MARNE DISTRICT

Grey River Argus, 5 October 1918, Page 4

MARNE DISTRICT

AND THE TIDE OF WAR

Chateau Thierry, 50 miles east ot Paris by railway or motor road, is the first large town on the Marne after Meaux. Motorists must remember the aisles of lofty trees along the avenues of the new part of the town south of the Marne and the imposing modern Mairie. A certain homely but delectable inn at the fork of the mai n shopping street near the stone bridge very likely lives in the grateful memory of those who have had the luck to lunch or dine there. Even in war time the rich brownish-yellow war bread was the best in France, the omelets and salads beyond compare, and the cheery proprietress could regale one with tales of the Boches of 1914 and the Prussians of 1870. Bismarck had his headquarters at the Rothschild villa outside the town, and the first peace negotiations went on there before the Chancellor moved on to Versailles — and left the Rothschild cellars absolutely empty. And just now, in 3918, came the lapping edges of the returning waves of the Boches, and the American Marines came to meet them and help «hold the four bridges across the Marne until the French engineers could blow them, up. Gone is the old stone bridge, built in 1621, and the quay with its statue of La Fontaine, and even that philosopher's house m one of the old stony Btreets. Gone, too, are the picturesque ruins of Charles Martel's old castle, from which one had such beautiful views oi the town, the river, and the encircling hills to westward. That castle was built in 730. It was captured by the English in 1411, sacked by the Spaniards in 1501, captured by Charles V. in 1544, and riddled with cannon shot in 1814, when Napoleon, with only 24,000 men, soundly thrashed some 50,000 Prussians! All the old town acrpss the Marne has now been ground to rubbish and powder by high explosives, a desolate No Man's Land probably never to be rebuilt; and St. Crepin's square tower and its precious 16th century stained glass no longer exist.

At the time of the first battle of the Marne, in September, 1914. Chateau Thierry was not greatly damaged "by the Germans. Their stay was short, their exit hurried, and they had the intention to hold it arid Epernay and Chalons for their own use as way stations to Berlin, as they did, in l? 70. They contented themselves with immediate plunder — jewellery. silverware, securities, and money, food, wine and supplies. Their retreat was so hurried that they had no time to burn or blow up. Racine southward along the valley of the Petii Morin a few" miles, they reached the Route de Paris or Route de Chalons, the T>road, direct highway that cuts from Meaux to La Ferte. Montmirail and Epernay. At Viels-Maisons Chateau they spent f a night and wrecked the pretty villa* with their occupancy, and wrecked a speedy vengeance on the charming old Chateau de Villers-les-Maillets. They defiled the little Chateau de Rieux near Montmirail, where Lamartrue lived, and General von Einem, commanding the 7th Army, occupied as his headquarters the great chateau of the Due de la Rochefoucauld, at Montmirail. An Imperial prince was with him during the four days of the C<erman occupation. The staff put up at the hotel, where they incidentally packed up the linen and silver as methodically as the All-Highest one was doing at the chateau, and a\\ the plunder was promptly despatched towards Germany on the second day. Cellars were emptied of course. They laid the paved streets thick with straw, while their artillery -umbled through, and installed a battery in the park behind the chateau, exchanging shots with a French battery across the Petit Morin until the German gun crews were struck by neat French shots. Two crosses in the roads near the rampart mark the spot where they fell — one the grave of a von der Goltz, nephew of the recreater of the Turkish Army.

As the French came on the Germans prepared to burn Montmirail in the pleasing w,ay by which they had made sure of the destruction of so many Belgian towns. Sacks full of tiny black pastilles were thrown in all the open doors and windows; but before the men with the flaming pinwheels could follow the French came swarming through the woods to the chateau gates and the last of the Boches went pellmell in the darkness. Sixty Germans were left behind with one German surgeon, knowing quite well that they would be treated humanely and with the consideration that international conventions provide. The German . artillery headed ■straight on down the valley road in the afternoon, and at dusk they-floun-dered in the byways of the great swamp of St. Gond, where they were finished off completely the next day. The rearguard fought all across the beautiful stretches of farming country and forest lands, villages and country houses, towards Epernay, the battle fiercest at the very gates of the Rochefoucaulds' other chateau, that of Montmort. There the tide decisively turned, the last resistance ended, and the German retreat was then a rout, a frantic tight, with Foch biting at their heels clear to the height beyond Rheims, and the edge of of the Chalons plain. They had only time to fine the tow n of Epernay 80 000 bottles of champagne, when there were millions of bottles in the great cellars, and no time for great destruction before retiring. They could only fill their pockets and knapsacks at the last moment. They have vented their wrath ever since by bombing Epernay and all the railway towns every moonlight season.— New York "Outlook '