INTO THE WAS ZONE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17105, 10 September 1917, Page 6

INTO THE WAS ZONE

THE EVACUATED LAND. ARRAS AND BAPAUME. in. (From Our London Oorrespondcnt.) June. After seeing such places as Souchoz and Givenchy ono feels himself at Arras in a whole and undamaged town on a quiet holiday. What is left of Arras Cathedral is still very boautiful. Perhaps the ruin is more beautiful than the original of tho Bishop's Palace, tho courtyard and tho seminary. Tho cloister found tho courtyard still remains, and the flowers struggle for mastery r.gainst the nettles and docks which seem' to put the imprint of desolation upon everything in the wako of war. Piles of masonry lie everywhere, but tho scene in tho whole of this precinct is nevertheless very beautiful. Looking up out of it all at the brilliant bluo of moro than 100 degrees of sunshine, we seo the opaque yellow wings of British planes flying to the Hun lines and back, round and round in wide circles, on tho routine work of observing for our artillery. A Taube has come across at a great height, and is threatening two of our planes at registration work. Tlioy take no notice at all, but the Archies behind our front open vigorously, and drive hhn off. Then tho day settles down again to tho hum of great heat, tho drone of shells Bomo distance off, and tho rumble of wheels on the paved streets.

In the ambulatory of the cathedral, amongst tho inscriptions of numerous knights from a world of warriors, one is amused at the scriptural threat recorded by a gunner of the Royal Australian Garrison Artillery: "Yengeaneo is mine, eaith tho Lord. I will repay " Tho Stations of the Cross aro still marked' on tho walls, which aro fairly intact as to the lower part. Tho soldiers of the British Empire have shown tho building a marked respcct,_ which tho French will undoubtedly appreciate. Rather a quaint method of noting their visit ia visible at ono of the main altars. Hero are carefully heaped up some hundreds of tiles from different parte of the edifice, eacn bearing tho' signature of ono or more soldiers from England and overseas. Two great statues of saints, each about 12ft high, stand almost undamaged on their pedestals, and on the walls above are acknowledgments of blessings from St. Jeanne d'Aro, dated June and July, 1909. In the Lady Chapel, though a shell ot two has come through the wall, there is very little damage. Tho coloured statues of Notro Dame de Lourdes and St. Antony are merely flecked with splinters, and some evidently valuable work is carefully pro tected by sandbags. From the main steps of tho Cathedral you can look through the gaping walls into tho apartments of prosperous bourgeois residences, and see tho nettles of- devastation growing luxuriously on the third floor. A WHIFF OF MANOEUVRES. Passing out of Arras eastward, one might quite well bo at once in tho African veldt at tho time of the Boer war. It is a field campaign forthwith, with its incessant mule and horso linos, its parks of service and artillery wagons; its tents, its ditches and telephone lines, and littlo engineering jobs. Tho destruction is complete, for the French trenches for the defence of Arras wero right up against tho town. Every tree has been razed to the ground, every hedge obliterated, every wall demolished. North, oast, and south it is like some great manoeuvring ground littered with the debris and tho sandwich papers of tho Easter oamps. You might wonder where the front was but for tho occasional boom of the guns and for the unfailing trend of the air linos of the British engineer. Things are bad enough here, but the damage is plainly tho devastation of fighting. A mile or two further south you strike something entirely new. Here trees and orchards have been deliberately cut down, roads have been blown up, villages destroyed from below. The long, lank pollards which lined the roads have been cut off close to the ground. We are in perfectly open

country. " This is Boyelles Village," says a fingerpost of the R.E., not by way of a joke, but as distinct and necessary information to assist the reading of maps. - At Ervillers we found a few trees to have lunch tinder, and with my glasses I discovered a village undamaged amidst so much destruction. Why it was left nobody seems to know. Here, too, we met our first Australians, cycling nonchalantly about a. piece of country which is as much their own as Ballarat—Lagnicourt, Bulleoourt, Vaulex, Ct °' A DECENT SORT OF HUN. Just outside Bapaumo, birds have their peaceful homes in the lychgato of the town cemetery, left intact because the Hun has consecrated a part to his own dead and erected in it a severely Hunnish memorial. There must have been a decentminded German somewhere hereabout, for they havo done the thing as inoffensively as one could wish. Shells have since burst in the graveyard, splintering the stone memorial and shattering one or two of the gable-shaped wooden headstones marking the many soldier graves of the last two years. Each beare the record of ten to twenty dead; German, French, and English together. Already the French grave authorities have Been round marking and noting with their tin discs of red, white, and blue, the resting places of

the Allies. How did Private Warnock, of the Irish Fusiiiers. come to Bapaume, in August, 1915, or. Private P. Portar, of the R tie Brigade, in November. Why did the Germans use the word " Inconnu " instead of " Unbekommnt" ; There must have been a decent German in Bapaume. Or was he a prophet seeing Germany's retreat ahead? THE RUINS OF BAPAUME.

Bapaumo is a monument to the infinitely greater destruction which can be done by deliberato blowing up than by long and careful artillery duels. It was scarcely

under legitimate shell fire at all, but the ruin is more than equal to that of Arras. Bapaume has evidently been one of the prettiest places in this part of France. The town gardens on the hillside are close in to the church and tho schools, &nd the remains of very pretty tree-lined streets give an impression of great beauty before the Hun blew his mines. All through the streets one sees evidence of Prussian thoroughness. Each shopfront is placarded "Keller fur 30 men," and so on, as a guide to the cellar accommodation in case of bombardment.

Bapaume Church is almost in the same condition as the cathedral of Ypres was m 1915. As we climbed the ruins the strains of a band in the distance were wafted up. " Ora Pro Nobis" it wa3 playing, and for the moment I was struck by the oddity. It was only when the tune changed to "Tho Belle of New York" that I wondered how a band came to be playing here at all. The fact is it was Sunday afternoon, and some Australian troops in rest from Bullecourt were not far away.

A small group of them was at that moment in the crypt, now open to the sky, examining with Antipodean interest a heap of ekulls of martyrs of the Revolution. Not far away wo camo to the headquarters of an Australian infantry brigade, for all the world like a sna-iide camp, and I had a most interesting chat with the briga-dier-general, a young Western Australian officer. The brigade had done its work most thoroughly at Bullecourt, and was now in rest The general's experiences on the Sorome and since are typical of what has been happening in these last fruity months. TRAINING IN THE WAR ZONE. I was much interested in the general's remarks on training. He strongly favours doing moat of the training in France. Not only does it avoid the innumerable distractions of camp life in England, but it brings the men in close touch with war conditions. " They are continually rubbing up against battalions just going to and just coming from the trenches, and they get fired with the war spirit and learn things in half tho time they would take otherwise. It is so much a matter environment. At first marry of the men don't care whether thoy go to the war or not. After a time, although they havo previously done so much training in England, you would not know them for the same men; and wo havo had them cheering when they are ready to start for the front." I remarked that this question had been under discussion in Now Zealand. "My absolute advice," tho general replied, " is bring tho men here for training. It is going on all about them, and they will learn in half the time. Besides, it is a consideration now to save shipping and bring them hero in one voyage, rather than in two." Our route from Bapaume led back along the historic road from Albert, through CouroolettG, Lo Sars, Flers, Martinpuicli, Warlencourt, and Pozieres. One after the other the German trench lines appear, wide belts of chalk and shell holes, desert of vegetation, but not more desolate than the rest of this terrain. It has been a season' out of cultivation, and to-day, as for as the eye can see. it is blooming luxuriously with the wild turnip. Here and there, like tailless mice crouching to earth, aro tae dark and rusting outlines of " tanks" put out of action. Each village is pounded flat, a white stain on tho plain. Each wood is obliteratea, its place marked by <nly a fow shattered sUtbr

pointing skyward, and sprouting here and there near tho ground. One sentinel rises from the plain—tie famous Butte de Warloncourt, torn and upheaved like the ridge of Vimy, and looking down on tho graves of thousands of ours and of Hun dead. Three crosses only appear on its crest to mark tho dead of three separate battalions of the Durhama. At tho fgot, in a mine pit, aro the emplacements of our own machine grim, and enough discarded ammunition to furnish a revolution for Guatemala. It is so everywhere, for war cannot wait to tidy nn. It is tho finer feelings of tho soldier that have paused long enough to mark with some token of respect the graves whieh are thickly sown all along this road from Albert to Bapaume.