Fighting in Flanders

y. The chauffeur's name was William Van Calck and his employer was a gentleman who had amassed several millions manufacturing hats in the

ders. Now if Van Calck hadn't come tearing into Ghent in his wheeled fortress on a sunny September morning he wouldn't have come upon a motor-car containing two German soldiers who had lost their way; if he had not met them, the two Germans would not have been wounded in the dramatic encounter which ensued; if the Germans had not been wounded it would not have been necessary for Mr. Julius Van Hee, the American Vice- Consul, to pay a hurried visit to General von Boehn, the Ge

was feared, cause trouble in case of a military occupation, the burgomaster went out to confer with the German commander. An agreement was finally arrived at whereby the Germans consented to march around Ghent if certain requirements were complied with. These were that no Belgian

Ghent by mistake. At almost the same moment that the German car entered the city from the south a Belgian armoured motor-car, armed with a machine-gun and with a crew of three men and driven by the former Pittsburg chauffeur, entered from the east on

dewalks were crowded with spectators, the Belgians opened on the fleeing Germans with their machine-gun, which spurted lead as a garden-hose spurts water. Van Calck, fearing that the Germans might escape, swerved his powerful car against the German machine precisely as a polo-player "rid

thought the occasion warranted it, would not hesitate to conduct diplomatic negotiations in his night-shirt. Appreciating that as a result of this attack on German soldiers, which the Germans would probably characterize as treachery, Ghent stood in imminent danger of meeting the terrible fate of its sister-cities of Aerschot and Louvain, which were sacked and burned on no greater provocation,

ut to other cities where Germans had been fired on. Van Hee took a very firm stand, however. He reminded the general that Americans have a great sentimental interest in Ghent because of the treaty of peace bet

may enter the city, and that the wounded soldiers will be taken under American protection and sent to Brussels by the Amer

ivil population, had come to his attention, and he regretted that he could not have an opportunity to talk with their author and give him the German version of the incidents in question. Mr. Van Hee said that, by

self. And, though nothing was said about a photographer, I took with me Donald Thompson. Before we passed the city limits of Ghent things began to happen. Ent

horses which they had evidently hastily unharnessed from a wagon. Like their unfortunate comrades of the motor-car episode, they too had strayed into the city by mista

es and into the car! Hide your rifles! Take off yo

bout us with a roar. For a moment things lo

protection! You are civilians, attacking German soldiers in unif

ed up the man's hand, and at the same instant I threw on the power. The big car leaped forward and the mob scattered before it. It was a close call for every one concerned, but a much closer cal

r the coast, leaving Europe strewn with their belongings. This particular detachment had been cut off in Brussels by the tide of German invasion, and, as food-supplies were running short, they determined to make a dash--perhaps crawl would be a better word--for Ostend, making the journey in two lumbering farm wagons. On reaching Sotteghem, however, the Belgian drivers, hearing that the Germans were approaching, refused to go further and unceremoniously dumped their passengers in the town square. When we arrived they had been there for a day and a night and had begun to think that it was to be their future home. It was what might be termed a mixed assemblage, including several women of wealth and fashion who had been motoring on the Continent and had had their cars

as a sight never to be forgotten. Far as the eye could see stretched solid columns of marching men, pressing westward, ever westward. The army was advancing in three mighty columns a

d of that mighty column. We passed regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade of infantry; then hussars, cuirassiers, Uhlans, field batteries, more infantry, more field-guns, ambulances with staring red crosses painted on their canvas tops, then gigantic siege-guns, their grim muzzles pointing skyward, each drawn by thirty straining horses; engineers, sappers and miners with picks and spades, pontoon- wagons, carts piled high with what looked like masses of yellow silk but which proved to be balloons, bicyclists with carbines slung upon their backs hunter-fashion, aeroplane outfits, bearded and spectacled doctors of the medical c

be brought into action. The medical corps was magnificent; as businesslike, as completely equipped, and as efficient as a great city hospital--as, indeed, it should be, for no hospital ever built was called upon to treat so many emergency cases. One section of the medical corps consisted wholly of pedicurists, who examined and treated the feet of the men. If a German soldier has even a suspicion of a corn o

en on bicycles, with coils of insulated wire slung on reels between them, strung field-telephones from tree to tree, so that the general commanding could converse with any part of the fifty-mile-long column. The whole army never slept. When half was resting the other half was advancing. The German soldier is treated as a valuable machine, which must be speeded up to the highest possible efficiency. Therefore he is well fed, well shod, well clothed-- and worked as a negro teamster works a mule. Only men who are well cared-for can mar

utpost a sentry ran into the

mericans?"

re,"

to take you to the c

l von Boehn. I have a pass signed by th

bbornly. "You must come with me.

ess, I am quite willing to admit that we had visions of court-martials and prison cells and firing p

a farmhouse a half-mile down the road. He was a s

an car that passed, and yours happened to be the unlucky one. I have a brother in America and I wish to

your brother's name and address, and if he takes the New York Worl

the columns of his morning paper that I had left his soldier-brother comfortably quartered in a farmhouse on th

aff had been able to keep in touch with our progress ever since, five hours before, we had entered the German lines, and had waited dinner for us. General von Boehn I found to be a red-faced, grey-moustached, jovial old warrior, who seemed very much worried for fear that we were not getting enough to eat, and particularly enough to drink. He explained that the Belgian owners of the chateau had had the bad taste to run away and take their servants with them, leaving only one bottle of champagne in the cellar. That bottle was good, however, as far as it went. Nearly all the officers spoke English, and during the meal the

counts of atrocities perpetrated by German

soldiers marching past in the road out there. Most of them are the fathers of families. Sur

I was in Aerschot. The whole town is

to the room where our officers were dining and assassinated the Chief of Staff

vengeance on women a

led," the general a

ut I have myself seen their bodies. So has Mr. Gibson, the secretary of the Am

women and children being killed during street fighting if they in

ldier had shot a German soldier outside their house? There were twenty-two bayonet wounds in the old man's face. I counted them. How about the little girl, two years old, who was shot while in her mother's arms

en aback by the exactn

sometimes get out of hand and do things which we would never tolerate if we knew it. At Louvain, f

I remarked, "why did y

e," was the answer. "It caught fire from

u burn Louvain

hing his fist down upon the table, "whenever civilians fire upon our troops we will teach them a lasting lesso

bombardment of Antwerp b

their bombs only on fortificati

ivilians, several of whom were women. If one of those bombs had dropped two hundred y

hich, thank God, didn

al," I said, earnestly, "you can make quite sure of

will tell the American people, through your great paper, what I have told you to-day. Let them hear our side of

n accusations. Before we began our conversation I asked the general if my photographer, Thompson, might be permitted to take photographs of the great army which was passing. Five minutes later Thompson whirled away in a military motor-car, ciceroned by the officer who had attended the army school at F

d the Ninth Imperial Army, whose columns stretched over the country-side as far as the eye co

past and Thompson made some remark about the

strained against their collars, the drivers cracked their whips, the cannoneers put their shoulders to the wheels, and a gun left the road and swung into position

se fellows of yours keep on they'll be able to get

apher halting, with peremptory hand, an advancing army and leisurely photographing it, regiment by regi

icient machine which is directed and controlled by a cold and calculating intelligence in far-away Berlin. That machine has about as much of the human element as a meat-chopper, as a steam- roller, as the death-chair at Sing Sing. Its mission is to crush, obliterate, destroy, and no considerations of civilization or chivalry or