The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1918-10-22

published by special arrangement
with the Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.
Copyright, 1918, by Brand Whttlock,
under the title Memories OF belgium
Under the German Occupation. All
rights reserved. Copyrighted in Great
Britain. Canada and Australia. All
rights reserved for France, Belgium,
Holland, Italy. Spain, Russia and the
Scandinavian Cuuntries.)
Mr., Hoover had gone back to Lon
don late In September, and early in
October Mr.. Crosby followed him. 70
return no more. We were all a lttle
saddened at his going and regretted
my own inability to join the ceremony
at which the men of the G. N. n OF
the c. II. B. expressed their apprecia-
ton Of the executive services he had
rendered. l happened just then to, be
confined to my quarters by the oTders
Of my physician. The long strain had
told on all Of us. and worse h the
strain was the almost intolerable de-
preston, one with the atmosphere all
about, that settled down like a black
cloud. October had come, with all the
signs of the early autumn and the
menace OF another dark winter of war.
The gray, dripping skies seemed but
the reflection Of the universal spirit
OF man.
The leaves were falling, and it re-
mains as a part Of the memory OF that
gloomy october that the apprentice OF
lie Jeune, the barber. had just told me
that IL "le patron could survive ia
tombee des feuilles' he might live until
ia pOusse des feuilles," 1t was of some
old superstition, l suppose, that he had
this curious notion, and yet 1t seems
in a way to express the feeling of all
those suffering Belgians. They had felt
for awhile a mounting of their hope
as the cannon preCluded the great al
lied offensive Of that autumn, but after
the guns had Numbered In fun orches.
ira all about the vast circle That
stretched from the User to the Vosges,
they realized, even IL they were too
.stubbornly courageous to admit it, that
they were the victims Of one more
great disappointment. The frequent
publication on the walls of those SIN
lister proclamations reporting the morn
down the spirits; each day seemed to
Guido its predecessor in some such
dread news. The terror was spreading.
Gen. Won Kraewal had been removed
because, It was said. he had not been
severe enough, and was succeeded as
chief Of staff and military governor OF
Brussels by Gen, o Sauberzweik.
Every day brought some terrible tale.
One that | remember was of n man
whose wife and the baby in her arms
his little boys were killed by the
Germans before his eyes, and who lived
and indeed was kept alive only by
the thought OF vengeance, 1t was said
that, the offensive getting on their
nerves, many Of the German soldiers
were deserving and that those brought
back from Russia to face the fighting
on the west front were half mad with
terror. There was a story, too, to the
effect that six German officers had
deserted and were being hunted down.
At any rate, the Germans were beat
ing la Foret de Soignes for deserters,
and they were systematically closing
another in all the houses, look
ing for letters, pictures-everything.
The Rue de Commerce, there in the
Quarter Leopold, was closed in this
way, and a man was shot, so the
rumor had II, for assisting some Ger
man officers to scape
Settles Down.
Brussels was nearer black despair
than 1t ever had been, Winter was
coming on. No one smiled, and the
people only hoped on because they
must; there was nothing else to do.
And then there came u thing that
threw it's black and monstrous shadow
not only over us, but over the whole
" hIlu. IL HGtliltd bpllltllON hhp wv
whelming doom that had been implicit
In the deadful events Of that dark
month, the denouement toward which
they had been so lmplacably tending.
II was 80 inharmony with the atmos-
phere, the spirit n the feeling OF
the time; It was m Of a thousand
other %injustiCes essentially as bad, but
because II doomed In its tragic circum-
stances Il noble m of our W
blood and tradition and tongue It well
nigh overwhelmed us, as II did the
world, with its horror,
Early in August Brussels had heard
---or all Belgium, or at least all hat
part of Belgium that lived IN ChateauX
had heard-that the Princess Maria de
Croy and the Countess Jeanne de Belle
vile had been arrested. The De Croys
are II OF the oldest families of the
Belgian nobility, and the Princess Ma
ria was a maiden lady who lived al
most in seclusion in her chateau of
Bellignle, near Mons. The Countess
Jeanne de Belleville lived not far away
at her chateau Of Montignies Roc,
near Andregnies, in the province Of
Hainaut. These two distinguished ladies
had been arrested for treason in time
OF war and We're accused OF having
aided British soldiers to pass the Bel
gian frontier,
At the beginning OF the war the
Princess de Croy had established a Red
Cross hospital in her chateau, where
Belgian, English and German wounded
were cared for.
After the battle OF Mons a great many
British soldiers, cut off in the retreat,
had been left behind In Belgium, and
had lived under great difficulties and
hardships all through the winter and
spring; had lived the lives of hunted
animals, in the woods or in the farms
and fields of Hainaut and Brabant.
Near the chateau of the Princess de
Croy 10 British soldiers had hidden In
a haystaCk on a Belgian farm, and,
tracked down at last by German SOL
diers they We're taken, stood against
the wall and shot without mercy. This
a~trocity so affected the princess that
she determined to organize methods
whereby British soldiers, who, finding
themselves In a position that in all civ
tli2ed countries would have entitled
them at least to the consideration
shown to prisoners of war, could he
cared for and II possible got out of
the country. And though frail and deli
cate In health, she and the Countess de
Belleville and Madame Thuliez and GER
tain others, organized n system to aid
British soldiers who were still In hid
ing and to sent them to Brussels. where
as she declared in her i~nterrogatory be-
fore the military tribunal. she thought
they would be less vigorously dealt Will
than near Mons, which was under tn,
military regime, whereas Brussels wal
in the territory of the general govern,
| ment, The princess declared that sh,
| ter they reached Brussels. There, how,
| WA nihAFD Df1n1 fhnn, 10 uAf narAp1