Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-12-19
Goes Over the Same Road.

Yesterday, coming back to Paris from
the trenches that guard Rheims. COW
cred the same road. But it was not
the same. 1t seemed that 1 must surely
have lost the way Only the iron signs
at the crossroads and the map used the
year before and SCARED with pencil
marks were evidences that again l
was following mile by mile and foot by
foot the route of that swift advance
and riotous retreat. A year before the
signs of the retreat were the road IT
self, the houses facing it, and devas-
tated countryside. You knew, then,
that, of these signs, some would at
once be effaced. They had to be Ell
faced, for they were polluting the AIR.
But until the villagers returned to their
homes, or to what remained of their
homes, the bloated carcasses of horses
blocked the road, the bodies of German
soldiers, in death mercifully unlike
anything human and as unreal as raj
len scarecrows, sprawled in the heids;
But while you knew these signs or
the German raid would be removed.
other signs were scars that you thought
would be long in healing. These were
the stone arches and buttresses OF the
the mud of the Marine and Ourcq,
chateaux and villas with the roofs torn
away as deftly as with one hand you
could rip off the lid of cigar box, or
a
case exposing indecently the owners
bedroom. his wife's boudoir, the chill
dren's nursery. Other signs of the Ger
man were villages with houses
garden walls leveled, fields of beets and
turnips uprooted by his shells. or
where he had snatched sleep in the
trampled mud, strewn with demolished
two. as though by lightning, or with
nothing remaining but the splintered
stump. That was the picture of the
roads and countryside in the triangle
of scissors, Rheims and Meaux, as it
was year ago.
Expected Ruins and Devastation.
And I expected to see the wake of
that great retreat, still marked by ruins
and devastation.
But l had not sufficiently trusted to the
of Waste, their fierce, vet or
dered energy. Today the fields are Gull
tivated up to the very butts Of the French
They are being put to bed and
tucked in for the long winter Sleep For
miles the burrows stretch over the fields
in unbroken lines. Ploughs, not shells,
have drawn them. They are gray with
fertilizers, strewn with manure; the
swiftly dug trenches of year ago have
given way to the peaked mounds in which
eui hPo wall tidHspldHlIIS. w mere tueTe
we're vast stretches OF mud, Scared with
intrenchments. with the wheel tracks of
guns and ammunition carts. with stale,
ill-smelling straw. the carcasses of oxen
and horses, and the bodies of men, is now
a landscape smiling with peace and plen-
ty. with miles of growing grain, green
vegetables, green turf. The French spirit
and nature, working toi<ther, have wiped
out the signs of the German raid. 1t Is as
though it had never been. You begin to
believe 1t was only a bad dream, an old
wife's tale to frighten children. The car
moved slowly, but, look no matter how
carefully, it was most difficult to find the
landfals remembered.
Near Ferret Milton was chateau with
lawn that ran to meet the Paris road
1t had been used as German emer-
gency hospital, and previously by them
as an outpost The long windows to
the terrace had been wrecked, the ter
race was piled high with blood-stained
uniforms, hundreds of boots had beer
tossed from an upper story that had
been used as an operating room. and
mixed with these evidences of disaster
were monuments of empty champagne
bottles. That was the picture I re-
membered. Yesterday, like a mantle of
moss, the lawn swept to the road, the
long windows had been replaced and
hung with yellow silk. and on the ter
race, where I had seen the blood
stained uniforms, a small boy-maybe
the son and heir of the chateau-with
hair flying and bare legs showing. was
joyfully riding tricycle..