Healing Wounded Europe New Cities in War Zones
Mr. J. M. N. Jeffries, special correspondent of the "Daily Maid" describes in the article printed below—the record of a trip along the British front —the wonderful revival and change achieved in the ten years since the war ended in the principal battle towns of France and Flanders.
HE passage of ten years
since the war came to an end has had an effect upon the zone of the battlefields not easily to be realised. Those who fought there will have read, indeed, of the reconstruction of the devastated areas, but it is difficult to see how they can imagine the present condition of a countryside which, when they knew it, looked as if it could never come back to be town or village or field again. But that inconceivable change has come. There is the gable of a villa —a farmer’s house, perhaps, but in characteristic French villa style—looking over the edge of Mametz Wood, which has grown into a sizeable spinney, and I stopped to admire the glow of autumn tints upon Vimy Ridge. Mametz and Vimy and so many other great disembodied names have taken form again; in the Somme district only Thiepval, I was told, must be reckoned as lost
The New Albert
'"he most striking changes, however, have come to the towns which so many British soldiers knew in total or in partial ruin. They would not too easily recognise Albert to-day. Albert is growing back to prosperity, a railway depot, a town of regular streets and well-stocked shops. The basilica is rising again, a replica of its pre-war self. The outer shell is completed, the sanctuary is again rich with shining gold mosaics, and workmen are now engaged upon the very summit of the great tower, where the renowned statue of the Blessed Virgin, which hung so long aslant till its fall indicated the approaching end of war, is once more to be placed. Albert’s chief. relic of the war remaining is the town hall, which is still an army shed upon the wide Place Faidherbe, where so many roads to and from the front crossed. There are very, fine schools built on one side of this square now. Those who recall the wrecked monument here to the men of Albert who fought in the Franco-Prussian war will be interested to learn that it has been set up again, all broken’and gashed by shell fire as it is, upon its old pedestal within a neat, new railing-bordered plot Only so much new work has been inserted as will enable the monument to stand with safety. Not alone in Albert, but elsewhere, too, monuments of 1870 are being reerected with their wounds.
There is a proud device, which they bring to mind, upon a shop in the reconstructed main square of Pfironne. “Founded 1792. Destroyed 1870 and 1916. Rebuilt 1873 and 1924,” reads the inscription and contrasts with the shop’s ephemeral stock in trade which consists of suits and overcoats upon those odd wax figures of messieurs tres-elegants which are the delight of French outfitters. Generally speaking, of all the towns in the front which I saw when passing through, P6ronne is the phoenix. It has risen from its asheß with greatest dignity, even with some beauty.
The town hall has been remade round the charming portal on the sidestreet which escaped injury, in perfect reproduction of its former self, statues in niches and all.
The banks and many of the business
premises which adorn the Marchfi aux Herbes are satisfactorily built, but it is the lovely new-old Gothic church which will be the glory of Pfironne. Its almost oval white tower shows already like a finger of light over the downs of the Somme. The ancient church is being remade with as much of its battered self as can be used. A splendid mediaeval gate is being rebuilt, too, in brick, so that at P6ronne to-day you have something of the sensation of the people of olden days when medimval work was new. Bapaume itself shows rather more of the war, I thought, than Albert and PAonne. This is became its centre is still a little unkempt. But it has a nicely-built hotel, the Sheffield, and i- now « busy little town.
Arras, almost certainly, will be the town, or city rather, which will longest show the traveller in France the vision of t.h» ravages of the war. The vast cathedral, four-fifth® of it, is still a riddled and bird-haunted ruin. With quiet persistence and excellent art twenty-five workmen are engaged on the restoration of the north transept frontage.
The English Look
The houses which were destroyed in the beautiful Spanish square have not been rebuilt yet. either. One frontage, the House of the Angel, No. 35, is propped up with beams which themselves are now blackened with time. On the outskirts of Arras, the large factory on the banks of the Scarpe and the flourmill of Sainte Catherine are in their old ruined state. A number of new dwelling-houses have been built on the outskirts of the city, however.
The surroundings of Loob and Lens would seem, to those who fought there, miraculously changed. A great mining model-city covers the scene of bitter and bloody battles; street upon street upon street of red brick neat dwellings, with touches of half-timber, so that the whole has a semi-English look, as is perhaps not unbefitting. Lens has a most astonishingly settled air: It is all but impossible to believe that the huge central square of the town is an erection of the last years only. Any suggestion of war has gone from here for ever.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MT19290225.2.15
Bibliographic details
Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 25 February 1929, Page 4
Word Count
947Healing Wounded Europe New Cities in War Zones Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 25 February 1929, Page 4
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Times. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.