The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1915-06-18

9l5.
the altar which was burned by a
shell which caught fire after it tore
through the roof above.
Competent architects who have Wis
tied the cathedral say that it has been
in no way weakened by the terrible
shelling that destroyed the rest Of
Louyain, and claim that with q very
little money it can be put back into
the shape in which it was before the
war The beautiful stained glass in
the windows to the rear of the altar
is absolutely undamaged. The altar
picture was removed before the shell
came which tore open the roof, and
the majority of the works of art and
other valuables in the building are
now safely stored in the basement
Of the Hotel de Vile across the way
almost the only other structure in
LOuvain was not razed.
1t is conceiyably only Louyain's to-
tai demolition that has prevented eff
forts to rebuild it, for that has been
accomplished in many other OF the
Belgian cities that We're wrecked by
the Germans as they advanced toward
France. 1t has been accomplished so
completely in some cases that the
ignorant visitor would never know
there had been any war in the little
country.
This is true of Namur. to the south
ward. Namur played a conspicuous
part in the early days of the war
and by no means escaped without
damage. yet little of it is in evidence
today, particularly among the forts
that were held to be invincible, and
that today probably are so. Standing
high above the river Meuse, these
forts present an absolutely unbroken
and unchanged appearance. Where
the great shells burst in the masonry
one can only guess at, for the holes
| are gone. Only the hotel on the
very top of the hill on which the
Notifications are built is still in a
state of ruin.
In this hotel so goes the story
that many maintain is a fairy tale
there was the telephone central into
which ran the wires from all the
forts. The Germans advancing, are
supposed to have learned of this vital
fact, and to have trained their guns
effectively on this building first of
all, so that the connecting lines were
cut and no one fort had any means
of communication with any other.
The German officers in Namur to.
day smile as they tell the story and
shake their heads They admit that
it is quite possible that the Germans
should have learned the secret of the
position of central" and also that the
aim of the guns might have been ac-
curate enough to destroy the build
ing, but they cannot quite believe
that the Belgians could have made
so grave a military mistake as to eX-
pose their lines of communication
and prefer to think that the hotel
was burned in incendary fashion and
the loss blamed onto the invaders.
In the country portions of Belgium
today there is scarcely a trace of war
beyond an occasional ruined building.
As in northern France, the landscape
is infinitely more attractive than OF
old, because the extensive cultiva-
tion OF sugar beets with their brown
growth, has been discontinued, and
wheat and corn with green shoots,
have been substituted.
The destruction of Belgium may
have been Oyerestimated and eXag-
gerated in the beginning Whether
that or not, the combination of the
reconstruction efforts of the victors
and invaders, and the forces of ma
ture in the springtime, have made
of it once more a pleasantly smiling
country that taxes the Imagination
to draw a picture of war in progress.