Gott Sei Dank!

In 1871, when the last Prussian troops marched out of Paris, crowds of bourgeois housewives expectorated lustily. Great bonfires of straw were burned to "purify" the Place de la Concorde. From German Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) and Coblenz the last Belgian and French troops marched out last week. There were bonfires on the Rhine hillsides, but no expectoration. Rhinelanders waited until the last troop trains had gone, then young folk danced in rain wet streets, old folk breathed an earnest Gott Sei Dank! The Second Zone of Allied Occupation was free.

Ceremonies were simple. Across the Rhine from Coblenz the French tricolor that had floated over the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein for the past eleven years was hauled down while a band played the Marseillaise, then carefully packed for shipment to the Hotel des Invalides, French war museum. To a rattling quickstep, troops tramped off to the station.

At Aachen the Belgians made even shorter work of it. Only General Pouleur, chagrined at the loss of a comfortable post, depressed at the thought of routine duty in Brussels, muttered ominous warnings.

"I am sorry to say that I look toward the future with great concern. We cannot ignore the fact that according to von Seeckt's theory,* motorized German shock troops leaving Aachen at 8 p. m. could be at Brussels at 5 a. m. the next day without having met Belgian troops. . . . The population as a whole has behaved well except youths, who, apparently incited by their schoolmasters, resorted to tricks that impelled me to abandon riding or marching through the streets."

*General Hans von Seeckt, organizer and first commander of the German Reichswehr--post-War military machine. He resigned at the request of Allied military observers in 1926. Official reason: for allowing a Hohenzollern prince to take part in German Army maneuvers.

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