Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-21


cities is German.
leaving. sank three more vessels, in
Guiding mail steamer and "A dredger
In order to block up the fairway. but
there is. still room for small craft to
pass.
Ostend Little Damaged
The town is but little damaged and
the hotels, like the Continental and the
Savoy and the Phare and the Great
Kursaal SO familiar TO tourists before
the war. are still standing All the har-
Dor works like the Estacade or mole
and the seafront, have been deliberately
organized for defensive purposes The
mole itself Is one OF vast series of
dugouts, communication trenches and
tunnels, and there are concrete block
houses all the way between the Kursaal
and the Hotel du Phare. Concrete
shelters and def'Ases were made right
through the Hotel Continental
The Germans had sudden panic that
the British intended Il ding with tanks
and nat t-bottom barges during the battle
of Flanders, an idea that was perhaps
! not altogether wide of the mark, and
they prepared very late in that day an
astounding system of anti-tank defenses
I W lluSNI NillT B'Sol'llllNs
! Then few weeks ago the German
/ forces at Ostcnd saw themselves threat
ened by the menace of the Allied ad
vance, and prepared in desperate haste
/ for flight Their real panic began on
October I. when they began an orgy
/ Of destruction and removal of the works
upon which they had spent years of
| labor al enormous cost for the pur-
poses Of their submarine warfare.
Ostend was their main submarine
! base, and they built enormous work.
shops and sheds in the basins and docks
| for the accommodation and repairing
| Of these lHdersea craft They had
thousands of men engaged there and
masses of machinery and plants and II
was In these works that all their hopes
! lay of reducing the British empire Ia
| impotence by ruthless submarine ac-
tivty
The Royal Air Service. as it was then.
before the amalgamation into the Royal
Air Force. did a great deal to smash
these ambitions by ceaseless bombing
Foe Removed Machinery
But for ali that there was stll a
mass Of valuable machinery In these
works and on october | gangs of Ger
man marines We're employed to remove
| il and to destroy what they could moi
get away. For two days this activity
went on. while large numbers Of troops
were evacuated from the town and only
rear guards were left.
Now by the Belgian capture of Blank
cnbcrghe. Xeebrugge.N and KnoCke. which
today gives back all of the coast up &c
the Dutch frontier, the Germans have
lost their last chance of naval success
and their dream of gaining the channe
ports Of Franco has been shattered. lik,
many other false dreams which for q
little while seemed in touch with reality
British Hurry Foe Retreat
Meanwhile, southwark on the British
front the troops continue. not withou
hard fighting to hasten the enemy re
treat from the big cities long held il
bondage. They are now well beyont
Tourcoing and Roubaix. those two blt
manufacturing towns so closely linked
up with Lille. They were the eas
Yorks and other troops of the Thirty
first division, who took Tourcoing ant
are now pushing out to villages beyon,
Mousecron. Dottignles, and Estanpui
toward the Scheldt. which comes dowI
through Ghent
Many German soldiers have hiddeI
themselves In the liberated towns, pre-
ferring to surrender rather than go ol
fighting. ! saw some of those capture,
like this in Bruges and I'm Ostend.
There is no German proclamation ask
ing Belgian civilians to denounce de
serters to the Allied troops, and the
say that in order to make things cas-
with President Wilson, il has been de
cded to avoid the bombardment o
towns with large populations. though thi
does not apply to the villages which ar
now being shelled by the enemy. so tina
some civilians have been killed durin
the last two days.
Life In RoubaiX and Tourcoing wa
as hard as In Lille There are man,
rich manufacturers in these towns am
among them number Of Yorkshire an,
Lancashire business men with great in
dustries such as Mr.. Richardson, VIII
had cotton mill employing nearl!
1000 workpeople before 1t was Stripe,
of all its machinery by the enemy
Food could he had by those witt
money enough to pay for IL, $3.50 70
a pound of butter. and everything ol
the same scale. But many poor people
] am told died of starvation and ther
was general misery.
At Lille 7 was told by distinguishes
citizens that seven out of every te
men had been In prison at some tim
or other for refusing to pay fines G
for other crimes against German OF
preston" In Tourcoing It was as ba,
and Mr.. Richardson. the mahufactur,
whom | have mentioned. was actual
taken as hostage and imprisoned 81
weeks in Germany for the fantastic rea
Ia,, aknt