Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1915-07-06
YPREs IS DEAD CITY,;
NO |NHAB|TANT REMAINS
"How Are TurretS? Still Holding
Out?" Is Question Asked Up
and Down Line.
INTEREST IN OLD CLOTH HALL
Historic Building Gave to Place It's
Civic Distinction, Like Westmin-
ster Abbey to London or FaneuiI
Hall to Boston.

J Correspondence of Associated Press
/ BRITISH HEADQUARTERS IN
| FRANCE. June 2l.-"How are the tur-
, refs? Still holding out?" they ask up
and down the line of any one who has
come from Ypres. Everybody has n
tender personal interest in the turrets
/ of the old Cloth Hall, which deepens
with each day that thcy survive, in de-
! iiance of the German gunners above
/ the wreckasc wrought by German
shells.
People are still living in Rheims and
! Louvain. but YpreS is absolutely a dead
city: dead as Pompeii; dead as "a de-
serted mining camp in Alaska No
that can still he called a door or win
! that can still he called door or win
dow: no figures are seen moving
through the shell holes in walls that
are still standing.
| Before the war Ypres had some
| $4,000 inhabitants. Now it has not a
single one No one is making any eff
fort TO make any ruin habitable. The
only signs of life. except occasional sol
dierS coming out and going to the lines.
/ are cats. grown wild, which become
strcaks of fur disappearing among the
ruins of their former homes.
The cathedral which stands back Of
! the Cloth Hall was a noble edifice, no
doubt. but there are great many
ca;hcdrals in Europe. The Cloth Hall
is unique; the hest of its kind ANY
one who ever saw ii always remem-
bered its turrets. Different con-
| querors of Ypres put her women and
| children TO the sword. but no one had
ever harmed the old Cloth Hall beyond
taking away few statues.
| Last February perhaps 1000 or 5000
! people remained in Yprcs. They were
going and coming about the streets as
usual, keeping their shops open and
| doing what business they could at the
/ old stand. \ visitor could get a meal
/ in restaurant or have his shoes
: cobbled. Only one house in the big
! square had been hit. It's roofs
! dropped over the edges of corner sec
. ton which had been torn out of the
| main floor.
| shells, mostly directed at the cathedral,
with some of the misses bound to hit
! tho Cloth Hall. Restoration work
I which age required had just been fin
shed on the Cloth Hall before the war
began. The people paid for this in
their civic pride, and let other civic
( improvements wait For the Cloth
Hall gave ipres Il civic distinction II
was the historical soul of Ypres The
old frescoes on its walls told the city's
early history II meant TO Ypres quite
as much in it's way as Westminster
/ Abbey TO London or Fancuil Hill 10
| Boston. Every man or woman horn in
fprcs had been brought up to tell the
, time OF day by the raised gilt figures
of the old golden clock face.
, DESTRUCTION or SACRED
I THINGS BECOMES ROlTINE:
! by February the peoples sense of
( horror was exhausted. Destruction of
/ things sacred TO them had become
| routine. When they heard another cy-
! plosion and word was passed that the
Germans had scored another hit. they
/ went around to the t;randc Place TO see
/ II tho turrets and the gilt clock face
! were still unframed. And they said:
| The Cloth Hall still can he rcstored''-
| these stubborn Flemish who would not
let shell fire drive them away from
| their old town.
| The next time the Associated Press
correspondent went TO Ypres there was
{, not single house left on the Grandc
! ilace that rescmbled n house any more
| Than rubber bag with tho gas out of
II resembles a balloon. In the second
ha'i'e or fpres, when the Germans had
another Try for the channel ports tho
sensation of their attack with as
phyXihting gas ovcrshadowed what
they did with their guns Heretofore
Their practice on Ypres had been com
naratNcly teasing playfulncss. This
, tinc they went at the job Of destruc-
ton systematically; jumping from one
space on the chcckcrboard TO another
they smashed Ypres, section by sec
ton.
rs they meant TO take the town, thi.
seemed poor policy, for they would
hhd no roofs for shelter when they
moved m But their object was con.
fusion for British c-cnforcemcnts b,Ir.
rNlhS up along roads crowded viii
refugees, wholesale death for mon /,
piilets in town. and destruction onf
delay for supplies and munitions com.
! Ing through the streets. This wos =,
excellent theory. which did not work
on, III practice. The British were no,
.hillctinr troops 10 any extent I'm ynr.s
ana YOU could count the numhcr ~,