CLEANING UP.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5355, 12 February 1916, Page 6

CLEANING UP.

AFTER A GREAT RATTLE.

CONFUSION ANO HAVOC

The JJnited Pjress (the American news agency) 3 publishes the foljoiwing article from its Paris correspondent; Mr William Philip Simms, who describes a tour of the Champagne battlefield: —

Cleaning up a. battlefield is a whopping big job. The battle of Champagne was begun more than a month ago,, and several regiments of soldiers are still busy trying to make the ‘field presentable.

This battlefield ‘s about 15 miles long and nearly three miles wide. It runs east and west, and at the beginning of tlie Freeh advance the French and Germans faced each other at the southern edge of' it, their trenches, cut in chalk 'white as curds, being some 50 to 200 yards apart, depending on the locality. For two months prior to their drive the French accumulaCed ammunition ; massed artillery ; dug hundreds of miles of new trenches, sb that the infantry could advance to the front trenches without loss of time unduly exposing themselves to the enemy’s fire ; constructed narrow gauge and even standard gauge railways for strategic purposes; built vide, well graded rock and gravel highways, and otherwise prepared their crushing blow. On September 22 the French artilalready fairly active, turned loose on the battlefield described above a perfect hell’s fury of shells. A German officer caught under the fire, in a letter interrupted by death, described the shelling as resembling “the collapse o a world.” And so it must have been, judging from tho appearance of the battlefield u month after the bombardment took place. Practically every square yard of this 40 to 45 square miles of ground had been tossed into the air by high explosives, and now the whole country looks as though it had gone through the fire which “The Rook’’ says will destroy the earth on the Final Day. White as a sepulchre because of the upturned chalk, one has the impression that never again will man bo able to make his home amid these fields. The Germans claim that their food supply wins cut off by the shell fire, because supply trains could not approach them. They say that they were compelled to huddle at tho bottom of their bomb shelters, 20 feet and more below the level of tho ground. Their trenches were blown to nothing, ami in some instances companies lost hlalf their men during tin* bombardment alone, not counting the losses when the infantry l»egan it>, advance. Ammuniton stores kept underground exploded; shelters were disrupt'd as though they voro root'd with paper instead of yards of yards of stone and earth. In short, the world has never seen such shelling.