THE EPIC STRUGGLE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 61, 9 September 1921, Page 3

THE EPIC STRUGGLE

BONES OF 800,000 MARK THE SPOT.

The French have been celebrating the epic struggle of 1916, now known as the Battle of Verdun, in which the German hordes, advancing from the east, threw themselves in-vain against the flower of the French army. "On ne passera pas" was the battle cry of our gallant Allies; and it cost them 400,000 men to fulfil the pledge. The Times special correspondent sends the following graphic picture of Verdun to-day. . . "The bones of 800,000 men, and more, lie mouldering on the slopes around Verdun. France gave 400,000 of her sons for the defence of this essential stronghold, and the Germans sacrificed an even greater number in their long failure to icapture it," he writes. "Of those 400,000 Young Frenchmen who died before Verdun, not one quarter sleep under crosses bearing their names. The rest are 'Unknown Warriors," and the great majority have not even nameless graves. The churned earth covers them where they fell. That, curtly told, is what it cost the French. to keep the word they pledged when they cried: 'On ue passera pas." "The tale of the courage and the grim endurance that held Verdun is one of the wonders of the war; there is even something appalling in its splendour. But now all that has passed into tradition. The long years of glory and heroism are over". Now the more prosaic, andUhe more useful and necessary, tasks of peace wait to be faced. Verdun was saved; now her people must live. . , "You soon realise what a big job the restoration of Verdun must be when you stroll through the ruined streets. In the Bue St. Pierre there was only one house left standing. To rebuild that street alone will take much time and labour—and money. Elsewhere, in quarters where the houses were merely damaged, ypu see plenty of hew fronts and the signs of recent- repair. But where, whole blocks arexbut heaps of stones it is difficult even to make a start.

"Here and there a wrecked »hop has been replaced by a wooden hut, but there are not many of these for—and here »the crux of .the" whole problem—yoji cannot restore a town merely by rebuilding- its shops and its houses. The shops must have trade and the householders must have work, or else life cannot go on. And trade and work are what Verdun is going. to find it hard to provide for its citizens, even though there are now but 10,000 of them instead of 21,000 as in the days before 1914. "The reason for this is very simple. Verdun has no industry. . Before the war the town lived by supplying the wants of the army and the farming population of the country around. Now the army has moved on as Franoe's frontier has been pushed east. Where there were 25,000 troops and 600 offioers before the nr, there are now not above 1000. That is obviously an enormous factor. The f&rmera who came into Verdun from the north and east are gone too. You have only to drive over those slopes around that town to see why they are not on their lands. After years of suoh bombardment and bombing, and such swaying fighting, their lands can not yat be made to produce, and th« forests that covered their hillsidesl are but three-foot stumps. Moreover, their habitations are destroyed and their villages hardly exist; they could not go back even if the land could be worked. "Some of the villages have disappeared completely. As we slipped down a slope to the west of Fort Vaux, the Frenchman, who was driving- the car slowed down and I pointed out the village of Floury. He j pointed just off the road. I could see no signs of ever a ruin. The hillside seemto have been displaced by bombardment. It had simply fallen in. All that my youngfriend could show me wae a single piece of wood sticking up out of the slope. That, he said, was the remains of the wooden steeple of the village church. For four days and nights in 1916 Frenchmen and Germans fought for this little village hand-to-hand, with bombs, bayonets, rifle butts, fists, knives, anything. When they were done there was little left, and the •hells buried the rest. "Of the larger villages of Douaumont and Vaux there is similarly hardly a trace, and the same thing is true of many others. At the village of Bras, on the other hand, there is plenty to be seen. The ruin 6 have been cleared away, but the preliminaries of rebuilding the whole place are there. In the meantime a great part of. its people accommodate themselves in a temporary village of wooden huts a short distance away. But Bras is fortunate by comparison with, say, Beaumont, Bothincourt, Cumieres, and Haumont. These are likeWaux, and Douaumont and Fleury. They cannot be rebuilt. Their populations will have to livo elsewhere. ■ "It is only when you have seen all these places, and returned to Verdun, that you realise what a task lies before the town. The army has gone for good. Verdun must in future depend entirely on the farmers around. Until they are back on their land, Verdun cannot pros- | pcr —and how are they to be got back? As one man put it to me: To rebuild the houses in Verdun —yee, that is interesting for us. But to rebuild the villages and farms around—that is more interesting for us, as well as for the farmers.' There you have the problem of Verdun. . "No one who looks at it squarely can wonder why the French want guarantees. Up in the north-eastern corner of France | you realise as you have never realised before why tho ,Frenoh want security. From the hill on which stands Fort Vaux —of imperishable memory—you can look out across tho wonderful plain of the Woevra to the north and the east —whence the German came. Ho does not seem so far | away there. Then you can look round at the deserted country, and your guide points out whero villages used to bo—and ' then you understanc."