The Detroit times., 1915-01-04
BY MARY BOYLE o'REILLY.

~ MANI bOTEG "
LONDON, England. Dec. lS.-CBy
mail )-"Mon dieu! I've seen the de-
vastation of a cyclone. the utter ruin
wrought by earthquakes-yet never
never anything like the Belgium
countryside overwhelmed by the Ger
man army"
Nurse Marie Felicie OF the French
Red Cross has escaped from Brussels
to London with frst-hand tale OF
the awful desolation OF the stricken
land.
"All Flanders she said to me
when | met her here, lis filled with
Belgian fugitives, returning now 10
find IL their little homes have been
spared. Spared? Good God! Every
g-everything-has been de-
stroyed.
"You see, know, for / have trav-
eled over all this country on foot-a
fugitive with the other footworn fugi-
tiyes!" Nurse Marie Felicie explained.
Nurse To 5000 Wounded.
last saw her In Brussels, Aug 20,
10 days after its capitulation. Though
she was French, she told me then
that she was determined TO stay with
the wounded In spite OF German oc-
cupation.
"since then" she said to me today
In London. "I must have nursed 5000
wounded Germans All were child
lshly ignorant about the war, all pitt.
July eager for peace. Scores or them
acted like men half asleep. Days OF
ieafening noise, racking fatigue, ter
rible tension had brought them to the
edge of imbecility.
Brussels Is a huge hospital. Not
two In a hundred stricken men die
from wounds. Rather they sicken
with sciatica or are killed by 72
hours OF standing up to their knees
In water when their clay trenches are
like brooks. The flooding OF Elan
ders started an epidemic OF pneu-
monia and typhoid. The fumes from
lyddite shells poison exhausted men.
Poor food, prolonged depression do
the rest.
German officials acknowledge the
startling increase OF suicide. When
this war was planned the German war
Office remembered everything except
the human beings who must do the
fighting Now they realize that mis-
take.
Ordered To Berlin; Flees.
"'These patients will all die un-
less we get them away from this ac-
cursed country, the chief doctor said
TO me. Nurse Marie Felicie. you will
go with the wounded to Berlin
ITO Berlin! Me, Frenchwoman!
| thanked him circumspectly and that
night / vanished. My Red Cross pa
pers passed me at the barrier. After
that l was free-and a refugee. alone,
penniless, without food, in the land
OF bondage.
THAT explains how came to travel
across broken Belgium on foot.
wherever Il went saw little boys
toilingsa sat mems work, old people wan
dering dazed amongst unrecognizable
ruins, and women half mad with grief
mourning beside black wooden
crosses.
ION the road beyond the Brussels
barrier ! met with half hundred
women refugees. Picture to yourself
how we walked through the night to
Waterloo. There was no moon. The
darkness was absolute, for the ham
let's OF Flanders show no lights;
matches cannot be had.
Priests Stay BY Ruined Churches.
After walking for hours we wom-
en- refugees slept on straw in a church
near Gembloux. The parish priests
may no longer show themselves in
ecclesiastical dress. They must wear
multi. But they calmly insist on re-
naming In their ruined parishes.
For say they, If we leave, no one
will remember where the vanished
boundaries ran, nor who owns the
ruined fields. Neither will anyone re-
call who married whom. nor where
the women and little children OF the