FROM BOULOGNE TO VIENNA.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20225, 1 May 1931, Page 4

FROM BOULOGNE TO VIENNA.

A MOTORIST'S NCfrES. (specially written yon the pbess.) [By Coaster.] » in. Just north of Boulogne, on the cliffs overlooking the Channel, Napoleon camped for several weeks in 180(5, rumiAating on tho invasion of England. A great pillar is erected on its site. We set off, along the coast, instead of through the town, to this, but a heavy storm had lately been raging in the Channel, and wu soon found the eea swirling across tho street. This necessitated turning back and threading a tortuous way through very steep and narrow streets, until wo struck N. 42. War Area. In tho country most of tho Frencii . roads are very good, being bituminised und of fairly good surface. Wo passed through eleven villages in the 32 miles .to St. Omer, and thirteen more in the further 28 miles to Bethune. We were now in the war area, where things wore active in 1915 and again in 1918,. but excepting Bethune itself those vil- ? lages had suffered very little from bombardment and presented a great contrast to the succeeding ones, all the way to Arras, which have all been entirely rebuilt since the Armistice. The old villages looked bleak, dreary, and deserted. Nearly all the windows were shuttered. There were never more than two or three people in the long village street. The inhabitants were all in the fields hard at work, but a more comfortless and uninviting home than these villages provide could hardly be imagined. Yet we who were billeted in them in our short-rests from the line thought they were elysian. They were certainly livelier in tlipse days. We passed on through lailly-la-Bourge, Noyelles, Vermelles, and Loos, in all of which places I had been m 1915. Strangely enough it was fifteen years to the very day since I had seen the attack on the Loos salient launched till I visited it that afternoon. I knew every road and house in that area. I was anxious to see again Rutoire Farm, where the wounded lay in the rain in hundreds on that same afternoon of the year fifteen years before and could not be evacuated because there were neither stretchers nor ambulances; and the wall behind which, on the third day of the battle, the Prince of Wales left his car, while he went ahead, to inspect, with the Earl of Caram, the progress of events. As they returned, they signed to the chaffeur to start up the engine, but he made no response, having been killed by a niere of shrapnel as he sat at the wheel. . These and a hundred other things I was anxious to find, but it was absolutely impossible to recognise anything. Evetl the great Cathedral at Vermelles had completely disappeared New brick buildings hundreds of trim houses, great factories even, covered the countryside. Everything was neat and new, and verv trim and prosperous looking. v? To Loos and Lens. Leaving Vermelles we drove along the road to I>oos and Lens, then a veritable shambles, now a beautiful avenue. On the left, also as the road : reaches the brow of the hill, its white approaches lit by the setting sun, is the British Cemetery, where lie nearly all our men who died in those fiercely-contested sectors from 1914 to 1918. It is superbly designed and beautifully preserved, but as tho eye takes in its immensity imagination staggers, especially when one remembers it is only one of 2400 British cemeteries in France. The cemeteiy is on three sides surrounded by a wide verandah on the lofty walls, and numerous archep on which are written the rank and names of all the deaa who lie there—each under the nameof his regiment. Each fcrave has a simple white cross. Closely-mown turr stretches everywhere between the graves, and flowers abound —I found without difficulty the names and graves of numerous officers and me of the First Battalion of the Black Wa,tch, to which I was attached tor six months in this sector.

Vimy Ridge. Not far past Lens is the Vimy Ridge, ono of the few places wnicn still possess, on the whole, the original aspect of the battlefields. The Canadian Government has preserved the trenches, dug-outs, etc., aB a memorial to the ~ Canadian Divisions which fought here. In the evening of the first day we drove into Arras, a town which endured bombardment for four years and suffered damagc_ second in extent only to that of Rlieims —I had known it well in 1916. when scarcely a house seemed intact, but here again, except in the case of the huge Cathedral, which is still in process of reconstruction, the French have obliterated the dam ape done to their town by German shells. We put lip at an hotel recommended by the Automobile Association, and marked as twostar and found it very wm for table. The dining-room was bcautjfully pan elled, so much so, we were informed, as to evoke the admiration of the Crown Prince, who bad made this hotel his billet, when for a few days in September, 1914. the Germans held Arras All the French hotels we stayed in were centrally heated and „„ m „<» W t w f tliev cauglih up a blt , t , ll . e V ; charges for dinner A good rule wh«. seems to hold right ncross Europe alwavs to aslc for lunch or dinner table d'hote (i.e., if expense is Tbo rather than to dine a la caiti. /' 1G nixfixe of the table d'hote menu gives vn'u the meal at one-thirn, or■even, onefourth the price of the snme items chosen a E «?*. gut I belmuch the same applies in England or Zealand. • Departure from Arras. Next day we left Arras.about 10 •, m and passing through H.imel, Al- , t ; Peronnfe, St. Qt,entin La I<ere Loan, Iteims got to Chalons-Sur-Maine earlv in the evening. It was on the whole a rather dull a g rlc,l ' t -, I '' al scape, but every mile was made famous for GVCr Great War. About fifteen miles voutli of Arras is the Newfoundland Memorial Park, where an attempt has bocn made to leave ft they were at tlie end of the , nar - '*■ was certainly a warm corner, for there is hardly any' ground at l ndibiniftg Hhell-holes, awl this holds for most of the park, which is a little over a square mile m area. Nearly every implement of battle is represented, *u«i] and now further difiitttegratoci by the lapse of twdw years exposure. The dug-outs are still thera but everything looks drab and dilapidated and the impression given is only half-true The tranches were m war a scene of perpetual, seething activity and restlets indefatigable energy of man In ffi p«-k we hate the seen* of. his