Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-11-01
People Nearly Starved.

Domain were nearly starved. They
are emaciated, yellow, sickly and con-
+, sumptive. but brave nevertheless. On
Sunday when the Prince of Wales.
with Gen. Sir Arthur Currie and the
| general commanding the 4th Division
| OF Canadians entered Denain to at
| tend the simple ceremony of thanks
for the liberation of the city, the
prince passed through the battered
streets. which were lined with Cheer
ing and weeping old men, women and
children. Under the banners of all
nations the party came to the square,
French Gen. Villars marks the small
ness of the Germans. The bronze
statue was stolen by the invaders.
Here the party was halted and was
received by the civil aut horities and
a flag presented to the 4th Division,
which was the first to enter the town.
Next the party proceeded to a little
shell-torn church, where, while the
prince stood under the torn roof, the
priest told of the city's tortures. With
the prince: Thank you" The thanks
were for the deliverance. If the
prince had been with the Canadians
| on October 10. when the town was
taken, he would have realized what
| the deliverance meant. Under the
impetuous attack the Germans ran
fighting in the outskirts of the town.
Trying to make a stand by the rail-
road, they were bombed out with
| trench mortars. A boy sergeant head
ed the soldiers who mopped up the
| town. The civilians. when they knew
| that the Germans were gone, rushed
| to the soldiers and kissed the Cana
dams as they were never kissed be-
| fore.
Boys Stone Prisoners.
| Boys stoned the prisoners waiting
! at the intelligence station, asking:
| Are the Germans going to return
| that way?" The embers of the burned
haystacks were still smoldering. The
power plants and other structures at
the mine pits were blown into a mass
. of crumbling brick and metal. The
{ smokestacks stretched across the
| roads were cleared away just enough
| to allow lorries with supplies to pro-
coed to the front. If the prince had
been there a few days earlier he
would have seen the bodies of dead
\ civilians killed by German projecti1es
and gas shells which forced the wom-
en- and children from the cellars. Even
| a field ambulance was gassed and the
sick and wounded had to be brought
! to the upper stories of the houses.
Twenty horses were killed.
Famished People Eat Horses.
Even this supreme torture of the
| Germans brought relief to the people
AS the Canadians dragged the horses
| away the famished civilians, though
| sick from the gas, sprang upon the
\ animals and with long knives and
axes, under the eyes of the amazed
| Canadians, cut the horses to bits and
left nothing but bones for the soldiers
to bury. Later even the bones were
unearthed to be cooked and not
enough was left to FIJI the grave OF
In cutting up the horses women
struggled madly with each other for
a share, pushing one another away
until it resembled shambles. Boys
| and girls ran home with ribs and
their clothes. while the mothers re-
NAMED to strip the fat from the in
| testines.
Sunday the prince was able to see
the Canadian doctors attending the
civilian patients, many of whom
ill and suffering from boi1s. The Tom
mics are sharing their rations with
the people and special 1orries are
bringing tons of food to the civilians
How times have changed for the peo-
pie of Denain!
German soldiers in the ranks were
not so bad, telling. the people when
light shown from their windows or il
appeared that they were doing some
thing for which fines were imposed
The German officers. and above all
the under officers. were the worst
They had people fined for walking
across the street and collected boys
as laborers. A general forced an old
grayhairod man to kneel at his feet
1 for forgetting to bow when he
\ passed. The Germans said 1t would
/ be worse when the British came, be-
i cause while the Canadians were good
| soldiers they were savage, savage
| beasts" However, the people OF
Domain think otherwise.