Antwerp to Gallipoli A Year of the War on Many Fronts-and Behind Them

mans Ar

rted on the outskirts of Ghent; a little farther now, over behin

here I was fishing. A strange herd of us, all drawn in one way or another by the war, had caught the first American ship, the old St. Paul, and, with decks crowded with trunks and mail-bags from half a dozen ships, steamed eastward on the all but empty ocean. There

n the fringe of it, and combined the slangy freedoms of a chorus girl with a certain quick wisdom and hard sense. It was she who discovered a steerage passenger, on the Liverpool dock, who had

ng about it to anybody-they'd only laugh at me-d'you know what I mean? They don't think I've got any serious side to me. Now, I don't mind things-I mean blood-you know-they don't affect me, and I've read about

stateroom was an advertising man. "I've got contracts worth fifty thousand pounds," he said, "and I don't suppose they're worth the paper they're written on." Th

Bulgarian with a heavy mustache and the eyes of a kindly and highly

the usual vague American notion of the Balkan

sense of hum

critical spirit in America that Mr. Roosevelt had been a hero so long. There were party papers mechanically printing their praise or blame-"and then, of course, the New York Evening Post and the Springfield Republican"-

the nation has responded, and of the intensive culture we had at a time when we were only a name to most western Europeans." He was but one of those new potentialities whic

lane through which we were steaming. Frail-looking, but not frail in spirit-a fighter born, with Irish keenness and wit, she was ready to prick any balloon in sight. She had chased about the world too long after a fighting family to care much about settling down

s" and which merchant- service men. We spoke of a young lieutenant from an India artillery regiment. "Yes-'garrison-gu

hip stayed for the night, while the passengers crowded about a volunteer town-crier who read from the papers that had come aboard, and, in the strange quiet that descends

ing their hats at the land they might never come back to. The regular landing-stages were taken by transports, tracks were held for troop-trains, and it was night before we got down

as I crossed the Strand that morning on the way to Charing Cross, a newsboy pushed an extra into the cab window-the Germans were entering Br

and a bright, sweet-faced little Englishwoman, in nurse's dark-blue uniform and bonnet, bound for Antwerp, where her sister's convent had been turned into a hospital. She told about her little ea

f that afternoon. Flags had been hauled down-the American consul was even asked if he didn't think it would be safer to take down his flag-some of the civic guards, fearing they would be shot on sight if the Germans saw them in uniform, tore off their coats and threw them in the canal. Others t

our ordinary duty up to the last. In Limburg postmen made their rounds while Prussians inundated the region, an

harging into mitrailleuse-fire as if they were in a tournament; let us remember that our heroic little infantrymen, crouched behind a hedge or in a trench, keeping up their fire for ten hours running until their ammunition was exhausted, and forced at last to re

rietors of dance-halls that this was no time for unnecessary noise. There were no soldiers going gayly off to war; the Belgians were coming back from war. Th

ses had been torn down and acres of trees and shrubs- precious, as may be imagined, to a people who line their country roads with elms and lindens like avenues in parks, and build monuments to benevolent-looking old horticulturists-chopped down and burned. And go, presently, into the ol

he possible siege; those who didn't crowded the sidewalk cafes, listening to tales from the front, guessi

they had lived in Belgium for years. And now the Belgians felt they had lived there as spies, and the seizure of Belgium was an act long and carefully planned. One was told of the fi

h a place was safe from bombardment. He looked up at the lace-like old tower, whose chimes, jangling down through

returned to Ghent, got a train next day as far south as Deynze, where the owner of a two-wheeled Belgian cart was induced to take me another thirty kilometres on down to C

Other carts like ours passed by, occasional heavy wagons drawn by one of the handsome Belgian draft-horses, and now and then a small loaded cart, owner perched on top, zipping along behind a jolly Belgian work dog-pulling as

ith its lake and pheas

les of flax, soaked in

ntless little cones, lik

y, and so at la

men gone to the front, and nothing for people to do but exchange rumors and wait for the clash to come. I strolled round the old square and throu

proclamation in parall

em

Important a la Popula

Bericht aan de Kor

eal to your reason and yo

to our city, I beseech you to maintain your calm and dignity. These prisoners, wounded or not, I shall take under my protecti

when you see these prisoners passing by, I beg of you, and permit yourself to shout at and insult them. Keep, on the contrary, the respectful silence appropriate to thinking men. Fellow citizens, if, in these grave and painful circumstances, you will listen to my advic

EKT, Bur

men, and children. The speed with which rumor spread was incredible. In one village a group of half-drunken men, who insisted on jeering the Germans were put at the head of a column and compelled to march several miles before they were released. The word at once ran the length of dozens of highroads that the Germans "were taking wi

ts had been reported, kindly asked me to come out and spend the night. For several miles we drove t

ouse in which he and his father before him had lived, with tiny rooms full of old paintings, garden, stable, and hothouse packed close in the saving Belgian fashion, and all as spick and span and shining as if built yesterday-and then into the street again. It wa

a wave of panic swept down the stree

eir children. Doors slammed, windows closed-it was like something in a play-and almost as soon as it takes to t

attle-ground-when the French or the Spanish came into Flanders; just such villages, jus

We walked up and down, the linen merchant flinging out his arms and his reassurances more and more vigorously.

single file on either side of the road. We could see their lances, held rakishly upstanding across the saddle, then the tail of the near horse whisking to and fro. One, crossing over, was outlined aga

r helmets, entered the silent street. Another moment and the leader was alongside, and we found ourselves looking up at a boy, not more than twenty he seemed, with blue eyes and a clean-cut, gentle face. He passed without a look or word, but behind him a young officer, soldier-like and smart in the Prussian fashion, with a

r to be caught from ambush at any time by some squad of civic guards. But as one watched them disappear down their long road to France they grew into something more than that. And in the twilight of the quiet countryside these stern shapes that rode on