BELGIUM: Scuttling Peasants

The North Sea tossed and heaved. The tides rose ominously. Waves slapped and pounded the stone dykes at Zeebrugge and Nieuport. An Eastern wind blew foam from the sea onto the land.

Belgian peasants fearing what was going to happen, scuttled inland. Finally the Zeebrugge dykes yielded to the sea’s inexorable blows. Ninety feet of stone wall crumbled and the sea shot inland. Similarly fell part of the dykes at Nieuport. The water covered fifty square miles of farming land. Hundreds of cattle were drowned.

Last week Belgian soldiers finally succeeded in stopping the gaps in the dykes. An estimated loss of 1,000,000,000 francs worth of livestock and crops was reported.