Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/174

 of soldiers grouped at the corner of a street the red tassel that adorns the cap of the Belgian gunners. They were the blue police caps with red tassels of the soldiers of the Belgian armoured cars that have been on the Russian front more than two years. We spoke to them for a moment, and then said au revoir, for we were to see them that evening in their camp at Iezierna, where they were to follow us.

The hours passed at Iezierna are among our happiest memories. Was it the delight of having found ourselves this time on a real battle front, was it the sympathetic cordiality with which General Nottbeck and his staff greeted us, or was it the presence of our fellow-countrymen of the Belgian armoured cars that seemed to take us back in a sense to our little country of the Yser? All these reasons, and something more—the extraordinarily enthusiastic reception that our propaganda met with from these troops of the 6th Army Corps.