THE OLD WAR ZONE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20627, 28 July 1930, Page 13

THE OLD WAR ZONE.

fourteen years after

PEBUILDING of armentieres

ftlE OLD PLANS REPRODUCED

, t C, HOLMES, LATE X.Z.M.C. ASH IT.IV Bl «• No. ir.

Amid so much that makes the war seem a VPi y episode there are jrjgjnents of old Armentieres almost b-inging the sound of shells into one's 1 hearing again. There are gaps in the new town, pieces of land for sale where the cellars of war-wrecked buildings lie exposed amid rank grass. There are high jtoufc walls of red brick still bearing tho jcars of shells and shell fragments. Here B nd there a ragged breach made by a direct hit has been patched with new brick. There are splintered stone and iron gates through which can be seen a wilderness of weeds and shrubs, once the garden of a demolished mansion. Another early observation is that

though so many buildings are new they are almost replicas of the buildings they replaced. They serve, the same purposes. It is possible that old plans preserved in architects' oflices in Lille and elsewhere guided their rebuilding. Even in little aide streets shops and cafes have been rebuilt exactly where they stood before, and they bear the old names, the Cafe a l'Harnionie, tbo Cafe, do Deux Yilles, the Est ami n ft, an Coq il'Or. That is a general impression. Tt is fortified on >eeing again, for example, tho Ecolo Rationale Professionale, a largo block of buildings serving a technical college, which stood in the more spacious part of the town and wis reduced In ruins in 1917-18. New Zealanders in 1916 saw its fabric almost intact. Some of them billeted in its deserted classrooms. Tho pew building to-day, with its ornamented jiralJs of vari-coloured bricks and tiles, exactly fits the memory of the old Ecole.

Where Soldiers Found Shelter,

There was a largo church near by, in J.he Placo Republique. Its single spire ■was the last to be shattered by German artillery. A ne»v church, almost completed, stands on the same spot, but this one has two spires. The Place Republique is a quiet little tree-planted park again. In all quarters of Armenlieres the churches have been restored or arc Hearing completion. Old breweries and textile mills with new walls built upon eld foundations above cellars that so often sheltered troops are working again. The large " blue blind factory," on the Erquinghem Road, which survived shell fire so long, is another new building, but it is bright with blue blinds as it was in 1916.

One roams Armentieres remembering it as it was 14 years before, recalling old billets, orderly rooms, dressing stations. But it is obvious that war memories occupy the minds of few of its present people. Such a feat of reconstruction and

renewal carried out in little more than ten years could not have been acconi- / plished had not the citizens of Armentieres early ceased to lament over the ruins that peace restored to them. Life now seems to run thinly through the town except at noon ami in the evening vhen the workers throng out. of the mills. They are mostly young. The fewness of men between the ages of 50 and 45 is noticeable, One finds occasionally in a cafe or shop a madame or an elderly man who remembers Armentieres in war time. They associate the British occupation with a prodigality of bully beef and jam. The Sew Zealanders had " de bon eoeur." Excursions to Lille.

Rut the vast majority of the present day citizens of Armentieres have no recollection of the town we knew. After all, it

was only a fragment of its population that remained th°re in 1916. They travel to Lille to day for business or pleasure and no thought is evoked of how far off Lille was 14 years ago, though from trenches at Houplines, Chapelle d'Armentiercs and fiois Greriier (lie glow of its lights could be seen against a night skv across daik, flat fields. Several roads led out of Armenficres to the old front line. T here was the Helplines Road, the Le Ri/,et Road, the Chapello d'Armentieres Road, the road that bifurcated at I'Armco for Bois fireflier and Fieurbaiw They were the night time routes for heavy transport._ There other less exposed ways across country that were preferred in the daytime. To-day one can walk to- the outskirts of Houplines bv the main road, or take a pus. Ihe old tramline was used again ®fter the war, but passenger tramcars have lately been scrapped. Looking toward Perenchies there is no trace of the old trenches over the expanse of flat fields, only the treacherous drainage ditches remain. It is little wonder 'hat the trenches have so completely banished from this rain-soaked land, when one remembers the. constant, labour that v as required to maintain them. A generation of unremitting cultivation has smoothed out even the shell holes, besides clearing all the, debris of war. ilouphnes has a new town hall, set on the edge of the fields. Grass grows over an old pavement around it. Rut it is surprising jo find how much of Houplines survived hree years of bombardment. There are rows of little red brick cottages where the. ragged edges of old bricl •: work join new Prick, and old shell holes arc patched in a brighter colour.

Little Cemeteries

Flf'Jrhaix is a now villnpr, capped with ft churrh spire. So, foo, is Errpiitighern. jiach of these and other villages has its lttle war cemetery for the British dead, hpre are riot, in the immediate vicinity |'i Avmfiiitiorfs, those monumental removes tli,it one will see later around Ypres snd on (lie Sornme. But these plots of 31(1 that now lirlonp for ever to the -■nglisli race are just as carefully tended as '"irger cemeteries. Spring flowers a . re g rr 'winj; fit. the. foot, of each white e <jne recording a name, a regiment, and a date, also at (he foot of stones which e no more than that they mark the estlrig place of ",\ soldier of (lie Great, ai "- Known unto God." There aro so fiatiy of such stones. Sometimes the inreads. " A New Zealand Soljeii and is accompanied with the em j"! "f the fern leaf. In the little ceinelcrv of Erriuinghem is *■' Abstract of four years of sacrifice, siaied with Britain i>v every Dominion. 1 ,r >nes mark (he giaves of men who fell as e; "'ly as 1914 nrK ] ns | ;l( p as 1918, for a t Erquirighem there was ftghling soon "Iter Mens, and there are N'ew Zealanders o in 1916. shallow grass-grown •Tenches l.y the hanks of (he Lys, which -nplish (roops hud hurriedly dug williin • lp hist few mouths of (he war Here, a so > as in 'i.nny more British cemeteries, a| e a few plain hlack wooden crosses that Wnrk (he graves of German soldiers. Somelmes name and regiment are recorded 011 a nietal tag, more often not. Flowers grow over these graves also. French solleis u 'ho fell hereabouts. when they have lot been gathered into French military cemeteries, rest among (heir kith and kin n the communal hurial grounds. One verv small British cemetery is enclosed within a low stone wall beside La Kolandiere Farm, between the Erquing|!Prn and l'leurbaix Roads. It is the Suf!olk foinelery. Most of the men here fell tK °f ° wep k 1918. They strove to hold farm against the German advance, and rest at their last post.