The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-12-27
WORLDS GREATEST CEMETERY
Colonies of Crosses Where Battle
Ragged in Lorraine.

| French Lorraine is the greatest
cemetery in the world. Colonies oil
dead, marked by lines OF crude wood
EN- crosses, lie everywhere under
newly-formed sod at the edges OF
woods and thickets and in rayino :
| Germans and French. The shifting
OF battle scenes may be traced by
following them. They are thickest
there where was fought the great
battle for Nancy that began with the
retreat of the Franch from Morhange
and reached its climax during the
| battle of the Marne. The number has
been continually swelled since in the
IA months struggle in the Woevre
and the Vosges
Saint Genevieye. Essey, the Aman-
ces. the nights of Cuittes, Velaint,
Gerbevillers of the Grand Couronne
de Nancy. Etain, the Eparges, the
Bois Brule, the Bois Apremont, the
Bois Saint Mansuy, and the Bois lie
Pretre in the Woeyre are so many
cemeteries. nearly all of them with
crosses bearing names already Illus
trious. Lionel Rieux the poet, lies at
Essey; Paul Vial who received a bull
let In his heart. in the ST. Mansury
woods. Among the French buried at
Gerbevillers is Jean Martin. one of
the most promising pupils of the
French art school at Rome; he fell
with the heroic handful OF chasseurs
that held the Mortagne there against
40,444 Germans during the IL hours.
MARCEL Droouet is among those who
lie at the summit of the Samogneux
hill.
The dead lie thickest perhaps at
the Loisy gap. After the Germans
had captured Nomeny and Pont-a-
Mousson. they sent regiment to
force this passage between two
heights, held by single company of
French infantry, That gap became
the tomb of the entire regiment The
cemetery of St. Genevieye is not so
dense. but far more extended than
that Of the Loisy gap, The Germans
forced by the resistance of the com
pany OF infantry at Loisy TO try a
flank movement around the nights of
Sainte Geneyieve. obtained sue
cess before the nights of Cuittes,
where French crosses predominate,
1t was then, thinking he saw the
route opening up for his troops, the
emperor OF Germany issued his fam
ous order of the day: Tomorrow in
Nancy Sainte Geneyieve was stili
between his maiestys troops and the
lorraine capital; 1t is today the GENE
terry of most of them. The French,
too, fell III such number there as to
disquiet the officers. who called the at
tention of Commandant NJ TO the
losses.
mo matter" replied the command
ant eve want give an inch" II re-
quired an order from the general to
induce him to take up a stronger posi-
tion little in the rear
During the attacks upon the plateau
of Amance. captured and retaken by
Gen Dubail on the following day,
Emperor William is said to have OBJ
served the action from the edge of
the Morel woods, behind which were
concealed the 10000 horsemen of the
Prussian guard-his escort into
Nancy Velaine fell and Uhlans and
Bavarian infantry surged into the
Passage between the two heights of
Amance.
If we can hold out the day 1t will
be a miracle said the French gener-,
al in command, The three-inchers
increased their fire to the maximum
speed just then, and moved those
Uhlans and Bavarians down before
they could debouch from the defile;
they lie there today in serried ranks
over which a weedy sod has formed.
The 10000 cavalry of the guard gal
loped off toward Metz, and a parlia
mentarian with white flag asked,
In the name of his majesty" for an
armistice of "a hours to bury the.
dead
In "a hours" replied the French
general. when the emperor shall
have given sepulchre 10 his thousands
of dead, we shall be ready for him
again"
An estimated proportion of three
Germans to one Frenchman buried in
the battlefelds of the Grand Cour-
onne de Nancy, extending in a sem
circle from Gerbeviller's to Pont-a-
Moussan on>the east bank of the Mo
selle, naturally takes no account of
Bayarian dead removed at night by
rail toward Metz, after the battle OF
Sainte Genevieye, which decided the
issue of the struggle for Nancy; nor
does it comprise the heavy death toll
of the French in annexed Lorraine,
just over the frontier, in the disaster
of Morhange.
The evidence of those who have Wis
tied all the battlefields of Lorraine
and those who helped pick up the
dead after the battle of Nancy tends
to the belief that taking the French
dead in German Lorraine and the
Gerrnon dnnd po,,ripd from thp field