SPRING 1921.

Otago Witness, Issue 3514, 19 July 1921, Page 37

SPRING 1921.

AUSTRALIAN BATTLEFIELDS.

IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 1916-1918. (By- a Correspondent in Sydney (Morning Herald.) In November, 1918, an area of hundreds of square nvles of Northern France and .b ld-iiciurri \s us ci scene of ruin u.nd ciesoiiition. it still is, t)iii those who fo-ugiu ui passed over this country would be amazed at tiie change which has taken place. Then, every battlefield was a chaotic mixture of shell-torn earth, trenches, wire, and debris ox all description. V illages such as Viilerst.arboncT or Poziercs hud disappeared beyond traces, or consisted oi pued-up bricks and the ragged sacks which once were houses. Now, v/iie would expect to find a certain amount of cultivation and rebuilding. but not the transformation that isa> taken place. from Albert to Bapauriie as far as can be seen from the road, the xand is tinged with the green of growing crops. Ao/aeres is a wooden village with Niuraitar si ill sta’iding guard over it. Lu oars has three oi iour estaminets und Napaume looks a different puce. I lie remnants of most of the houses have been pulled down and many houses have o. rebuilt on their old .foundaiioiis of temporary structures have been erected. The debris of the 1 own Hall—blown up uy a delay action mine, in the spring of idj.s, when the Hun retired to the imidenburg Line—has disappeared, giving place to wooden hut. The snt'il-scarred windmill mound still stands, surrounded by crops, on the crest of the Pozieres Ridge. Apart from this, the only signs of war are heaps of shell cases, wire, etc., which have been collected Bom the fields and placed on the roadside. 0.G.1 and 0.G.2 have disappeared. Moquet harm remains mucti as it did m 1918. The Butte de Wallencourt, which, in the winter of 1916-17, saw the Australian front line a few hundred yards away, now looks over cultivated fields. It was between here (*nd I'Jcis to the east that the heavy fighting took place in the mud of November. Bayonet Trench, Malt Trench, and the trench line south of Loupart Wood have all disappeared under the hands oi the leveller and the plougher. The tall trees of Loupart Wood still stand sentinel over the country from the High Woodi ozieres Ridge to the valley of the Ancre at_ Grandcourt. and Miraumcnt. Ihe majority of Australian troops were instructed in the art of trench warfare in the Fleurbaix-Armentieres area. All the land here is again under cultivation, with the exception o f parts of old ‘ No-man's “ n .“. an d the area covered by the old British breastworks. In front of Bo is Grenier these stand just as they did from the end ot 1914 until the beginning of 1918, except that they have fallen into disrepair. Lney- will soon be gone, as the French peasant, after his day-s work, is commencing the levelling process. Bo is Grenier E again a neat brick village, houses ha vinebeen erected on ihe old foundations The old convent, well known to artillery oiserveis, has been levelled to the ground but two out observation towers still stand near cue village. Both of these—one of steel and one of bricks and concrete—arc about 40ft high, and the walls of the houses in which they were built have been removed. Armentieres has perhaps one in 10 houses tenanted, and at night only about three streets are feebly lighted. ' Most of the sneds of tfie nousts have been pulled down and the bricks either stacked or carted away. Most Australian soldiers know x pres trioy knew it in 1916. or during jthe great Passchendaele battle in 1917, or in the beginning of 1918. ir is a different place now. J hen its panoply of war harmonised with its ruined grandeur, whether in the bnsv traffic of tho day or the silence of the mglm broken only bv the tramp of infantry, tne clatter of guns, or the scream and bursts of sheds. A pres had an impressive effect on the minds of all. It was a monument to the glory of the British army. It aui but in the sense that Westminster Aboey would be a monument to centuries of Englishmen if the nave became a market place. Monin Gate, tho ramparts, and Lille Gate remain much, the same; but round the ruins of the Cloth Hull wooden shanties have sprung up—estaminets. garages and jerry-built buildings of all kinds. ’ One would not be surprised to see a merry-go round in the square. Very few houses 'have been rebuilt, the ruins of the majority of them having been demolished, and now the streets are flanked with gaping cellars. To see Passohendaele-Zann-ebeke. Polygon Wood, Westhoek, Frezenberg area now, less than three years since the armistice, it is hard to realise its condition during the autumn of 1917, the time of the advance on the Broodseinde Ridge and Passelien daele. In fact, it is impossible for one who was not present to do so. As far as can be seen from the roads, very few patches are not under crops. What shell holes remain arc bone dry. The line of “pill boxes’’ —Vampire Farm, Borry Farm, etc. — on the Frezenberg-Westhoek ridge still stand. The vicinity of tho Merlin road near Hooge is still decorated with the dozen or so tanks which were knocked out on July 31, 1917, An hotel has been built near Hooge crater. Helllire Corner, at the crossing of the Ypres-Roulers railway- an ft the Menin road, now resembles almost any railway crossing except for a few mangled stumps of trees in the vicinity. Amiens is again what it must have been like in pre-war clays, with the exception of very few houses, which are still in ruins. The destroyed shops in the Rue des TroisOailioux have been refaced or rebuilt with very- few exceptions. The sandbags have long since been removed from the Cathedral, and the little damage caused by shells has been repaired, except in the N.E. corner. The Australian flag jnd the marble slab erected in memory of the Australians who fell in the defence of Amiens vividly recall the events of 1918. The village of Villens Brefonnc-ux has no-t altered much. The villages in the Somme area have not been reconstructed to the same extent as those further north in France and in Belgium, but the peasant lia-s been as industrious here as in the north, and practically all tile land from Villers Bretonneux to Peronne and Belli court is under cultivation. In many places it i.s impossible to find the location of the old trench and outpost- lines, except in such places as on the slopes of Mont St. Quentin, where tho white chalk shows tly line of the filled-in trenches. The renv/ins ot the 15in (380 c.m.) gun at Chuign@3, which was captured by the Ist Australian Division on August 23, 1918, have been enclosed in a fence oi shoot iron, and can be seen on

the payment of a small fee. This gun fired on Amiens at, a range of about 21 miles, and was blown up by the Hun, deliberately or by premature burst, some time before it was captured.

P-eroline’s main street is no longer the Rue de Kangu, although ir always will be in the mind of the Australian Digger. Frarnieourt alongside boasts a new railway station, but Peronne itself is still a collection of tumbled ruins with a sprinkling of the inevitable esta-mincts. Mont St. Quentin itself has hardly changed since it was stormed by the 2nd Australian Divisiontrenches, shell holes, wire, dug-outs, concrete machine gun posts, etc., are all "there. Le Oatelet, Gouy, and Bellicouri show few signs of reconstruction, but visitors who expect to see the Hinden-burg- line in this locality will be disappointed. The trenches no longer exist, and the wire, which ran in belt after belt, lias disappeared. Even with the aid of a map the outline of the trenches oan be followed only with difficulty. The four-mile canal tunnel—built byNapoleon I, —which ran under and behind the _ Hindenburg line, is again open to traffic. It v.as over here that the Australian 3rd and sth Divisions attacked -n support of .the 27th and 30th American Divisions on September 29. 1918.

As far as reconstruction is concerned, the French seem to have concentrated on the coal-mining- area of Lens. Villages of neat brick houses have sprung up, and new buildings at the mine-head are scattered over tile district. Elsewhere the main effort has been to get land to bring forth its increase, leaving- the building work perhaps until the day when the Germans are forced to pay up in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles.