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Show AN AMERICAN IN GERMAN HANDS Richard Harding Davis had a narrow nar-row escape from death when he wandered wan-dered away from Brussels on August 24 last and attempted to get on intimate in-timate terms with the German army then marching through the central part of Belgium. In an article in the last number of Scribner's Magazine, he tells bow he was mistaken for a I spy and virtually condemned to be shot. He sought to explain that he was an American newspapor correspondent, corre-spondent, but the more he tried to oplain the more determined the Germans Ger-mans were to put an end to him. He was caught In a forward movement of one of the army corps being pushed ahead to surprise and flank the Eng- lifh troops, and the Germans decided be was an Englishman who was attempting at-tempting to disclose their surprise r uvement. Describing the rush of troops, the writer says: "We advanced with a rush that showed me I had surprised a surprise movement The fact was of interest, not because I had discovered one of their secrets, but because to keep up with the column I was forced for five hours to move at what was a steady trot. It was r.ot so fast as the running stip of the Italian borsa-Kliere, borsa-Kliere, but as fast as our 'double-nuick 'double-nuick ' The men did not. bend the knees, but, keeping the legs straight, shot them forward with a quick, sliding slid-ing movement, like men skating or skiing. The toe of one boot seemed .i'ways tripping on the heel of the Cither, As the road was paved with roughly hewn blocks of Belgian granite gran-ite this kind of going was very strenuous, and had I not been in good nliape I could not have kept up. As it was, at the end of the five hours I had lost fifteen pounds, which did not help me. as during the same time the knapsack had taken on a hundred. For two days the men In the ranks had been rushed forward at this unnatural un-natural gait and were moving like automatons Many of them fell by die wayside, but they were not per niitted to lie there. Instead of summoning sum-moning the ambulance, they were lifted to their feet and flung back into in-to the ranks. Many of them were I moving in their sleep, In that partly comatose state in which you have seen men during the last hours of a y. days' walking match. Their rules, so the sergeant said, were to halt every ev-ery hour and then for ten minutes' rest. But that rule is probably only for route marching. On account of thp speed with which the surprise movement was made our halts were more frequent, and so exhausted were the men that when these 'thank you, ma'ams' arrived, instead of standing ."t ease and adjusting their accoutre inents, as though they had been struck with a club, they dropped to the stones. Some in an instant were asleep. I do not mean that some sat down; I mean that the whole column lay flat in 'the road The officers also, those that were not mounted, would tumble on the grass or into the wheat-field and lie on their backs, their anus flung out like dead men. To the fact that they were lying on their field glasses, holsters, swords and water botUes they appeared indifferent. indif-ferent. At the rate the column moved it would have covered thirty miles c'ch day. It was these forced inarch-( e.i that later brought Von Kluck's' army to the right wing of the allies before the army of the crown prince was prepared to attack, and which at Sezanne led to his repulse and to the failure of his advance upon Iaris." At the time of the disaster to the German troops atround Paris The standard attributed the defeat to the soldiers of Von Kluck's army being exhausted by forced marches and, in tnat condition, attempting to flank the French troops operating Immediately Imme-diately to the east of Paris. DaviB holds to the same view, nr |
