The daily Alaskan., 1918-03-22
LID BEHIND WOMEN.

.Rnt if the townspeople fired on the Germans?" asked.
 "Au weapons had been deposited ID the hands of the town authorities. It Is unlikely that any organized attack | by civilians could have been made. However, If In individual cases shots were fired at the German soldiers, this 1 may always be cOndOned in q country suffering invasion. During an Occupa- ton It would be different. naturally. No excuse can be offered for such an action In occupied territory.
 "Various Belgian officers have told me of seeing crowds of men, women and children driven ahead of the Ger man army to protect the troops. This 1 Is so incredible that 1 must ask | whether 1t has any foundation of | truth"
 Ut is quite true. It Is barbarOus and inhuman system of protecting the | German advance. When the Belgian soldiers fired on the enemy they killed their own people. Again and again innocent civilians of both sexes were sacrificed to protect the invading army during attacks. A terrible slaughter
 There was much more to the inter view, but this part Is the part that concerns us now.
 There Is no surmise in the kings statement. It is quiet, dignlhed, as restrained as possible. bare recital Of fact. On the right of Germany to in- wade Belgium there may be differing opinions. On the right of any army pretending to civilization to so protect its advance there can be but one yer dict.
 The king of the Belgians had spoken as n ruler and a soldier. He had himself fought with hls army | those terrible rear-guard engagements which could have but one end. He himself had seen this thing, so shock ing that 1t Is small wonder that America heard 1t with incredulous ears.
 A kings statement and a mans l been among the last to leave Brussels and before whom. in the intimacy of 1 that small villa at La Panne, came soldiers and refugee nobles with their stories of murder and debauch by the | invaders?
 I have never before broken the si- lence of my interview with Elizabeth, queen of the Belgians, that small, frall and heroic woman who has lived for three years under the roar of the artillery at Dixmude and Newport. But the time has come to break that 1 silence. Not all can be told but be- cause an infamous report has been spread broadcast that Elizabeth of Belgium sympathizes with Germany, l shall tell some of the things she said. QUEEN TELLS OF HORRORS.
 Again l quote from my notes Of that interview:
 Tt is the women and children" she said. Tt Is terrible. There must he killing. That is war. But not this other thing"
 She could not understand American skepticism on thIs point. She had but just returned from England. where in one convent % Belgian nuns were enceinte by German soldiers. She had visited them.
 That to her was the most terrible thing of war. That these quiet women, living their devout and simple lives, should have suffered so grossly bewil- dered and dazed her. Was there noth- ing, then, sacred to these invaders, not even the church7
 .T am Bavarian," she said. "1 have always from my childhood heard this talk that Germany must grow, must get to the sea. thought It was inst talk-a pleasantly. And the Hes they have told about us The en- peror has always pretended to be so friendly, and all the time"
 She held out her hands expressively.
 "Anyone who knows the king knows that he cannot do a wrong thing. It Is not possible for him. He cannot go any way but straight.
 Then she recurred to the invasion and the terrible cruelties of the Ger man army.
 "They were terrible" she said "especially what they have done to women and children. But more than any men in the world the Germans are | o,.,,ol +o ypomen. have seen them my self when they did not know who l was-on trains sometlmes-not since 1 the war, of course. But the very way they stare at women Is odiOus."
 She thought that this attitude or the Germans explained many things | And she told me in detail revolting stories of the proclamation of churches under the pretext, totally unfounded' that the Belgian churches were store houses for arms. She told me. too, of | tho aSnacial rr11eity they had shown to