AT THE GATES IN LENS.

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 154, 2 July 1917, Page 6

AT THE GATES IN LENS.

-. -«»— LABYRINTHINE DEFENCES

DESTRUCTION BY GERMANS

British patrols entered the out-, skirts of LeiL- oh Sunday, April 10, Vat the mian position was established on a line running cast of the .suburb of Cite St. Pierre, through the Eiaumont Wood,.the capture of which is now reported, and thence swinging round below the northern slopes of the Vimy Ridge, forming a sharp salient in the German line. Describing the position on April 16, "the correspondent of the Morning' Post said it would have been possible to have taken the town immediately after tho •occipatior. of Lievin and the adjoining suburbs, on the previous Friday, bat. the mere entry into the ruins was of less importance than certain ■other features of the advance.

Lens is an insecure t bastion, of the ■wavering' German front line, the correspondent wrote. The British infantry have taken the coalfields w«t of it, and rest at the edge of tho town. For the moment the enemy vs throwing the Weight'of his troops against its inner defences, desperately- endeavoring to check our advance -until the guns and stores of this groat .garrison have been removed and the destruction of the mines has been 'completed. There is not the slightest doubt of hi. being forced to give. up Lens, for the entire salient of his •original line enclosing the coalfields south of Bethune became a position •of extreme peril when Vimy R?dgo> was lost. RETREAT OF THE ENEMY. Lens is being destroyed as thoroughly as possible. Whatever structures survive when the British troops occupy the town will have escaped only because the Hun had no time to finish the work. Ho ha:> boasted that he intends to leave the coal country of Northern Franco a desert, without a stick or stoiie to give sbelter to his enemies. Whatever fears, the German / Staff may have ,had of the British advance beyond Arras, they were firmly determined to keep intact their front round Lens. They planted ftun■drods of guns - among the >collieri.es _and spent incalculable labor in perfecting the trench system which endosed therp. When the Canadians took Vimy Ridge the Germans sacrificed heavily to retain-a footing on its highest ground, and not until this, too, was lost, did they begin hurried preparations to evacuate the th'roatenod ground thus dominated;. The bustle of their impending departure -could not be hidden from-the ■ watch-ful-eyes looking , down from the heights .of Vimy .When.2o,ooo grenades /were thrown into one mine shaft near Lievin,'the, subsequent explosion -/as itself sufficient warning of their flitting, ;tnd this was but one of m any upheavals witnessed wb ile' th eir -infantry, still held the old frontline. CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.

The rood to Lens was beset with strange . -difficulties. Our , troops, rushing towards the burning town, had to traverse a bewildering maze of defences enclosing the invaded coalfields,' the northern face of which had been rendered all the more secure by the character of the country .itself. They stepped,across "No

THE THREE WAYS. Gargle for throats, Sniff up the no.t-i._ for Catarrh, Swaliow for Inuu.n_a. Don't forget tnat Fluenzol xioi only kills the bacilli, but also heals and soothes the delicate membraneous lining o i the throat and nose. Everywhere 1/ti and 2/6. Absolutely refuse substitutes.

Man's Land" into a wilderness of slag li-^aps, ruined factory buildings, slrantre skeleton towers, barricaded pitheads—a black country, dotted with drab villages of chess-board exactness, faded by the smoke of years, and gigantic cones set on a floor of cinders. The Hun had utilised every foot of this seamed and pitted valley to make more secure his grip on Lens Every slag heap, every group of. red-roofed miners' cottages, every colliery, from nvivss of over-turned, rusting waggons to the windowless double-front-ed houses of the mine manager., every pile of refuse had its value for defence, and the great labyrinth of trenches engulfed them all. Lens itself, half sheltered in a hollow by the Souchez River, lies from a mile and a half to three miles from the old British front, which swings round it from north to southwest. The German network of de fences is continuous through all -thaintervening ground right to the edge of the town. The whole countryside is so thickly covered with -separate colliery villages, each having a minohead as centre, that it appears to be one vast straggling town running haphazard this way and that over slightly rolling ground, with here and there a few rust-brown fields, broken by a broad white belt of trenches. The towers 'of Lens mer<?e into the roofs of Lievin and the mine-shafts of Avion; the dreary streets of Angres .reach almost_ to those of Lievin, and it seems possible to/-walk from the German fire ft trenches to their deserted front line ever the distant hill into Lens .without loavmff-the shadow of ™c houses

INCENDIARIES AT WORK

The tower of Lens Cathedral stood out sharp and white above the grey rocfs of the town whenever the w'nd -wept-away- the smoke that rolled up froni the mass of burning building-s near the .nuirkefc-plare. .... -VVr*_3ieE.H.i_i: Tvas.still at work.. E.Great fountains of flame and heavy smoke spurted high above the red roofs of the vil. J ages on the north—Saints Emili.e.sind Theodore and Elizabeth. He •vas blowing up the mines. I have never seen anything to equal these gigantic volcanoes suddenly released' by +-he lighting of, a fuss- ,'Explosions came singly and-in twos., at intervals perhaps of 15 minutes. Qne might also trace his backward progress among the cinder heaps and mine-shafts by the upward unfolding of. the dense black curtains and the rents in .he mass of buildings which were revealed when the smoke drifted away.' Not a sign of li*"o could te anywhere. I could look down empty streets where the grass was'spro'iting between the pavement stones and into the windows of deserted houses, and in all that'great expanse of country crowded with village? and towns there %was not a single soul save a handful of vanishing Germans and the British army pivssing forward in pursuit. Of all the thousands of people

j? whose homes were there not one re- | ma-nod. The population of Lens after living for more than two years almost on the threshold of the* battle front, with the shells of the <-.\-' posing armies singing overhead, had been evacuated on the eve of this retreat. They went with only what' possessions they could carry on their backs, turned out of their homes at a few hours' notice, old men, women and children marching alike between files of mounted gendarmes to one of the concentration depots behind the new German lines.

One of the last acts of the German commandant in Lens was to commanded- all the remaining supplies of tne American Relief Commission, whirth had been the sole support of the famished population. The inhabitants of some of the neighboring mining towns east of Lens received a coition, of the foodstuffs intended for them, while the Germans took the rest. Despite the clearance of Lens and some of its environs, the enemy bad not rime to send back all the civilians from the territory he has given up. A wretched procession of nearly 200 persons, many women and chudren among them, were out. on the road from Sallaumines, east of Lens, told to shift for themselves, and sent westward to meet the advancing British army.