DESTRUCTION WROUGHT BY FOE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14286, 1 May 1917, Page 8

DESTRUCTION WROUGHT BY FOE.

VILLAGES BURNED AND FOOD

CARRIED O'FF. DEFENCELESS PEOPLE FIRED ON. STORES OF RELIEF COMMISSION BACKED. With the French Annies advancing, from. Noybn to Ohauny and Tergnier,' PARIS, March 22. | Retreating German .troops sacked even supply houses of the American Relief Commission to leave the French civilian inhabitanits utterly without food. They took every vestige of metal in the French .villages, and their policy of insensate djestruckioni marked piracjticaiLly dvevyj house in the territory which they evacuated. But if the Germans 'hoped, by utter devastation, to stem the tide of the French advance against them, they were -disappointed. The advance of the Erench has been so rapid that in many cases they have arrived ai towns and villages hours before the Germans had planned to evacuate them. Nor is the French advance lacking in method. Behind the screen of fastmoving cavalry and infantry com© the engineers and road builders to bridge craters, and behind them the artillery awaits only the construction of highways. THE SWIFT ADVANCE. A few miles: beyond Noyon, to-day 1 witnessed tihe rapidity with which the French are overcoming every effort of the enemy .to check their advance. There the French columns encountered a fifty•iopt' hotje—- a'crater on the Noyon-Chauny rok*!—exactly at the spot best calculated to impede the advance. _ The/French infantry and cavalry imm'ediaiely detoured to adjoining fields and continued their forward movement without interruption. At the same moment, engineers began filling the crater and bridging it. Another detachment "started at work on a road winding around the place, and almost before the last shovel of dirt was thrown and the latet nail driven, batteries- of the famous "Sbixante-Quirize" guns went careering across', While to one side munitions arid supply trains dashed forward likewise. The e'ntirV advance was resumed.,. '•^■Pushing forward with the army today toward Cliuny and Tergnier one saw the entire liorizon clouded with the smoke of burning farms and villages. The "'pathway of the German retreat was traceable for fifteen miles by such palls' of temoke. Y : • , A PITIFUL STREAM. '•■•Along the road back from Tergnier and Noyon -poured an unending, stream of-refugees' from these blazing farms and ."villages. Nearly all were women in their destitution, a lew scant pieces of clothing saved and strapped on their backs, oy pushing baby carriages or wheelbarrows with tiny tots tucked therein. Younger children clung to' liheir skirts or themselves toddled along - under the weight of bundles. ' ,Thas -was a pitiful-appearing 1 stream. Pushing afoot along a road stretching eighteen miles and constantly under bombardment, the refugees faced a driving winter rain. Although they were homeless and hunger-stricken, with only the clothing on their backs or a few small belongings to call their own —despite all this, they were supremely;, radiantly happy. They were returning to France. I talked to many of itiheso to-dayi They declared the happiesjb moment of .their lives was when French cavalry dashed into their village and chased out the Germans. 1 INSENSATE DESTRUCTION. "•Their .stories were all alike. For Weeks before the retreat started the Germans herded all inhabitants from village to village. When tlie final moment came for the Germans to leave »»fcliey sacked the houses. The soldiers carried off -everything eatable — and burned the villages before the eyas of the refugees! Then they departed, leaving the villagers homeless and fpodless. ■' ;& few Hours laterj' when the Germans believed the French, troops had arrived, they began shelling vthe villages they had pillaged aaid lefit despite their knowledge of thousands of innocent civilian inhabitjwiis still them -; "Seveni .thousand women and children 'suffered this experience at Ohauny alone. The was uiider bombardment the moment I arrived;* The French Red JQvqsb, crews with, their litters had pushed forward. afoot and were carrying off wbpieh and children wounded during the shell-fire. ■•/ ■-*• ... Tft&..'.German retreat has been marked bv^insensate destruction. Aside from burning of farms and villages, the up of church doors and altars :aaid 'the like, their wanAon destruction yf&s. carried to such, an extent that I walked through twenty miles of farms and fields where every orchard tree had leather been hewn down, or—if ithe French arrived before the job of destruction could be completed — the trees are sufficietly hacked to insure their death. ;'"-' ■" ATM METAL CARRIED' O'FF. ;' The Germans stripped every village of all metal. They tore the itin gutters and plumbing from all the houses, took off the metal roofs, pilfered' the churches of jclockV iand-bells. Not one" escaped^— from the Cathedral at Noybn to the humblest of wayside churches. In.' the country districts all agricultural implements and machinery were either carried off or broken. , Ihiring the weeks preceding the retreat, the Germans followed a systematic policy of forcing the inhabitants of half & dozen surrounding villages to gather in: Some larger (town, where the American Relief! Commissionliad a distributing centre. Then the refugee® would be informed that the American commission would supply their wants —and the Germans would sack the towns. RELIEF STORES LOOTED'. At Noyon, owing to the'concentration of 10,000 women and child r-\:i, the Germans promised to leave the American commission sufficient supplies to feed the refugees. •■'■•■> • Nevertheless, departing patrols sacked the American commission! storehouse, carrying off all edibles. Then they dynamited the building and finally diverted water from the canal into the city. Part of the city was \flooded and ruined in, this fashion. The population of Noyon said they had-not eaten a scrap of meat in 18 months. The most minute preparations' marked the German- retreat. Successive lines of resistance for the rearguard were dug every few hundred yards from Noyon to Tergnier. Nevertheless, everywhere there was evidence that the French arrived. before they had been expected. The French troops were able to cut many wires to unexploded mines. In many cases also the^'Germans did not have time to complete their mining operations.