Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1919-08-15
By MARY HEAToN WORSE.


with closed shops, every day new
shutter is pulled up. The peasant
women come in again as they did be-
fore the war to buy cloth and silk
handkerchief with long fringe for
their heads.
To the people who have been here
from the first, it is a place full of
life, q normal town. But If one ar
lrives as a stranger and is ferried
across from Semlin in steamer full
lof soldiers, peasants and poultry
boat piled mast-high with variegated
luggage, Belgrade seems wounded
place.
1t sits up on a high promontory.
Below it In a great curve sweeps the
Sava to pour It's waters into those OF
the Danube on its reach down to the
sea. There was never a finer place
for an imperial city to place itself
with the two great rivers circling
more than half way around 1t and the
wide fields and the level valley lands
stretched out to the horizon. So wide
IFS the river that when 1t overfiows and
floods the meadows one has the Inn
preston Of overlooking the sea.
But Belgrade was never an imperial
city. 1t wanted to be however and
put up big ministries of war and build
led itself palace for its kings. There
twas perhaps a time when the stuccO
twas new and the paint and crnamen-
tatlon fresh. When Austria sent
iacross her diplomats to intrigue and
There was gayety In Belgrade 1t may
have given the Illusion of city of
line western world. But 1t gives no
such illusion today.
Idle for Six Years
War showed it up. War swept over
the country and for six years nothing
has been done For six years no
hand has been lifted to complete the
lpretentious new hotels which then
were being built. to make repairs or
to plaster up the spots where shells
have cracked the stucco off the walls.
For nearly four of those six years Bel
grade was In the hands of the enemy.
For weeks 1t was under shell fire.
Here and there is small house with
i crushed roof. building with wall
knocked In and buildings that have no
glass in the windows.
Throughout the whole city there is
a sense of dislocation. Life Is out Of
joint. The hotels are full and when
one finally locates room 1t is miles
from the place where a meal can be
gotten. Water Is brought up stingily
Ito ones room In a small enamel pitch
er. The Austrians In leaving destroyed
all of the plumbing of Belgrade-de-
stroyed 1t Systematically. They
wrenched, the pipes and threw cement
land bricks into the drains.
And as the plumbing is so is all of
the existence little out of plumb,
slightly askew. All over the city
there is general air Of dilapidatIon
as though the people were still dazed
and tired from the repeated wars.
What might be called Main street
sweeps up through the center of the
town with grand gesture. 1t passes
by the ministry of war, an ostentatious
orange colored building, and the
guarded palace where the last of the
obrenoyitch, the king and queen, were
stabbed to death by their officers. 1t
lis a wide street flanked with cream
colored buildings. On one side II
passes two pretentlous hotels vaguely
iOrlental In architecture and In color
They never have been finished. War
tcame and put an end to building In
Belgrade. The street is we'll paved
and unused car tracks run down 1t.
If Belgrade did not achieve a Paris
ian air, as 1t evidently wished to
achieve, at least ii must have given
the Illusion before the war, of a
French provincial town of magnitude.
But now the illusion is vanished. In
these buildings, and In this street es-
ipecially,- the people of the Serbian
capital merely betrayed themselves.
They confessed that they wished to
be of the western world. Here was
no expression of the national life. They
builded in the image of France as
much as they knew. but in transit
Germany spoiled the purity of the
French outline.
Door to the East
However, everywhere are the old
buildings of a former generation, lit.
tie one-story or story-and-a-nalf stuc-
coed houses with high pitched red
tile roofs. There are rows of them.
humble and appealing. One comes
upon them even in Main street. AT
present all Of the sights of the streets
contradict the idea that the West was
always here. Here is the door to the
East Russia has breathed here. and
the Orient 1t is written in the peo-
pies faces, They betray themselves
by the music they sing, the colors they
wear.
1t has been years since the street
cars have been running IN Belgrade
The only means of getting around
and the distances are great, is on foot