The Chitina leader., 1915-06-29
BELGIUM VIEWED
; At TER MONTHS
Of WAR
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LOUyAIN, Belgium, June 26.-Sur-
rounded by green fields that portend
an unusual harvest and transform all
Belgium from the scene of desolation
that has been often pictured since the
beginning of the war, Louyain still
stands as a monumental wreck. Little
of its former life has crept back into
its streets and the walls of practically
all of its buildings are still crumbling
ruins that have not been removed and
apparently will not be. Here and there
a wooden shack has been erected by
some enterprising vendor of tobacco
or post cards, but as city it is still
uninhabitable.
Yet Louyain is not entirely dead,
and in one most important particular
work of renovation is going on apace
the renovation and restitution of its
wonderful cathedral, which escaped
complete destruction only by seem
ing miracle The church now is in
the hands of a score of workmen who
are painstakingly restoring those por-
tions of the walls which are shaky or
damaged, the little panes of glass-not
stained glass-which were blown out
by bomb explosions, and the altar
which was burned by a shell that
caught fire after it tore through the
roof above.
Competent architects who have
visited the cathedral say that it has
been in no way weakened by the ter
rible Smelling that destroyed the rest
of Louvain, and claim that with a 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 unchanged. 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 that was not RACED.
1t is conceivably only Louvain's
total demolition that has prevented
efforts to rebuild it, for that has been
accomplished in many other of the
Belgian cities that were 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 Mouse, thes Efforts present
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aged appearance. Where the great
shells burst in the masonry one can
only guess at, for the holes are gone.
Only the hotel at 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 fairy talk, 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 communica-
ton with any other.
The German officers in Namur today
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 posi-
ton of Central" and also that the aim
of the guns might have been accurate
enough to destroy the building, but
they cannot quite believe that the
Belgians could have made so grave
military mistake as to expose their
lines Of communication, and prefer to
think that the hotel was burned in
incendiary fashion and the loss blamed
an fho inyadeYa