FAREWELL TO THE SOMME

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 26 May 1917, Page 2

FAREWELL TO THE SOMME

GHOULISH EXULTATION

The contribution of Herr George Quere to the Berliner Tageblatt on the retreat from the Somme is (says the London correspondent of the " Post, writing on April 10) a characteristic example of the ghoulish exultation of the German mind in wanton devastation and what they themselves call "the blood factory!"

"From the middle of March it look- j ed like the house-moving of humble j people—mattresses and chairs, and \ perhaps a sewing machine, or a hen- i coop. And then there was a fine I quantity of doors and windows, and ! everything else which seemed worth' carrying away from the houses, which \ a few hours later were to disappear in flames. And they carted away trunks of trees —good, solid, healthy wood. . . "What a desert! A melancholy desert stretching for miles. They sawed and hacked, the trees collapsed, and the bushes fell, and so it went on for days, until ererything had been rased to the ground. No cover was to be left anywhere. The enemy is to go thirsty, and to look in vain for wells. Nowhere will he find four walls within which he might establish himself. Everything is thrown down and burnt out, the villages are heaps of rubbish, and the church towers and the churches with them, lie across the roads. Heat, smoke and smell! Tl»e explosions are still doing their last work. "Let them see it. Let them see it over there! This naked terrible war should be reflected in all the shop windows of the Boulevards. We have put . distance between us and the enemy. It is a desert full of wretchedness. "Farewell comrades, you who must sleep on the Sbmme!' You were our firm defence. Every gravemound is a. bulwark, as was the body which it covers. Your names are songs. Farewell, comrades of the Somme! The children in Germany say 'Somme,' and they know that that word is fate. Every village made sacrifice to the Somme of its youth and its men. No river is so red with blood, and so overflowing with tears. Do you think that the en cmv did not weep. All the tears had to shine in France and England until all the women of America had their diamonds. Now the diamonds hang on fair necks, and glitter with enmity."