The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915Various
History
The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by motor to rescue her sister,
who was a pupil at one of the boarding schools. But it appeared that
when the windows of the school began to crash the teachers hurried from
prayers, ordered the pupils to gather hats and coats and sweet chocolate
that happened to be on hand as a substitute for breakfast, and made them
run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about them, through the
streets to the nearest out-of-Scarborough railway station. My friend,
after unbelievable difficulties, finally found her sister in a private
house of a village near by, the girl in tears and pleading not to be
sent to London; she had been told that her family's house was probably
destroyed, as it was actually on the seacoast.
On the other hand, instances of self-possession were not lacking.
Another school hardby took all its children to the cellars, where the
teachers made light of the matter, and the frightened father of one very
nervous child was pleasantly amazed to find his child much calmer than
himself--and quite delighted with the experience. In St. Martin's
Church, the Archdeacon was celebrating communion. Shells struck the roof
of the church. The Archdeacon stopped the service for a brief moment to
say:
"We are evidently being bombarded. But we are as safe here as we can be
anywhere," and proceeded calmly with the service.
We left Scarborough at night. The exodus of inhabitants, school
children, whose Christmas holidays began earlier by one day on account
of the raid, and visitors continued steadily. The cabmen, so idle in
Winter, were rejoiced to find that work for today would not be lacking.
"At this rate," said one of them to me as he lighted the carriage
candles for our trap and handed me the reins, "if the Germans come again
there'll be no one left for them to kill."
There is, the Admiralty tells us, no military significance in this
event, and, from the British point of view, I doubt if a woman will ever
be considered worthy of a hearing in anything military; but I presume
there is some sort of significance from a real estate point of view in
the holes made in the hotels and houses, and from the hospital point of
view in the sad procession of stretchers. But however little
significance the December bombardment of Scarborough has, it is
certainly a surprise to be wakened by three hostile cruisers, and one
must admit that the Kaiser has at least left his greetings of the season
on the east coast.
How the Baroness Hid Her Husband on a Vessel
[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
LONDON, Dec. 7.--The story of how Baroness Hans Heinrich von Wolf, who
was Miss Humphreys, well known in New York society, smuggled her husband
into Germany after the beginning of the war past a British cruiser and
two sets of British shipping inspectors so that he could fight for the
Fatherland is revealed in news received here giving details as to the
bestowal upon the Baron of the Iron Cross of the First Class.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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