leered gruesomely. Perhaps the vacant Stare of houses ruined in a battle is distinguishable from the vacant stare of houses ruined out of a battle. I do hot know. With the passing of time those mom Intimate variations of detail from horror to horror weather into the general scheme. Waelhem cowered paie under the chill of the morning, » “A little horde of country folk crammed the roadway and shouldered even against the two rows of white houses. On the doorstoops women stood clutching their children, the while tip- * toeing to catch a glimpse of what passed ahead. A few stodgy soldiers with fixed bayonets rounded l*ack the crowd into a semicircle; the p£.>ple on each hand clung to the sides of the buildings as by their nails, aid held their ground more obstinately tkan in the center. Crowds always perately to the sides of buildings. Ahead marched—if the w ord is not too proud a one—a procession. There are a dozen men, perhaps, laden with bundles and packs, clad in the loost, shaggy stuffs of Belgian peasantry. The inevitable colored mufflers straggled over their shoulders. Their caps were drawn tight, as though to deny the cold. Lugubrious defense, pain# te no avail; for the cold crept into their mouths, and one could perceive their breaths, frozen and dead. The scattering of soldiers trudged beside them, gazing sullenly first at their bayonets, then at the file of prisoners. In the van Tode two officers. Their "horses clattered and fidgeted, as though to imply that mount, like master, was bored by these people and their troubles —foolish troubles, foibles of peasants. - ~ * “As the company advanced, a person stood regarding it. He was not attired in rough blouse and sabots. He wore a long gray coat with a fur_ collar; his feet were compressed in narrow black boots. Steel spurs twinkled at his heels. A jaunty round cap perched on the back of his head, tt scant trifle to one side. His mustache was cropped till it might have been molded there on his face. Under his eyes drooped dark, heavy rings. He sported a morsel of braid on each shoulder, and the tip end of a scabbard peeked from under his huge coaL The mSn lumbered by, and the women pressed closer toward him. He smiled. He was a German lieutenant.”