Lads thirsty for blood of all typesLads thirsty for blood of all types
“The way the German army cleaned out the wine of the country was a revelation to everybody. They would not take what they needed for the day’s drinking but would clear out whole cellars at a time and load what was not drunk onto carts to be carried away. The result was that people who had a little warning had recourse to all sorts of ingenious tricks to save some of their store. There was one bright man in the province of Namur who removed his stock of wine–all except a few thousand bottles of new wine–and deposited them in the ornamental pond near his château. The Germans arrived a few hours afterward and raised a great fog because they were not satisfied with the amount of wine they found. The owner of the château had discreetly slipped away to Brussels and they could not do anything to him. However, they tapped all the walls for secret hiding places and went over the park to see if anything had been buried–all in vain. The next morning, however, the pond was covered with labels which had soaked off and floated to the surface, and after draining the pond the whole stock was carted away.” – Hugh Gibson, September 8, 1914, A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium