Fighting in Flanders

newspapers to my room in the Hotel St. Antoine and I had spent the evening reading them, so that the bells of the cathedral had already chimed one o'clo

ood at estimating altitudes, but I should say that when I first caught sight of it it was not more than a thousand feet above my head--and my room was on the top floor of the hotel, remember. As it drew nearer the n

minute before I realized that the monstrous thing hovering in the darkness overhead was one of the dirigibles of which we had read and talked so much, and that it was actually raining death upon the sleeping city from the sky. I suppose it was blind instinct that caused me to run to the door and down the corridor with the idea of getting into the street, never stopping to reason, of course, that there was no protection in the street from Zeppelins. But before I had gone a dozen paces I had my nerves once more in hand.

was no time to explain that for the first time i

lomatic corps in pyjamas, I raced upstairs to a sort of observatory on the hotel roof. I remember that one attache of the British Legation, ordinarily a most dignified person,

garrison were blazing away with rifles, and the gendarmes in the streets were shooting wildly with their revolvers: the noise was deafening. Oblivio

vement large enough to bury a horse in; one policeman on duty at the far end of the square was instantly killed and another had both legs blown off. But this was not all nor nearly all. Six people sleeping in houses fronting on the square were killed in their beds and a dozen others were more or less seriously wounded. Every building facing on the square was either wholly or partially demolished, the steel splinters of the projectile tearing their way through the thick brick-walls as easily as a lead-pencil is jabbed through a sheet of paper. And, as a result of the terrific concussion, every house within a hundred yards of the square in every direction had its w

killing one inmate and wounding two others. By a fortunate coincidence the regiment which had been quartered in the barracks had left for the front on the previous day. A woman who was awakened by the first explosion and leaned from her window to see what was happening had her head blown off. In all ten people were killed, six of whom were women, and upwards of forty wounded,

reformers murmured. As a result of the precautionary measures which were taken, Antwerp, with its four hundred thousand inhabitants, became about as cheerful a place of residence as a country cemetery on a rainy evening. At eight o'clock every street light was turned off, every shop and restaurant and cafe closed, every window darkened. If a light was seen in a window after eight o'clock the person who occupied that room was in grave danger of being arrested for signalling to the enemy. M

rable, if such a thing were possible, cordons of sentries were thrown around those buildings under whose roofs the members of the Government slept, so that if one returned after nightfall he was greeted by a harsh command to halt, and a sentry held a rifle- muzzle against his breast while another sentry, by means of a dark l

ables on the sidewalks in front of the cafes drinking their light wines and beer --no spirits were permitted to be sold--sat in silence and with solemn faces. God knows, there was little enough for them to smile about. Their nation was being slowly strangled. Three-quarters of its soil was under the heel of the invader. An alien flag, a hated flag, flew over their capital. Their King and their Government were fugitives, moving from place to place as a vagrant moves on at the approach of a policeman. Men who, a

sees it he can find it in almost any situation. After the first Zeppelin a

Yet these subterranean suites were in as great demand among the diplomatists as are tables in the palm-room of the Savoy during the season. From my bedroom window, which ove

nearer to the city, those who lived in what might be ter

tels to-day," I heard a

nquired

stand, the most conspicuous thing in Antwerp--on clear days you can see it from twenty miles away--and to live in its immediate vi

ude which the Americans should adopt towards the German officers, for it was known that the fall of the city was imminent. I remember that the sense of the meeting was that we should treat the helmeted intruders with frigid politeness--I think that w

over of darkness. Owing to the total absence of street-lights, however, the dirigible's crew were evidently unable to get their bearings, for the half-dozen bombs that they discharged fell in the outskirts of the city without

e-fire. Then, by means of a steel cable a thousand feet or more in length, it lowers a small wire cage just large enough to contain a man and a supply of bombs, this cage being sufficiently armoured so that it is proof against rifle-bullets. At the same time it affords so tiny a mark that the chances of its being hit by artillery-fire are insignificant. If it should be struck, moreover, the airship itself would still be unharmed and only one man woul

ial observers watched, through powerful glasses, the effect of the German shells and then, by means of a large disc which was swung at the end of a line and could be raised or lowered at will, signalled as need be in code "higher--lower--right--left" and thus guided the gunners--who were, of course, unable to see their mark or the effect of their fire--until almost every shot was a hit. At Vilvorde, as a result of this aerial fire-control system, I saw the German artille

eats of reconnaissance. On one occasion, while I was with the General Staff at Lierre, one of these German Taubes sailed directly over the Hotel de Ville, which was be

he King, as he looked up at the passing airc

inting out to the inhabitants the futility of resistance, asserting that in fighting Germany they were playing Russia's game, and urging them to lay down their arms. The aeroplane was greeted by a storm of shrapnel

ove hostile troops who are blazing away at him with rifles and machine-guns. During reconnaissance work the airmen generally are compelled to ascend to an altitude of a mile or a mile and a quarter, which makes observation extremely difficult, as small objects, even with the aid of the strongest glasses, assume unfamiliar shapes and become fore- shortened. If, in order to ob

ry motor-cycle and every litre of petrol in the kingdom. As a result they depended almost entirely upon motor-driven vehicles for their military transport, which was, I might add, e

ith elephant-grey paint, labelled "S.M." (Service Militaire) in staring white letters, and started for the front, usually in charge of a wholly inexperienced driver. It made an automobile lover groan to see the way some of those cars were treated. But they did the business. They averaged something like twelve miles an hour--which is remarkable ti

e been placed at your disposal by the Government, getting supplies for it was merely a question of signing bons. Obtaining extra equipment for my car was Roos' chief amusement. Tyres, tools, spare parts, horns, lamps, trunks--all you had to do was to scrawl your name at the foot of a printed form and they were promptly handed over. When I first went to Belgium I was given a sixty horse-power touring car,

covered with half-inch steel plates and mounted on an ordinary chassis. After the disastrous affair near Herenthals, in which Prince Henri de Ligne was mortally wounded while engaged in a raid into the German lines for the purpose of blowing up bridges, it was seen that the crew of the auto-mitrailleuses, as the armoured cars were called, was insufficiently protected, and, to remedy this, a movable steel dome, with an opening for the muzzle of the machine-gun, was superimposed on the turret. These grim vehicles, which jeered

speed and stopped. Its petrol was exhausted. Instantly one of the crew was out in the road and, under cover of the fire from the machine-gun, began to refill the tank. Though bullets were kicking up spurts of dust in the road or ping- pinging against the steel turret he would not be hurried. I, who was watching the scene through my field-glasses, was much more excited than he was. Then, when the tank was filled, the car refused to back! It was a big machine and the narrow road wa

entor, Major Isaac Newton Lewis, of the United States army, and was as repeatedly rejected by the officials at Washington. At last, in despair of receiving recognition in his own country, he sold it to Russia and Belgium. The Lewis gun, which is air-coole

officials. This concern made shells and other ammunition for the Belgian army; it furnished aeroplanes and machine-guns; it constructed miles of barbed-wire entanglements and connected those entanglements with the city lighting system; one of its officers went on a secret mission to England and brought back with him a supply of cordite, not to mention six large-calibre guns which he smuggled through Dutch territorial water

I wish that I might tell you the name of this concern. Upon second