The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1918-02-15
British Captain, in Letter to Local
Man; Describes Agonies Inflicted
BY Huns--"Au For Place in the SUI"

Robert Lyons, a Richmond man
| who has returned from France, where
he was with the headquarters OF thu
First Division of the American Army
in France received the following let
ter in 1915 from the English captain
he served under in 1911. The letter
follows:
Liverpool, Eng, Jan. 26, 1915.
Dear junior
Your letter received some time
since, but I have been unable to answ
err until now. OF course you want te
know about the war. and l can tel
You most of what l know.
l was away, among the hills Of
Russian Mongolia when my orders
reached me. had come for a rest
and it was a beautiful place. There
were majestic fir FORESTS, snow cap
ped mountains, range behind range
and green and purple valleys deep in
larkspur and monkshood. All was
peace, the village was full Of peasant
gaiety. The young men and women
were out on the grassy hillsides with
their scythes, the old folks sat in the
doorways sewing furs for the coming
winter. | lounged in a hammock in
the yard of my inn. almost content.
had month of leave yet. I had come
from Crete, though should have
gone home. I was thinking of home
when my host broke in on my reverie.
"A telegram for the major he said
and | told him to prepare for my de-
parture for I knew that only the war
office of the Western Command knew
OF my whereabouts. and that word
from them meant that my rest was
over.
| was to report at Aldershot by the
18th OF July, without fail" I made a
flying trip to Moscow and then on
home. | had only few minutes of
my allotted time to spare when
reached the Colonel's office at Alder
shot AS soon as I got inside the Of
flee l knew that something had gone
wrong, and when l saw the Colonel's
face l knew that some crisis was at
hand. And, l soon learned the truth.
was ordered to Paris at once. l re-
turned from there two days before
war was formally declared between
Great Britain and Germany. | was
then relieved of intelligence duty and
put to warping out subalterns from
the Royal Hibernian.
Then came the war itself 1t is
terrible. In China, in India. and in
South Africa. l had seen it of a type,
but not this hideous, Goddess slaughter
of man, woman and child. Poor Bel
GUM! When you and I were there
only year or so ago she was the
fairest flower of Europe. Those beau
tlful canals and rivers that crossed
and recrossed her fertile valleys, the
stately castles rising to the skys be-
side them, to lord it over the sur
country and the sentry-like
villas OF vine clad beauty that watch
ed her peacefulness are no more
With neither warning or cause the
smouldering thunder cloud struck the
horizon, and shorn of disguise the
Belgians saw the mailed fist of Prus-
STA demanding a place in the sun.
Poor Belgium. They have violated her
neutrality, they have murdered her
sons, they have outraged her woman
hood, and with ever increasing vio-
lence untold agonieS have been in
flicted, all for place in the sun. Now.
Belgium is great charred ruin over
run with q vandal hord of civilized
monsters. Her lovely provinces are
depopulated, her cities turned into
vast holocausts. And one of the
most glorious civilizations of Europe
is blackened and defaced. The agony
Of Nero's human torches, and the hor-
rors of the French revolution pale be-