OCR Text |
Show COUNTRY GOES WILD m JOY Freedom After Four Years' Sorrow Celebrated Throughout Through-out the Entire Night. WITH THE ALLIED ARMIES IN BELGIUM, Oct. 18. (By the 'Associated 'Associat-ed Press) The speed with which the German armies are retreating from Belgium and northern France makes it appear that they arc twice as anxious anx-ious to get out now as they wero to get In , four years ago. The country, freed from the Huns today is wild with Joy. in ijine me population ceieoraiea throughout last night, shooting fire works and dancing In the streets, while whole streams of old and young women and elderly men paraded around arm In arm singing the Marseillaise. Mar-seillaise. The soldiers and official photographers were smothered with kisses, and babies by the score were held up to be kissed by the British soldiers. sol-diers. ' - Every street in the city, which shows no outward signs of war, was bedecked with the colors of tho allies, especially with the British Union Jack, on which was written "Glory to our liberators." The citizens explained that they had kept tho flags well hidden hid-den in their houses especially for this occasion, for which they had been waiting four years and were certain would come sooner or later. Flowers plucked from nearby fields and roses from gardens were thrown into automobiles and pressed upon ev ery man wearing ino uriusn unuorm. The fighting British troops did not sweep through the city, but passed on either side of it in hot pursuit of the Germans, the lasl of whom cleared out at 6 o'clock yesterday morning, after blowing up the. bridges on the other sldo of the town. This was a useless proceeding because the British troops did not need them. They went outside out-side tho city because they had no desire de-sire to give tho Germans the slightest oxcuse for bombarding it after they were forced to leave. Scenes similar to. those In Lille wero repeated everywhere over the vast strtches of territory wrested from tho Germans. All tho roads in the rear now contain the familiar carts of refugees, ref-ugees, on which are the usual household house-hold goods and babies. But these wagons wa-gons looked strange. The men, women wo-men and children with them are laughing and smiling as they hurry to get back to their homes. The last time they travelled these roads they wero going in tho other direction fleeing flee-ing in terror from the enemy. Many of these refugees, living in a zona serrrcd by war, will not find their homes at all. Some of them will find only wrecked and fire-scarred skeletons. skele-tons. But there aro many more who will find their homes Intact, for the allied al-lied armies almost everywhere on this front have been long "in tho blue" where there has been no war since the Germans swept through so rapidly rapid-ly four years ago. fin |