SUMMER HAS COME

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 105, 5 May 1915, Page 7

SUMMER HAS COME

MIUEPOSTS ALONG THE ROAD TO VICTORY. GRAVEYARDS OIL THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE. (TIME 3 «ND SYDNEY SUN SERVICES.) (Received May 5, 8.30 a.m.) LONDON, 4th May. A correspondent at Chalons-sur-Marne says: — "Summer has come. Along the French centre, where the transports ploughed through morasses of mud, now vehicles lumber through clouds of dust. In tho trenches, formerly .soaked with water, there is now a scarcity of wator. Tho colonial corps find congenial surroundings, the dufet and heat recalling the plains and deserts of Morocco. Hero tho milcpastis along the road to victory are tho graveyards of the Battle of the Mnrnc. Gutted villages mark the enemy's retreat, the fields are strewn with shell fragments, meat tins, rotting boots, empty cartridge-boxes, and the scarred and abandoned Gorman trenches, and the trenches of snipers with their shell craters. " The battlefields of September last are not far from to-day's. Another line of German trendice has been

from the enemy, and the French front pushed higher up beyond the old Roman road running trom Reims through tho Argonae. in the neighbourhood of Perthes and Beausejour "Measured by a map. the advance is not great, but it has strengthened the confidence of the army and afforded a proof that tho policy of ' nibbling at the Germans ' is wise A visit to the stricken area shows the confidence of the civilians in the triumph of the French armies. At Sermaizc a new strange village of hute is rising, and amidst tho ruins they are at work. British Quakers, prevented by religious scruples from becoming com•batants in the war, are doing their beet to repair the ravages in the war districts evacuated by the enemy. Despite the fact that the Quakers love peace, they have a military air and wear a serviceable grey uniform. "The retreating Germans deliberately burned and Backed Sermaize, but people .are returning and are busy in the reconstruction of the minis. " In Pari& tho people speculate about peace, but the armies in this zone have no other thought but of war ; instead of wondering when the Germans will say ' Enough,' they are working day and night for victory."