“Some of the men did not know they were hit until several hours later,
believing if they felt anything that it merely had been a knock. All the
men are mad for bayonet work. They agree that it is only the German
officers who stand up at all, and that the men are almost all bayoneted
in the back, while the officers shoot with revolvers.”
THIRTY LEFT OUT OF 2,000
The London _Chronicle’s_ Boulogne correspondent sends the personal story
of a wounded soldier who has arrived there and who declared he was one
of thirty survivors of a British company of 2,000, who were practically
wiped out by the German artillery. His story follows:
“We were five solid days in the trenches and moved backward and forward
all that time with the varying tide of battle. It was about 2 o’clock in
the morning when the end came. Things had got quieter and our officers
came along the line and told us to get some sleep. We were preparing to
obey when a light or something else gave us away and we found ourselves
in an inferno of bullets.
“We could do nothing. Down upon us the shrapnel hailed and we fell by
the score. Practically at the same time the enemy’s Maxims opened fire.
We were almost without shelter when we were caught and we crawled along
in front to find cover. Leave everything and retire was the order, and
we did what we could to obey. I don’t know how long it lasted, but when
dawn came I could see not more than thirty men at the most were left out
of about 2,000.”
OLD AND YOUNG ALIKE KILLED
The Ghent correspondent of the London _Daily News_ says in a despatch:
“I have just been talking to the latest refugees from Malines. They left
there yesterday about 4 o’clock, during a lull in the fighting. Out of
60,000 inhabitants, a business man among them told me, hardly 200 are
left in town. Many are dead. The rest have fled.
“‘It has been hell,’ he said, ‘since Monday. The town was shelled from
both sides. The cathedral, the square and half the houses are in ruins.
Old people and young have been killed. Yesterday I found a quiet old
gentleman of 83, whom I have known for years, lying in one of the
trenches by the roadside, utterly exhausted by his flight. His face was
in a pool of water.
“‘Of a family of seven who were friends of ours not one is left. A shell
struck their house on Tuesday morning, and all were killed.’”
LEFT TIP FOR POLICE
“A fugitive from south of Flanders says that eight Uhlans appeared at
Alost, telling the inhabitants that 4,000 more were in the immediate
neighborhood, and if the townspeople did not keep quiet they would set
fire to the place,” writes a correspondent. “They ordered that the town
cash box be handed to them and found 131½ francs in it. They took 130
francs, leaving an I. O. U., ‘Received for Emperor William II.’ The one
and a half francs were left as a tip for the police.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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