The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-19
Fields Cultivated, Bridges Restored, Homes Rebuilt; Remarkable Contrast to Scene a Year Ago
SCENES OF COMFORT IN EVERY HOME ARE
 SOURCE OF WONDER
Davis Says Nothing Could Better Show Spirit of the French and Foretell Their Ultimate Victory
Ny RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

Ny RICHARD HARDING DAVIS Paris. November 2o-- Especial Core. spondence)-Th promised to be a story for some one to write year after the recovered from the invasion of the Ger mans. But one need not wait until after>
 the war. The story can be written now. We know that the enemy was thrown back across the Aisne. It is one of the
 most splendid pages in the history of
 France.
 We know that the German drove tho French and English before him until at the Forest of Montmorency and at Claye he was within 10 and 15 miles of Paris.
 But today, by any outward evidence. hs would have a hard time to prove it. And that is not because when he advanced he was careful not to tramp on the grass or pick the flowers. He did not obey even the warnings in the villages to automo- bilists Attention. les enfantsi' On tho contrary, as he came, he threw before him thousands of tons of steel and iron. Like cyclone he uprooted trees. un- | roofed houses; like d tidal wave he ex- cavated roads that had been built by the ] Romans. swept away walls, and broke the backs of stone bridges that for hundreds l of years had held their own against swollen rivers.
 DEAD ALONG ROAD | A year ago l followed the German in 1 his retreat from Claye through Meaux. Chateau Thierry to Solssons, where, on
 the east bank of the Aisne, watched the French artillery shell hls guns on the hills opposite. The French then were ' hot upon his heels In one place they had | rot had time to remove even their Nwn
 desd. and to avoid the bodies in ths open road the car had to twist ard turn 1 Yesterday, coming back to Paris from 1 the trenches that guard Rheims, ] cov- 1 cred the same road. But it was not the same. It seemed that I must surely 1 have lost the way. Only the iron signs at the cross roads and the map used tho year before and scared with pencil marks were evidences that again I was follow ing mile by mile and foot by foot tho route of that swift advance and rotous retreat. A year before the signs of the retreat were the road itself, the houses facing it. and devastated countryside You knew then that of these signs some would at once be effaced They had to be
  But until the villagers returned to their homes, to what remained of their homes the bloated carcasses of horses'N blocked the road, the bodies of German soldiers, in death mercifully unlike any, thing human and as unreal as fallen scare crows, sprawled in the fields. OTHER SIGNS OF WAR | Bnt while you knew these signs of the German trail would be removed, other | ~txf be long in healing. These were the stone arches and buttresses of the bridges, dy- namted and dumped into the mud of the Marne and Ourcq, chateaux and villas with the roof torn away as deftly as with one hand you could rip off the lid of . sugar box. or with wall blown in, or out. in either case exposing indecently the owners bedroom, his wifes boudoir. the children's nursery. Other signs of the German were villages with houses wrecked, the humble shops sacked. gar den walls leveed, fields of beets and tur- nips uprooted by his shells. or where he
 had snatched sleep in the trampled mud,
 strewn with demolished haystacks vast trees split clean in half as though by lightning, or with nothing remaining but the spintered stump. That was the pie
 ture of the roads and countryside in tho triangle of Soissons, Rheims and Meaux. as it was year ago.
 And l expected to see the wake of that great retreat still marked by ruins ana devastation.
 FIELDS CULTIVATED But had not sufficiently trusted to the indomitable spirit of the French. in tl cir intolerance of waste. their fierce, yet ordered energy. Today the fields are cultivated mp to the very butts of tho French batteries They are being put to bed and tucked in for the long winter
 sleep For miles the furrows stretch over the fields in unbroken lines. Ploughs, rot shells have drawn them. They are grey with fertilizers. strewn with manure: the swiftly dug trenches of a year ago have given way to the peaked noun .s in which turnips Wait transplanting. Where there were vast stretches of mud, scared with intrenchments, with tha wreel 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 smil- ing with peace and plenty, with miles os growing grain, green vegetables, gr sen turf. The French spirit and nature, work ing together, have wiped out the signs or the German raid. It is as though it had never been. You begin to believe it was only bad dream, an old wife'ss tale to frighten children, Thc a.eNef slowly. but. look no matter 'i3N fe l fully it was most difficult ra fhs 1 landfals I remembered
 CHANGES AT ChAI A {. Near Feret Milton there wa eHtfap | with lawn that ran to mes ea @HFH l road It had been used as Nr&f
 emergency hospital and DIT
 | trem as an outpost The lol sndewA i tc the terrace had been Ag l terrace was piled high with k%pt3rt 1 informs, hundreds of boots --.s i tossed from an upper story that had been used as an operating room, and inixeA 1 with these evidences of disaster were
 monuments of empty champagne bot
 ties That was the picture remembered. ! lawn swept to the road the long win dows had been replaced and hung wit1
 tContinucd on Page Nine)