United States or Kiribati ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Coming to the coast, in the neighbourhood of Dover, about half-an-hour after leaving Epsom, he steered for a point on the opposite shore of the Channel somewhere near the Franco-Belgian frontier. As an experienced airman he had long ceased to find the interest of novelty in the scenes below him. The lights of the Calais boat, and of vessels passing up and down the Channel, were almost unnoticed.
On the other hand, from the nature of the topography in this section of the Franco-Belgian border, the units of the French command had to fall back farther and more rapidly in proportion as they stretched eastward.
Under the plan of settlement the outstanding Franco-Belgian bonds and most of the other debt items were redeemed at fifty per cent of their face value, the Improvement Company's claim at ninety per cent, the deferred debts and comptroller's certificates at ten per cent, and the remaining claims at rates varying from ten to forty per cent.
British aeroplanes dropped bombs on the aerodrome at Douai, and a German aviator dropped a few on Boulogne. The German War Office statement briefly announced that "fighting with artillery and mines at several points on the Franco-Belgian front is reported." The next few days are almost a blank; hardly anything leaks out; but things are happening all the same.
All the internal differences are being dished up to convince the inhabitants of Flanders that they will be much better off under the German heel. Unfortunately the document in question "makes a bitter attack on Franco-Belgian endeavours to rob the Flemings of their rights."
There was but one suspicious circumstance he could not carry off, and that was his companion. He will not readily forget the Commissary in what is ironically called the free town of Frankfort-on-the-Main ; nor the Franco-Belgian frontier; nor the inn at La Fere; last, but not least, he is pretty certain to remember Chatillon-sur-Loire.
Shivering with the cold of that hardest of winters, these unfortunates flocked to the Franco-Belgian Hall, where a little food or money in proportion to the size of their families was doled out to them.
He saw a middle-aged Parisienne posing childishly and having fairy-tales told to her. It was not the Wagnerian sickliness, sentimental and clumsy, like a girl from the Rhine provinces. But the Franco-Belgian sickliness was not much better, with its simpering parlor-tricks: "the hair," "the little father," "the doves," and the whole trick of mystery for the delectation of society women.
Modern weapons and modern contrivance are continually decreasing the number of men who can be employed efficiently upon a length of front. I doubt if there is any use for more than 400,000 men upon the whole Franco-Belgian frontier at the present time. Such an army, properly supplied, could so far as terrestrial forces are concerned hold that frontier against any number of assailants.
The Germans, however, imagined, that once their vast armies crossed the Meuse and began a march on Namur and Charleroi, the martial ardor of the Belgians would cool and that beyond a formal protest, no resistance would be offered. As France and Belgium had been on terms of friendship for many years, the Franco-Belgian frontier had not been protected by fortresses.
Word Of The Day