WAR'S DESOLATION

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 92, 16 October 1915, Page 13

WAR'S DESOLATION

IN FRENCH VILLAGES. A pathetic pen. pasture of the terrible effects of war in some of the French villages is contained in letters from Dr. M'Lean to his relatives in Sydney, a few extracts from which are given, below. Dr. M'Lean, it will be remembered, was a member of the Mawson Polar Expedition. He is now attached to a British regiment. Dr. M'Lean refers to " Bobby " and " Shack." They are, respectively, Lieutenant Bage, of Victoria (killed at the Dardanelles) 'and Sir Ernest Shackleton. " I was reporting on the water supplies for our brigade one morning," he writes. VI wandered about the ruined houses looking for old wells and pumps, collecting samples of water and testing them. You see some odd things in the houses. Most of them have been occupied by soldiers at one time or another. The assortment of the contents usually seen comprises tables' hanging together,, chairs in all stages of decay, stovesj braziers, worn-out boots and shoes, scraps of magazines, bully -beef tins, biscuits — whole or in scraps — bandoliers, tattered wallpapers, cartridges, dust, and general desolation. The walls are full of holes, the plaster is hanging together in crumbling flakes, and the tiled roofs are conspicuously "absent. The places were once full of simple, peace-loving French folk, living their picturesque, homely lives from year to I year — since the war of 1870. In the wild beauty I saw at the South Pol©— the pure snow, the dark velvet-coloured ! rocks, the lissome sea birds, and the j glorious ice colours — there is inspiration — the spirit of God — but in these ghostly fabrics of homes, the melancholy chaos of a village of dust, there is nothing but infinite sadness. The cruel harpies of the cruellest of all wars have wrought havoc for which there seems no atonement. Even the fresh verdure of the woods, the shapely trees and shrubs, the reeds and wild flowers of the wastes, are* all hacked and torn, seared and blighted by bullet and shell. All through this- place has been fought, foot by foot, and an awful toll has been paid. I don't think offensive warfare can be humane if it is waged with such disregard of life. We shall probably -wait and allow the Huns to do their worst and pay the price — which they have no J compunction in paying — and then the Allies wiH bring them to their merited destruction. "During eleven -weeks in France we had only about fourteen, casualties. The ' troops are all well, and, when the time comes, will do their duty " In one letter, Dr. M'Lean, reminiscent of days down South, writes: — "Shackleton's party will soon be looking forward to the sledging season and the trip across the continent. I can imagine genial 'Shack.' presiding at dinner, making speeches — on the future — on the war — drinking to the King round a rough table, while the eternal blizzard screamed outside like a lost soul. Such times are glorious in the distant past, and very happy at present. Good luck to them — they have almost as big a proposition as the Allies. "I knew Bobby Bage would-be in the thick of it. I remember when downSouth housed to go out in a 100-mile blizzard and change his tidal records downon the sea-ice. The job took two hours, but he always did it "