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Show GHOSTS IN FLANDERS SURELY OLD SOLDIERS REVISIT SCENES OP BATTLES. Five Centuries Ago English Warriors Fought Over the Territory That Is Now the Scene of European Euro-pean Warfare. I think that old ghosts must be astir in Flanders, now that an English army is encamped there again, with Edward, prince of Wales, on the headquarters staff. Out of, the mists of time there must surely come some of those English Eng-lish geutlemen and men-at-arms who more than five centuries ago came with another prince of Wales, called Edward, to fight against heavy odds, in and about all those towns in Belgium Bel-gium and France which, again, have become familiar in our mouths as Household words St. Omer, Ypres, Arras, Soissous, Reims, St. Quentin, Gravelines, Dunkirk, Calais and Abbeville, Abbe-ville, Lille and Armentieres. Perhaps "Eye-Witness" knows the names of those silent ghosts, though he has not yet written about them in his dispatches, owing to the severity of the censor. He knows, I am sure, that among those who watched the destruction of Cloth Hall were Sir John Chandos "the flower of knighthood" knight-hood" and Lord Thomas Percy, Sir Godfrey de Harco.urt and Lord Reginald Regin-ald Cobham, Lord Thomas Holland and Lord Delawarr, Lord Robert Neville, Ne-ville, Lord Thomas Clifford, Lord Bourchier, Lord Latimer, Sir Walter Manny "sans peur et sans reproche" and many other knights and squires "whom," as old Froissart said, "I cat. not now name." The ancestors of British officers who are now fighting in Flanders rode under un-der their banners over the flat marshlands, marsh-lands, they banqueted in many of the grand halls which now lie in ruins under un-der the German eagle, they stormed at the gates of many towns which are now filled with British soldiers, their lances glittered down many of the roads where the winter sun now glints upon the lances of French dragoons; and with the chivalry of medieval knighthood they did many acts of ;ourtesy and valor and heroic adventure adven-ture upon the same ground where the men under Sir John French have upheld up-held the old traditions of their breed with no less courage. Also, according to the way of war they, ravaged the countryside through which they passed, burned farmsteads and peasants' peas-ants' cots, swept it clean of all food, looted Its treasures, and laid it waste, so that there was desolation and famine fam-ine where the English army had passed. It was Lord Henry Spencer, bishop , of Norwich, who undertook the siege of Ypres. in the days when English ' arrows sung with a shriller note than ' the modern shell. "Day after day," writes Froissart, "the assault continued, but the place stllleld out. At last the English, finding find-ing that they could not take the town by storm, and that they had expended all their artillery, resolved to have a quantity of faggots collected with which to fill up the ditches, so that they might advance and fight hand-to-hand with the garrison, undermine the walls, and, hy throwing them down, effect an entrance." Every road and dyke round Ypres tvas moistened with English blood in 1 those old days, and now, fighting side by side instead of against the French and the Flemings, English blood drips ; down to the same soil, which is mixed ' with the dust of heroic bones, of Eng-! Eng-! lish arrowheads, of steel breastplates and richly chased casque, and of all the panoply of medieval knighthood, now dissolved Into the chemistry of ; the earth's graveyards. If ghostly warriors keep the watches 1 of the night, Sir Charles Chandos, Sir - Walter Manny, Lord James Audley, Lord Reginald Cobham. and a thousand thou-sand other knights of old renown, salute sa-lute the men who challenge death for England. The Black Prince raises his visor and kisses the sword hilt to Edward, Ed-ward, prince of Wales, who is walking the same fields of fame and blond. - London Chronicle. 1 |
