Show SEES BELGIAN ARMY LAND A GEL correspondent describes surprising war scene on the rim of world PORT ALL ASTIR british and french uniforms sighted austrian prisoners toll in acres of freight pasture bec become n great quay an odd little town by NIKOLAI KOSLOV correspondent of tile chicago news moscow russia up on the coast of 0 tha arctic ocean in a latitude north of 0 nome I 1 have just seen een the arrival ot of a section of th belgian army this time last yeas the world was ringing with that gigantic gl gAntic hoax about a russian army going to belgium who would have dreamed that by october 1916 1915 an army of 0 dapper little clamands flamands FIa Fla mands and Brux ellois cori convoyed voyed by british torpedo boat destroyers would sail around the top of 0 the world and lown the white sea to russia and that archangel would be invaded by belgian gunners and armored automo olle crews roaring the Braban Draban conne and frescott fresco tn russian transport trains with rabelaisian Rabelais tan sketches ot of vic victorious torl encounters with the I 1 found french soldiers and belgian airmen and british blue jackets up there too and some hundreds of austrian prisoners doing odd jobs in tile the docks scores of american autos it Is quite a journey to archangel in america a train would have got one there between breakfast and supper however this Is russia it takes two days and two nights among other traffic we passed on the sidings was a long stalled train ot of scores of american automobiles doing the last lap of their journey from the docks ot of vladivostok the freight car load of so loers at the tail tad of it said they had bad been five weeks on their way at volonda I 1 transshipped trans shipped to the narrow gauge single trankline run running nang miles due north through the bleak tundra it was a train with no springs an incessant and abominable rattling and an eerie trick of buck jumping whenever the brakes were applied no hurry about double tracking they are supposed to be double tracking their little line which the germans installed Osna bruck rails and all in 1876 double tracking and standard gauging it it Is the sole highway to the sole open russian port the only channel tor for the admission of munitions apart from vladivostok thousands of miles east all the foreign residents in russia say that it should have been double tracked and broad gauged a year ago at least even now however whoever is fa responsible tor for it seems to be playing with it 1 I 1 wonder a frenchman remarked to me on the train it if they will have done this vitally necessary work by this time next year A few gangs of 0 track laborers were going through the motions listlessly nor did the numerous gangs of 0 con evicts seem to be losing any sleep over their construction efforts for four and twenty hours we jolted up tho the narrow groove cleared through primeval forest and swamp already there was ice in the peaty streams meandering across our path and a powdering ot of snow on the murmuring cedars then we emerged into a district ot of stubble field and meadows and suddenly into tho the thick ot of a great of 0 freight pasture becomes great quay this was Bakare etsa the main white sea railroad depot from which dussias Rus sias stores are coming along the dalna avina bank a strip ot of deserted cow pasture a few months ago now Is a great quay ten or twelve steamers were alongside unloading tens of 0 thousands ot of tons ot of coal towered in hills and massive ridges rows ross on rows of 0 turf rooted roofed leanto barracks housed the laborers A score of aid sidings and acres of 0 mud were stacked with packing cases and sacks and bales freighters with the colored painting of the bursting bomb betokened shells and dynamite within regiments of freighters with everything aboard from aeroplanes aero planes to zy bonite rows of freight cars piled with great crates consigned from cleveland in ohio to tiflis in asia minor via the environs of spitzbergen Spitz bergen and the watery wilderness of the arctic ocean A few miles farther on the train stopped still in a desolate region of muddy fields tor for the archangel terminus Is not archangel we all crowded on to a steamer and navigated two miles downstream to the town which lies on the other side of the avina estuary here a couple of miles across an odd little town is archangel with a pervasive atmosphere of remoteness mot eness and aloofness from the world in summer there Is no night and the thawed swamps cut off all overland but those of mosquitoes and birds in winter there Is next to no day and tho the quarter mile of Troit street lined with shops is all a jingle with the bells of reindeer sinuous dog sled caravans laden with polar bear and wolf pelts snake their way into the thronged thron ged bazaar to barter tor for the summers bread busy times in archangel archangel is busy now archangel has never known such goings on soldiers and sailors and millions of tons of freight havi hav come from the ends of the earth it Is a town transformed into a freight yard freight piled mountain high on the quays waves of freight pass passing ilig inland up the slope behind the custom house all over the square there ant overflowing into the main street itself lie acres and acres of bales and rails and crates and tubs and boxes and tens of thousands of a mysterious breed of reddish sack archangel has original ideas about sidewalks that would not commend themselves to american motorists streets have these raised wooden sidewalks running up the center every now and then along these sidewalks passed british naval officers and seamen intermingling with transplanted men of the russian baltic squadron past the shabby town duma one en what hs has hitherto been known as the german quarter a long lone avenue of the best houses in town running due north toward the suburb of solom bola motor jitney boats ferries dinghies tugs liners sailing skiffs barges ocean tramps and long log rafts from the forest of alatka busy themselves out in the delda well displayed against the low bank and flat horizon leagues to the westward where dainty distant silhouettes of monasteries and churches fleck beck the rim ot of the earth I 1 passed a great red brick brewery on the avina bank converted into a red clofa hospital convalescent soldiers were et anding in the ward windows dazing glumly upon about ove live acres ot of boxes of 0 piled as high as a house bouse not so bad for a little littie own of at a marine departmental office oo on the was wa a fine automobile the chauffeur was a russian naval man and its door wait wab opened by a british bluejacket orderly as the two admirals russian and british came out prisoners look comfortable ahead down the bank appeared a great cluster of 0 masts that was waa the Solom bola suburb the lower docks of 0 archangel I 1 reached it by a wooden causeway bridging a broad creek the banks of which a are i re occupied by timber yards women were loading log barges on the opposite bank halt half a mile away I 1 saw gray figures moving austrian prisoners or german I 1 came closer oh austrians Aust lans rians aus arians clean and very well clad in their warm scarcely soiled uniforms and greatcoats they were on gen eral dock laboring jobs mostly in a great field of bales of american cotton surrounded on all sides except the river by an eight toot foot timber palisade with sharpened tops they looked well fed and cheerful I 1 might add here that whatever adverse criticisms may justly be made of 0 the russians they treat their prisoners as gentlemen the russian is a pretty good fellow from the human point of view a natural born democrat and a sportsman there were a lot of guards about in Solom bola civilian armed civilian unarmed and russian soldiers unfamiliar passersby passers by are eyed suspiciously at the dockyard entrance holes in tho the palisade stood civilian guards with belt loaded rifles slung across their backs above the gates were holy mons glided pictures of saints with two peculiar tippets of fur hanging from them there was an intensely interesting flow of traffic along this road to the Solom bola docks a medley of races a library of odd human documents through the deep black mud passed wagons driven by slant eyed samoy eds an tribe of the russian arctic littoral and skull capped mohammedan tartars from the parched deserts of turkestan Turk estan and there were carts driven by hairy russian of the north with huge reddish beards and carts driven by clean shaven dapper little austrian prisoners each with a civilian guard in tow cossack soldiers were on scampering ponies and malo soldiers plodded afoot british jack tars navigated ae the sidewalk with a fine tree free roll and men of the imperial russian navy walked in quick short steps sees two french soldiers just as I 1 was passing the clanging foundry two french soldiers appeared among the passersby passers by real french in their long blue greatcoats and baggy red breeches what they were doing and whether or not they were forerunners of a big landing like that of the belgians I 1 do not know in the main street of archangel one afternoon I 1 saw what I 1 thought was a group of british army officers I 1 found they were belgians in the new smart khaki uniform closely copied from the british A few belgian soldiers appeared on the streets the following day to the intense interest of the natives many of whom took them tor for a new brand of austrian next morning archangel was as snowed under with belgian soldiers maini mainly Y gunners and flying men and men well versed in running armored automobiles and perambulating forts little men hardly bigger than japanese enveloped in blue greatcoats the gun ners with crossed cannon in red braid on their arms polite little men too meeting on the step they hold a shop door open tor for a woman to enter first with a bow and a sll plait madame it was difficult to get a shave in archangel that day though there are plenty of barber shops tor for the use of sailors rows of belgian soldiers occupied the chatra chairs and benches in the hinterland it was next to impossible to get stamps at the abo post office because of the belgians there in a group of belgian officers in the ov restaurant was a priest also in militant khaki he was wag dressed like an officer except for bis big fasten behind clerical collar and a red black and gold cross pinned to hs breast the gold tassel dangling from the front of the belgian officers cap by the way is a ause of much gig gling to the russian maidens for three days the beigl Kel glans ans re bained then BB as mysteriously as a they had appeared they faded away toward the south |