Fighting in FlandersPowell, E. Alexander (Edward Alexander)
History
Fighting in Flanders
Powell, E. Alexander (Edward Alexander)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Belgium
If Belgium wishes to keep alive in the minds of her people the
recollection of German military barbarism, if she desires to inculcate
the coming generations with the horrors and miseries of war, if she
would perpetuate the memories of the innocent townspeople who
were slaughtered because they were Belgians, then she can
effectually do it by preserving the ruins of Aerschot and Louvain,
just as the ruins of Pompeii are preserved. Fence in these
desolated cities; leave the shattered doors and the broken furniture
as they are; let the bullet marks and the bloodstains remain, and it
will do more than all the sermons that can be preached, than all the
pictures that can be painted, than all the books that can be written,
to drive home a realization of what is meant by that dreadful thing
called War.
The distance from Louvain to Brussels is in the neighbourhood of
twenty miles, and our car with its fluttering flags sped between lines
of cheering people all the way. Men stood by the roadside with
uncovered heads as they saw the Stars and Stripes whirl by;
women waved their handkerchiefs while tears coursed down their
cheeks. As we neared Brussels news of our coming spread, and
soon we were passing between solid walls of Belgians who waved
hats and canes and handkerchiefs and screamed, "Vive l'Amerique!
Vive l'Amerique!" I am not ashamed to say that a lump came in my
throat and tears dimmed my eyes. To these helpless, homeless,
hopeless people, the red-white-and-blue banner that streamed from
our windshield really was a flag of the free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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