MALICIOUS WRECKING IN BELGIUM

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1219, 3 June 1919, Page 6

MALICIOUS WRECKING IN BELGIUM

Ftvm the London luily .\»>\\>.i

There is a bliek patch in Europe. Ir. i* "(»' »i mm?. i»»iE it is the wor»l. if ,vay comparison b possible in war's destruction. It is the one referred to by Mr Lloyd lieorge at tli«r Peace ■Conference, when he declared tint Miirh destruction ,i* he hail seen mu.* I be impossible in the future. T!i!> particular black patch starts on the eoa*{ between Dunkirk and Oslend. and sharply widen* to a breadth «>r about SO mile* between HaZebroilek and Brussels, then it extends southeastwards on practically the same width for something over 150 miles before it narrow* between Verdun and Metz. and shrink* to a strip of desolation along Ihe Lorraine and Alsace frontier*. At the time when the armistice became effective —it will be recollected thai the beaten Germans continued destruction ami pillage for several da/s after the Inice was signed—there was not a railway intact in this black patch, which, in the neighbourhood of Lille, lioohaix. Tournai, was amongst the most densely-populated and mo:4 thickly railway-netted areas on the Continent. Railway* serving the ininhabitants of thousand* of square mile* were scrap heaps. A few of them have been patched up. aad in two or three directions you arc able {.» run aero** the wilderness of ruin. The rati fr»»m Arras to Lille In* been repaired for Pari* passengers to that tewn and Brussels, the line from Hastebrouck to Lille, for Boloiignc and Calais passengers, amongst whom arc many English businet* people travelling from London to Belgium, and there is also train communication from Dunkirk lo the Belgian capital via Bruges. I crossed the black patch from Hazebrouck to Brussels, distance about SO mik-4. time spent about If*, hours, including a walk across Lille from one suburban station to another, and waiting for a connecting train which has not yet been linked up. The Rats of La Quesnoy.

The awful ruin thai stretched aw-jy from the track or railway is simply terrifying' in its completeness: and when you think, as you are bound to. that if you misled l»e black patch anywhere -W mile* north of the line you are on. or anywhere 120 mil-'S south or it, you would find the same desolation, it really leads you to wonder if life will ever find its way inlo lihs stricken area again. War destruction has been so often described and pictured that nothing more r*mains but lo try l« appreciate what it means. But a curious thing did strike me. and that was that the novice crossing this black patch could trace the line where the desolation «f war ends and the malicious destruction id* a beaten soldiery begins. I was asked, when 1 reached Lill-% ir 1 had seen Le Quesnoy. ramiliar in our «».H.Q. communiques. 1 had to confess that 1 hadn't, but no surprise was expressed, because the reason of the inquiry was lo tell me that ir I had seen be Quesnoy 1 had seen the worst of the war's destruction. People who for four years have seen horror piled on horror speak with terror of Le Quesnoy. It is invaded with rats. Flooded out of the miles or trenches that now look like complicated systems of toy canals, the vermin have invaded the ruined towns and hmlets like a scourge. Bailleul seems to have been burnt out rather than demolished by artillery fire. It has more naked walls standing than Annenticres, and it alto possesses its name plate on the railway station. Here is where the Gurnnins reached last Easter, and Sir Douglas Haig had to tell an anxious nation: "Wc have got our backs to the wall." And his hardly-pressed troops: "We cannot afford to give another inch." The wall that saved the Yprcs salient and the roads lo the sea was of flesh and blood. Needless Destruction.

Present ly I came into a country where all the destruction is arliOc.ial, methodical, diabolical. From the dirly wounds of the accidents of war you pass to the clean-cut slashes of the skilled operator of destruction. No trouble is too great. As 1 passed over the single line that has been made usable, I was able to see that the painstaking German hid placed dynamite under the end «if every rail for miles, so that when he blew the line up the ends of the rails would be blown off or split or twisted —at any rate, so damaged that they could not be employed again temporarily. At places the destruction would be on a large scale, whole sectors h-:-ing blown into adjoining fields. Everywhere bridges were destroyed, those passing over the railway being brought down with the double object of blocking the railway and preventing ttw use of tin? roads which crossed it. In th • M«»ns sector atone 123 bridges were destroyed, including a large one on the main Brussels line which will not b--» temporarily replaced until the cn;l of this month. On lb" wrecked Belgium 000 trucks loaded with ammunition, were abandoned. All had to b«; unloaded before they could be m.n>l. t«o<?oniolives were left strewn abo :t H,kv system with their flrcs bu<*n:ng, resulting in the destruction of their boilers, passenger carriages had the windows broken, the Westinghoiise brakes cut. and the heating pipes out of order. The wh»|«> »f the telegraph and signalling system in the black patch so fur ;is it refers to Belgium is destroyed. This is only the barest outline of the details of damage done oy Use. ♦ ;«roi,»ns as Hoy withdrew on Brus--w-Ih ;i.4 given to tile it the Beirut Ministry of the Interior: and probably stmdar deeds of malice have been wrought in that larger section of the tdaek patch which lies in France.