WAR’S TERRIBLE DEVASTATION.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12208, 20 November 1920, Page 5

WAR’S TERRIBLE DEVASTATION.

United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Keceived Nov. 20, 9.30 a.m. London, Nov. 19. The Daily Telegraph s Paris correspondent says France is meeting insuperable obstacles in connection with reconstruction work in the Yerdan district. ' One stretch of battle ground is eo holed with craters and [filled with bodies and shells that twenty two villages which once stood thereon will not be frebuilt, because it would take years to claarltbe land. Eight hundred thousand bodies, half Frenchmen. fill this area. Ninety thousand bodies have been recovered in the last two years, one 'fourth of which have bean identified. < Every mile of'ground contains a thousand bodies. ‘ This land is regarded as sacred and will be left untouched, hut a decade hence it may be converted into pasture lands.