IN THE WAKE OF THE FLEEING FOE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 244, 12 October 1918, Page 5

IN THE WAKE OF THE FLEEING FOE.

DAMAGE IN CAMBRAI NOT EXTENSIVE. (Received 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, October 11. - Mr. Philip Gibbs -writes: —Earlier Teports of the explosions damage at Cambrai prove to have been exaggeration. The damage is not extensive. The British have now taken, for the first time, usideetroyed villages after traversing a forty-mile belt wberein not a house remains intact. Beyond Villers Outrea-ux we found clean country, ploughed fields, and smooth roads. The inhabitants, <rtill occupying the shops and houses, try to give utterance to thedr inexpressible gratitude for their deliverance. We found 500 civilians in Sevigny, though all males between sixteen and sixty years of age had been deported. They told how the Germans stole everything valuable from their farms and houses, even curtains and linen. They killed fowls or fined the owners if fowls did not produce enough eggs. The Germane also requisitioned milk, butter, and vegetables, and even took lard and fats from the International Relief Committee's stores. The Germans ordered the po.ople to flee at the Britishers' approach. Wit the people took refuge in (-pilars while the Germans looted their houses and smashed the furniture. A priest at Sevigny ■states that he saw bombs affixed to a church on Tuesday, but he crept out ■«t right and cat the wires so that the ckurcb. saved*— {&* W4- &■&■ Cable.).