The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-14
HOW WATERLOO
 LOOKS TODAY
British Officer Finds Mixed
 Emotions There.
SAYS HISTORY
 IS CONFUSING


 cause, instead of having strongly
 occupied villages in the front line,
 which makes so many separate
 fights, 1t was here a great ele-
 vated. naked plain, held by the
 English. sh.'-Erckmann Chatrian.
 T went to Waterloo on a bright morning at the beginning of Last Jan uary,' writes correspondent in the Manchester Guardian. Already many of our men had been there. Parties had been organized as soon as we had arrived in Brussels, and lorry loads of men left almost daily for the battlefield. An officer devoted his whole time to conducting these par ties. Divisional Headquarters issued Q printed account with map for the use of soldiers visiting Waterloo. The Senior Chaplain undertook Q pill gTimage through units, armed with blacliboards, maps, plans, all the ap- paratus of demonstration, by means of which he exposed before the troops the political, economic and strategical situation throughout Eur ope as 1t existed on June IS, 1915, with special reference to the aims and ambitions of the Emperor Napol- con. and the striking similarity which " late Emperor of Germany.
 Why do all the English go to Waterloo? they used to ask in Brus- sels. Is it a national vice or what is it that makes them all go? I was not surprised to hear that it used to be a recognized way of making a for tune in Brussels to conduct parties of English tourists to Waterloo. But now, we suppose, they will visit the T. will want to come to Waterloo any longer. An, well! Poor little Belgium! After all, it seems, she has bled for nothing.
 In 1914 the battlefield and it's ap- purtenances were being redecorated for the celebrations of the centenary of the battle. At the foot of the Lion a pavilion had been erected, which contains a vast panorama of the bat tie, with little wooden fingers and labels pointing out the position of the commanders, regiments and so forth. As one stands in the centre of the pa vilion one is in the same relative pos itnon to the panorama as one is to the battlefield when one stands at the top of the Lion. All around one a bloody fight is in progress. Dummy soldiers in the last agonies of death expire against the very railings of the little platform from which one views this canvas conflict. Blood is freely splash ed in the foreground, and weapons of all descriptions are spread about in liberal profuSion. In the distance one can see Napoleon on his white horse. The only element which is absent from this paper mache Waterloo is the crowd of international sightseers for whom the panorama was constructed. Instead, there is a crowd of soldiers, English. Australian, French, Cana adian, Belgian, jostling each other in that little pavilion, criticising, un- moved, the mutual decapitation of the French and British dragons, or pointing skeptically to the proximity of the Duke to his own field batter ies. I wondered if the artist would have hesitated in his task had he known when he painted his picture five or more years ago, that it would be submitted to the criticism of so expert an audience as this. But, then, the time when the picture was paint ed seems now almost as remote as the incidents which it depicts. Even the notices on the adjacent walls indf- eating without shame 'Sortie; Way Out; Ausgang' suggest international amiabilities long since vanished.
 "On the battlefield itself there is naturally little change. People still count the steps they climb up the Lion and still scratch their names on the plinth when they get to the top. I noticed that Max Bluhme. 1915,' and A. B. Stuttgart were giv- ing place to J. Horrocks, Bacup, 1919,' and "A. B. Auckland, N. J. No doubt the former have quite disappeared by now, and can no more 1 be seen. They will make an interest a graphs on the plinth of the Lion of Waterloo"
 From the Lion I walked along the Charleroi road, through La Have Sainte, toward La Belle Alliance, glancing at the memorials on my way. The Germans have stolen the tram lines from the Charleroi road, and one feels that no one would have blamed them if they had taken some of the memorials at the same time. The Lion is a noble memorial, though Yelling ton said that they had spoiled his battlefield in order to commem crate his battle But the effect of the other monument is to disturb the otherwise placid dignity of the battlefield. Near La Belle France Alliance the French were erecting @ column to Victor Hugo when the war began. It Is unfinished | though the guide book, evidently in anticipation, SHOWS IL CrOWHeO WILL d | Galuc cock. Here also IS the beaut- full French monument put up in 1904 ! by French military society on the spot where the last of their soldiers | fell in the battle. The monument Is | a. low pedestal bearing a dying eagle, | still clinging to a torn flag. It Is in scribed, ITO the last fighting mon of | the Grand Army" When I saw 1t 1t l was decorated with .wreaths brought | from Brussels by French soldiers. "T,he esta rninet of La Belle Alliance still presents much the same appear | ance as 1t must have done on the day | when Wellington and Butcher ahook | hands on the road outside. Not a few l of our men were @ little puzzled when | they realized that Butcher was a l Prussian. It had, of course, been care- | fully explained to them before leav- | ing bilIets that on one occasion the Germans had for some unaccountap1e | reason drawn the sword against auto l eracy, and thus found themselves | backing the same horse as ourselves. | Still, when they saw Butcher painted l up there on the wall of La Belle Ailt- I nd h a