New-York tribune., 1915-03-26
NEW YEAR CELEBRATED
AS GERMANS FACE ENEMY
Kaiser's Troops Rejoice Heartily at Birth OF l9'o
While They Are Waiting at Lowicz on
Drive Toward Warsaw.
BY JAMES O'DONNELL BENNETT.

cnts at the front, ike old men-or
perhaps only feeling old because for
them so much is crowded into little
whiles-love to tell their troubles.
Some of them do il to the submerg-
ing of anything so trivial as either ma
tional or international aspects of this
grievous war. They make the telling
quite a neighborly affair, as, frankly,
| am in some sort trying to do in these
letters from Lowicz.
Well, there may be some color in this
kind of stuff, and it may help to give
an intimate view of general conditions
that the reader would not otherwise
quite catch. SO | go back little for
this article to the night of my first
arrival in Lowicz.
It was New Years Eve; our and the
German New Years Eve, not the Rus
sian. which is reckoned by julius
Casar's calendar and comes twelve
days later. "Sylvesterabend," the Ger
mans call the Gregorian New Years
Eve, but under no name could you make
it very festive in Lowicz in 1914.
To be landed at nightfall in town
in the Russian war zone with sixty
pounds of baggage on your back and no
place to go but out is the least Ike
holiday making of any Of the war pas
times.
You report yourself to the command
er of the town, and he is gravely polite.
but not optimistic as to the chances oil
quartering you with the dignity sup
posed to be due the bearer of an order
from the General Staff in Berlin and
letter from the Foreign Oftice.
In fact, having a whole town IN tne
enemy's country on his mind, he SHOWS
signs Of abstraction when it comes TO
considering the problems of foreigner
who cannot bear arms and who subjects
the highly organized German language
to desolating experiments.
Officer Placed Over Correspondents.
Having examined .he "befehl' from
the General staff and the bite from
the Foreign Office, he turns you over 10
a sergeant, who is instructed 10 tahe
Won 10 the officer who has been placed
over the correspondents.
With the sergeant you march out OF
the commandant's presence and through
half a mile of dark, slippery streets.
The sergeant is carrying the sixty
mounds now, though why he should
do so. except that he seems TO ike IT,
never could discover.
With him YOU fall upstairs and down
courts until you reach the room where
the officer TO whom correspondents are
a burden is auartered. His servant
answers the door, and it makes MN
atFliction use tut mir sehr leld'g that
the herr hauptmann is gone to SKIER
niewice and will not return until TO-
morrow midday. IL,
At this the sergeant delberates with
himself, finally taking you TO mouse,
which is at the moment empty DuC
every bed, couch and shakedown III
which has an officers sword laId across
il. That means that the oncer mas
gone to look for something. TO cat anS
that. meanwhile, the pea IS
pending his return. A.. a.rL
getting snubbed and misdirected until
1ou encounter the beaming soldier
with the inevitable brother-in-law on
Wells Street. or the cousin in Mllwau-
kee. or the uncle who went to Cincih-
natl twenty years ago. You would give
2G marks if YOU knew any one OF tne
three. but. says the beamlng soluIeI'
Won might have known them or you
NAV vet know them-whlch IS true
enouph-and that satisfies him: -.
He and the sergeant confer WIN
great animation and many "Jawohls,
with the result that you tall down
more courts and up more stars uhtiI
Won reach house lacking window glass
and heat. but still house and having
dry floor. sho,tored
than the public square LOOKS ilAe
heaven by this time. Besides wheh
YOU think of the Russian ,prisoheIs'
sleeping in straw in the cold cnuIcm, ,
il makes YOU ashamed to be queruIouS
about anything.
Four Beds in One Room.
In the house is room that locks as
e /, might once have been BACK
narIor A cot and a couch that are
sound and cot and an iron bed tnaV
coo n the floor and rock like cradles
n'b ben Won sit on them have been pushed
into the room. .L.o :, No
Ion of bedclothing. But you note with
upbolv iov. as the sergeant swings ms
noctet iamp around the room, that at
enc window hangs a thick, coarse cur
tain of red cloth. | pulled 1t do"L'
oiled it up. and hid it under the couch'
al the same time sticking my caro- on
Iadv's hatpin found on a winaqW
ledge. and sticking the hatpln INTO 'ne
bowels Of the coucn. oeoor,s
On the sound cot lavs an olheeI
sword, and | wondered wnat Ihs Ioo,T Id
80 whom the sword indicated, would
be like. Before the night was over q, l
had four roommates-two OF theni o.'s
80 ard two Of them officers servants
and all Of them fine, friendly' uPS'""u
ing men. :. .ho hack
narlor had gone to tatters under 'he
rain and snow that had swept INTO
the room, and some OF II was so damp
Won could almost wiring water OUT VI . ~
Thought of other New Years eVeS
and of the bright lights at home anu
| muttered to myself: g
This is going to be a deuce OF a
New Years Eve" remark Whlch 'm um.
sympathetic sergeant seemed 70
derstand perfectly, for he said ia
wohl," three times running :,
nm II wasn't so bad, after all
There was a sound of tacking going
on all over the house. The other Gere-
Tcts who had come to anchor there
,yere nulling down curtains where they
rore mot doing much good and tach-
inc them over the shattered pahes'
When YOU couldn't tack you could uo
wonders by stuffing bits OF carpet anu
newspaper into the holes .his
People grew quite cheerful az tnis
occupation. It is wonderful what
man can do for himself when you tahe
the women folk away and thro" ei"'
cut on the wide, wide world
Officer Introduces Himself.
Presently the officer whose SWORD LAY lay
or the sound cot came in and SPOKE
rapidly r a three-syllable name which ~ !
did did not catch, and never did eaten. eaten
That is the way officers always nitro
duce themselves just speak the las'