The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-05

London, November 25.-There was a l chain and it had one weak link, There l was an organization of trusted men and women, and somebody made a mistake ] or somebody told. And so Edith Cavell,
 the English nurse, died in the middle
 of a Belgian night. She was part of
 a system, the tale of which is story
 of constant peril, dangerous work in
 the dark, secret meetings in secret
 places, scores of men, constantly
 watched by the eyes of spies carrying
 with them the lives of scores of oth- CTS It is story that has not been | told before, but can be told now with out harm.
 l The system was for the escape from
 Germany controlled Belgium of French and British soldiers who had been caught in the German net but who had
 managed to escape the actual clutch of the captor, and of young Belgians, sim 1 iuarly situated, who wanted to get out of the country to England, and l thence to France to join their King.
 The system Is comparable best to the l unuergl ound railway of the United | States in the ante -bellum days when | slaves were smuggled out of the south and passed from hand to hand until finally pushed over the Canadian bor- | der to freedom The situation created with the Prussians knowing what was secretly going on but for months un- able to stop it. was for the Belgians engaged like the days of the terror | of '93 in France.
 While the evidence against Miss Ca veil has not been published by the Ger | man authorities in Brussels I am for tunate in being able to describe some- | thing of what has been going on in Belgium for the last year and to give few details. which have come from l Brussels since the execution, of tho | system of smuggling men out of the country which the Germans desire to stamp out and which Is directly re- sponsible for the execution of Miss Ca we'll.
 | German 1egions swept into Belgium | in August of 1914 with suddenness | that caught the Belgian government unprepared. The men of the nation were | hurriedly called to the colors and the | gallantry of the Belgian army in stemming the tide of the oncoming Germans is we'll known. But in many districts, so quickly engulfed by the Teuton flood, there were caught many able bodied Belgian men who could
 not get to their regiments. Again, as | the Germans advanced they overlook | and surrounded many Belgian organi- ZdtlOHS- 1nOuSdluS QI pTlSOneTS were taken. These were transported to Ger | many. But there were thousands of l others, soldiers and civilians, who | should have been soldiers, who were caught within the German lines. The 1 soldiers threw away their uniforms, dressed as peasants and became non- l military citizens. The Germans went 1 on and finally faced the French and l the British. The drive went into France. l The Germans approached Paris, now 1 holding large areas of France as well
 as most of Belgium. British and French l battalions which had met the Germans l as far from what had now become their l front lines as the middle of Belgium. 1 almost were broken and scattered. l Hundreds of French and British sol- | diers were in the midst of the German | army, some wounded. others unhurt, 1 and uncaptured. The Germans were en- 1 gagged in the victorious advance and 1 had no time to search the country for 1 stragglers. Shortly after they were re- 1 treating and had still less time to wor- 1 " about the handful of men In their midst.
 l These luckless stragglers hid them | selves away. They secreted in woods. l The Belgian peasants furnished food and nursed the wounded. Time went on and | the opposing armies settled down to a routine. Then the Germans secured the | country for British and French soldiers. They found few The khaki of the l British and the blue uniform of the French soldiers disappeared Belgians
 managed to find civilian clothes for these soldiers in hiding. The British Tommies