Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1914-12-18

Symbolfcal OF, and welded to,
the three groups of peoples
through whom the three great
phases of it's life as a river
run. Its part in war also has CORE
sponded to all three, and since 1t first
entered recorded history, 1000 years
ago, till today, when it is SO apparent
ly the obstacle surmounted by the
German invasion of France, it has
checked or aided so generations of
soldiers. All it's first course goes
through that essentially Gallo coun-
try OF Lorraine, of the Three Bishop
RIGS and of the c~ountrysides that
bound the Barrois. On its very up
per waters, where it is no more than
a clear meadow stream, you will find
Domremy and the house where Joan
of Arc vas born.
In the midst of that same stretch
where already the Mouse is a river
stands the great Gallo fortress OF
Verdun, the town upon whose fortunes
so many invasions have depended.
Further upon its course see the
somber name of Sedan: and In all this
long French rising and flowing Of the
river there is upon either side that
mass of rich meadowland and vine
yard, low, rounded hill and strictly
ordered woods, which make up a
French landscape. 1t is this stretch,
too, that runs-all the earlier and
higher part of it-along and behind
these "Cotes de Meuse'' which are
the stretched line of defense between
Toul and Verdun; which make a wall
of forts from Commercy at the gates
of Toul to the Verdun ring.
Merges Into Dutch.
Similarly, all the lower reaches,
from the Roman crossing at Maastricht
to the vague marshes, fiat mud is.
lands, dykes and confused shadows
whereby it mingles with the Scheldt
and with the Rhine and passes to
the sea, are quite Dutch, not only in
the language spoken upon either side
of the river, but in the broadening
flats and sluggish waters and in the
very sky. For the skies of the Neither
land plain are different from anything
else in the rest of Europe. They
seem to be lit from beneath and their
clouds supply the accident and con
trast which the earthly horizon lacks
All this lower stream is full of such
wars as the seventeenth century
fought to Withstand Louis XIV. The
duke of Marlborough owed his title
to the clearing of thee Lower Mouse
rolling up the French garrisons as fal
al Liege in 1902.
Between these two peopled, wealthy
sections, the upper and the lower, tn,
broad seward reaches and the in
land meadow streams, the Mouse BY
a curious accident experiences a fat,
not promised by its origin and hardly
remembered at it's end. It runi
through gorges more bold, and IL
parts more deserted, than those o
any western river. The trench which
it thus occupies Is the more memor
able to those who have followed II
from the breadth, the depth and tn,
silence Of the stream that flow
through it between the very steel
walls Of wood and rock upon eithe,
side. These are 500, 900, 700 fee
above the stream, and in places 100
feet, but they give an impression o
far greater height from the uniformit,
of their coloring and wooded cloak
from their sharpness of fall, and fron
the way In which they run parallel
supporting each the effects of tn
other upon either side Of the dea6
fiat floor of water between. This az
cident which the Mouse suffers, thi
exceptional landscape coming afte
the easy pastures of Lorraine, comm
before the great sea-fiats of the Netl
erlands, makes the course of tn
Mouse comparable to the life of som
man whose youth and manhood wer
merely prosperous, whose old age wa
spacious and at ease, but who fell b
some fate in a few yards of middl
life upon surprising adventures. An
this gorge, though less mixed with tn
history of war than what lies abov
and below it, has fortress at its gate
and in its midst corresponds to hi
tory of war.
All these three sections, then, co
respond to something in the histor
of war. The wars to protect tn
Netherlands against the ambition {
the French concerned the Dutc
Mouse; to possess Maastricht, ult
mately to pcasees Liege, was the q
jvct Of the defenders and CT the a
~tacIers. TIE uccer reactcs throue