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face blown away, and he talked with his mouth twisted up toward his ear. I asked how he received his frightful injuries, and he replied that it was through picking up a fountain pen in a German dugout just after it was captured. 'I was one of the first over the top,' said this remnant of a human, and as I fell forward in the dugout from which the Germans had just fled rather hurriedly, I noticed a fountain pen on the floor and put it into my pocket. Two days later I wanted to write a letter home to my wife and children and took the pen out to use it instead of a pencil. As I unscrewed the cap there was a violent explosion, and half of my face was blown clean off, as you see now.'

"I will try to give you a faint idea of what the destruction in France means. You are riding in a military automobile along a road made all but impassable by deep shell holes, pieces of charred wood, and loose stones. The officer who is

escorting you explains that you are passing over the site on which three months ago there was a thriving village of 3,000 inhabitants. All that remains are a few curbstones that mark the former location of sidewalks. The town with its people have been wiped out by the Hun as if they had never been.

"I have here a piece of barbed wire which I obtained from a trench before Arras. It is six inches long and has twenty-four barbs, which hold a piece of tartan so firmly that it cannot be torn away except in threads. That little shred of cloth is all that remains of a Highland soldier who was hit by a shell as he struck the entanglements.

"I could tell you of deeds that I have seen and heard of committed by the Hun that would haunt your sleep, and not one word of exaggeration. By the memory of my boy who laid down his life for the cause, you may rely upon it that I would not tell a lie."

A Message of Thanks From the Queen of Rumania Queen Marie of Rumania said to an Associated Press correspondent at Jassy on Oct. 23, 1917:

The mothers, children, and soldiers of Rumania bless America's great name. Each sufferer well knows that Rumania's ally overseas has come to the rescue in the time of trouble, and as their Queen I voice their gratitude to America, which is the whole-hearted expression of the eight millions of my people. The noble ideals of President Wilson, with which I am in sympathy, touch closely our country, for Rumania entered the struggle in the hope of realizing national unity with the other four million Rumanians beyond the Carpathians. King Ferdinand himself has been the exponent of the principles of democracy. In a message to Parliament before the war he proposed, on his own initiative, that there be a fairer division of lands among the people, and he intended to set the first example by surrendering large estates to be divided among the peasants. In the same message he asked the widest political rights for all his subjects, who previously had voted according to the amount of taxes paid. Later, in answering a petition from the Jews, the King pledged the same rights to them, also.

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Atrocities in Serbia

Report of Neutral Investigators Regarding Barbarities
Committed by Austrians, Hungarians, and Bulgars

The Holland section of the League of Neutral Countries, in the Autumn of 1917, published the subjoined report, signed by the three officers constituting the permanent committee of the league. After stating that they are in possession of numerous documents, Serbian Government reports, and individual depositions, and that these have been subjected to careful sifting for historical facts, they declare that they have no hesitation in formulating the grave accusations here set forth:

D

EPORTATIONS from Serbia began with the driving forth of 5,000 men, women, and children by the Austrians at the time of the occupation of Belgrade. Because of bad housing and insufficient food onehalf of these unfortunates succumbed to typhoid fever in less than a year.

The Bulgarians made their first use of deportations in the countries that had been given to Serbia by the peace of Bucharest in 1913, notably in Southern Serbia and a part of Macedonia. Thus they deported into Bulgaria almost all the Serbian families of Prizren and Prishtina; from Prilep, 170; from Krushevo, 70. At the end of 1915 an order was given to assemble and conduct away all the male population between the ages of 15 and 70 years from the districts of Veles, Poretch, and Prilep, where already torrents of blood had been shed.

The Bulgarian Bishop of Kitchevo, who had just been appointed, protested. He wrote to King Ferdinand that such a measure would demonstrate to the whole world that Macedonia sympathized with Serbia and not with the Bulgarians. This argument may have had some effect; at any rate, the King ordered that the deportations should cease, although the men might already be on the road. However, 500 notables and their families were selected and interned in the environs of Sofia. Their property was immediately confiscated by the Bulgarian Government and most of their houses were rented to Mohammedans.

Austro-Hungarian Methods

When the Rumanians declared war the deportations were continued in still

greater numbers, both by the Austrians and by the Bulgars, reaching their maximum after the capture of Monastir. The victims always included men, women, and children, but especially men of 17 to 70 years. A special method was applied to boys. In May, 1916, the reopening of the schools was announced, and the enrollment lists were accessible. The Austro-Hungarian authorities had the lists copied, and the deportations were based on these.

Many Thousands Deported

Not less than nine internment camps for Serbs were established in AustriaHungary, three of the principal ones being situated in the Danube marshes, where the health conditions are extremely bad; the most distant are the camps of Heinrichsgrüs in Bohemia and Braunau in Upper Austria, near the German frontier. In that at Braunau there are not less than 35,000 Serbians; it is quite correct, therefore, to speak of deportations en masse. Among these interned prisoners one finds high officials of the Serbian Government, members of the Council of State, Deputies, besides physicians, lawyers, merchants, &c. The sanitary conditions are very bad in these places, where the Serbs are obliged to live in great wooden barracks that are penetrated by wind and rain; they are ill-fed, and are compelled to sleep upon straw on the ground, where the children, especially, are dying in great numbers. At Braunau there was an epidemic of typhus.

Like the Austrians and Hungarians, the Bulgars have been making deportations since July, 1916, from all the Ser

bian territory they occupy. The northern part of the country is subject to Bulgarian rule. The families deported by the Bulgarians alone in the last six months of 1916 are estimated at 10,000.

The Bulgarians are inhumane in their treatment of prisoners. They do not permit these unfortunates to prepare themselves, or to take away from their homes even the most indispensable articles, as the Germans do in Belgium. At Nish prominent persons were made prisoner in the streets without permitting them to say good-bye to their families.

The largest Serbian internment camp in Bulgaria is situated in a swampy plain near Sofia, where the families are housed in miserable sheds, and where they are dying of cold, hunger, and wretched sanitary conditions. Thus without any military necessity a part of the Serbian population has been systematically killed. What is the object of such actions? The answer will be found in what follows.

The Austrians, like the Bulgars, began these persecutions at the time of the invasion. They professed a desire to respect the Greek Catholic religion, but they have deported a large number of priests, and have taken possession of churches, seeking to introduce into them the Roman Catholic faith. The Julian calendar, which is intimately connected with the Greek faith, is forbidden, though it is permitted in Bosnia.

Stamping Out the Language

The attempts against the language of the nation are these:

1. The interdiction of the Cyrilian script, which is also in use among the Russians. In all the names of the streets the Russian characters are replaced by Latin letters; the books and newspapers printed in those characters are forbidden to circulate, though permitted in Bosnia, where even the official journal is printed in both kinds of characters.

2. The confiscation of collections of national poems, though these patriotic songs tell of battles against the Turks and contain absolutely nothing against Austria.

3. The seizure of certain books, among others the poems of Raditchevitch and Zinaï, both Hungarian subjects, whose

poems for fifty years have been popular among the Serbs in Hungary; also a book by Dr. Bakitch, former rector of the University of Belgrade, on national education.

4. The closing of the Serbian primary schools, whose teachers have all been dismissed; the opening of a certain number of primary schools organized like those of Hungary, where instruction in German ard Hungarian is compulsory, though in Bosnia these languages are not taught. The pupils wear the Austrian uniform and are told that the Emperor of Austria is their sovereign. The placing of hundreds of boys between the ages of 9 and 19 years, (the Austrian Reichspost of Dec. 6, 1916, speaks of more than 800, but according to Serbian advices they number nearly 2,000,) especially collegians, in the camp at Braunau, where they work on the land of the celebrated abbey, and where the monks are trying to make them instruments of Austrian propaganda.

Destroying the Serbian Church

It has long been known that the Museum of Belgrade was pillaged immediately after the Austrian occupation. The same thing has happened to the Ethnographical Museum, which contained objects of high value. Not a single souvenir of the history or the life of the nation has been left there. The Bulgars have gone still further; they have deported into Bulgaria all the priests of the Serbian Church. The Bulgarian Synod has sent priests from Bulgaria and subjected all the occupied country to the Bulgarian Exarchate, which was obtained by force from the Sultan in 1871, but which the other Orthodox Greek Churches regard as schismatic. All the Serbian churches and convents have been pillaged. All the inscriptions recording the foundation of these institutions by Serbian Princes have been broken with axes. The famous convents of Ravanitza and Manassia have suffered most, though they date from the thirteenth century and had been respected even by the Turks.

Furthermore, whatever the Bulgars have found written in the Serbian language they have destroyed absolutely.

With this object they have made houseto-house search, and have confiscated all the books and manuscripts, even those of the churches, courts, and archives. All these were burned - until the Minister of Commerce at Sofia ordered all papers to be sent to the national printing office, stating that they would make good material for manufacturing paper.

Immediately after occupation the Bulgarian authorities compelled the Serbs, whose family names usually end in "itch," to change that termination to "off," like those of Bulgarian families.

Naturally, it was also at Belgrade that the Serbian teachers were interned; they were replaced by Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language was made compulsory. The children were compelled to learn the popular Bulgarian songs and heard the war explained from the Bulgar viewpoint; they were given to understand that henceforth they were Bulgarians. A great number of reading rooms were opened, whose names recall Bulgarian patriots, and through these centres the authorities are spreading every sort of writing in favor of Bulgarian chauvinism. Thus they are trying to kill the spirit of the Serbian people.

Recruiting for the Army

As long ago as October, 1916, Prime Minister Pashitch formulated a protest in the name of the Serbian Government against the recruiting of Serbs by the Bulgars. Since then the Serbian Government has received many Bulgarian newspapers that speak openly of such recruiting. These publications refer to Macedonia, but from other sources it is learned that compulsory recruiting has also been introduced into Old Serbia, so that thousands of Serbs are said to have been forced to fight in the Bulgarian army against their own country. We do not know whether Bulgaria has denied this accusation, which is extremely

grave.

Atrocities in Serbia

In Macedonia the Bulgars began immediately after their arrival to put to death the authorities of cities and towns. These murders reached extreme propor

tions in the three districts of Macedonia which we have mentioned in connection with deportations. The deported victims were generally the objects of the greatest cruelty. Some were obliged to make the journey on foot, poorly clad, without shoes, in the terrible cold; they were given only half a loaf of bread a week. The Bulgarian soldiers drove them onward with blows from rifle stocks, like cattle; many died on the way.

The Austrian soldiers acted with the same brutality, driving children with the bayonet, so that many had to be taken to the hospital at Szegedin; women about to become mothers were forced to march with the rest. Many priests were killed by the Bulgarian troops. By a refinement of cruelty the Serbs who fled are prevented from corresponding with their families who remained behind.

We have believed in these circumstances that it was our duty to cite the facts more in detail than ordinarily. Before the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian Governments can clear themselves of the odium imposed by this simple enumeration of facts, they will have to try to draw up a denial of its truth. We believe that such a denial will be very difficult to formulate.

Trying to Destroy a Nation

The mass of documents placed at our disposal has left a profound impression of an attempt to achieve the complete ruin of a free nation by means the most brutal and cruel. Among all the horrors of war practiced en masse against an entire nation, the worst certainly is the wholesale murder of the Armenians by the Turks under the indifferent or approving eye of the Germans. The systematic destruction of the Serbian Nation is a pendant to the enslavement of Belgium. The latter, perhaps, has suffered more in certain regards, because it is nearer to one of the fronts, but in other respects there is something still more grave in the treatment inflicted upon the Serbians; and the civilized world has known less about it.

Le Temps of Paris has expressed a desire to see the neutral Governments realize that they also have signed the international conventions which have been vio

lated, adding that now is the moment to protest, since they have neglected thus far to do so. We also have formerly expressed the same hope, but our disillusionment has been too great; we will not return to that prayer again. Happily the neutrals that have the power to do so are going to oppose themselves to these crimes, abandoning their neu

E

trality. The only thing we can do is to take care that, later, no one can say that from Holland no voice was raised against such barbarities.

Permanent Committee of the League of Neutral Countries:

NIERMEIJER, President.

DE LA FAILLE, Home Secretary.
DIEPENBROCK, Foreign Secretary.

Austria Favors a Croatian State

MPEROR CHARLES of AustriaHungary received a deputation on Oct. 3, 1917, from the Croatian Diet. The President, Dr. Medakovitch, in an address of homage, expressed the wish of the Croat nation for unity. He emphasized its agreement with the kingdom of Hungary quite in the sense of the Hungarian public law, which the Austrian Premier accepted when he declared that the Hungarian Government wished to demand the reincorporation of Dalmatia with Croatia and thus also with the Hungarian State. This was a unionist declaration by the Croatian Diet and implied the alienation of the Serbs in that body, which till the outbreak of the war constituted the sharpest opposition to Serbo-Croatian policy in the interests of Croatism. The Croats now desire the union of Dalmatia, also Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the conquered territories, (Montenegro and part of Serbia,) with Croatia. A great Croatia -under Hungary-is their object.

The Emperor Charles replied to the address of homage by praising the Croats' heroism during the war, and declaring that it filled him with joy. They described as the basis of their political activity the bonds established by centuries of history and by laws which comprehend one and the same State community of the Crown of St. Stephen. By defending this State community they could count, within the limits legally settled for their activity-having as its aim the consolidation as well as the intellectual and economic development of the Croat Nation-on the same benevolent feelings on his side as his predecessors on the throne always cherished for the Croat Nation.

The comment by a leading Vienna statesman on the declaration of the Emperor is:

First, this Imperial manifesto will be valued as a success of the new Hungarian Government, which will be able to appeal to it as proof that it can reckon in its efforts for the reincorporation of Dalmatia on the Emperor's demand. The Emperor's declaration should also press into the background the Serbian tendency in Croatia and strengthen the unionist policy of which the representatives adopt the standpoint of the compromise concluded with Hungary in 1863. The Emperor's statement should not be without farreaching effect in Austria also. While he referred to legally fixed limits for the efforts of a union of the Croats, he indirectly adopted a position against the Slovene plans for the foundation of a South Slav State which should embrace also South Styria, Trieste, Carinthia, and Carniola. For there are no legal limits for this plan of a union of Southern Slavs in a State independent of Hungary. The Slovenes in the Reichsrath must, therefore, be strengthened in their attitude of opposition by the Emperor's utterances and hold fast to a tactical community with Czech union. Against this, the breaking loose of the Croat Deputies from this community is not impossible. If Dalmatia were united with Hungary-Croatia, the Slavs would be weakened in the Reichsrath by the votes of the Croatian Deputies. This possibility will lend a new impulse to the Czechs' opposition. They will, however, undoubtedly utilize the Emperor's statement as an occasion for stronger representation of their demand for a Czech-Slovene State, to the creation of which the new Hungarian Government is strongly opposed. From the circumstance that the Hungarian Government has succeeded in obtaining the Emperor's assent for a solution of the South Slav question corresponding to Hungarian influence it may be deduced that the creation of a Czech-Slovene State cannot count on support in authoritative circles in Vienna at the present time.

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