Norwich bulletin., 1915-05-01
Stories of the War
Devastation of Eastern Prussia.


 The devastation and destruction that have been visited upon all of eastern East Prussia cannot be more striking ly appreciated than by a trip from this little town to Crajevo, a few miles across the border.
 The trip supplies remarkable series of contrasts that are fundamental and ar-reaching. Black is no more like white than this part of Germany is like far western Russia from the standpoint of population, customs, and the general appearance of the country
 From Lyck to the border every house, without exception it is said, has been rified and partly or entirely torn down. The broad, well-paved road is practically lined with the rem nants of substantial buildings that in some cases, particularly in the border town of Prosiken were once attractive.
 Along the road, as along virtually every road of its kind in Germany are shade trees-except where they have been cut down to allow of ar tillery fire. They are so universal that one gets used to them quite uncon- sciously, and immediately feels the lack when they disappear.
 The peasants. largely of the Polish type, appear to be self-respecting and pleasant. They greet the casual passerby much as the farmer in Amer ica says how do you do<to the stranger
 
 tinge of equality in the greeting. The once pleasant and prosperous countryside from Lyck to the border has been turned into a desert waste. In village after village there stand only the firm, substantial chimneys that even fire will not level to the ground. Almost without exception the remnants of the houses are of brick Then one comes to the line and al- most in the time 1t takes to close ones eyes and open them again the scene changes so materially that one might be a hundred miles away.
 First of all the devastation has ceased. Not a house has been levelled and not a building damaged. But in | their very character the houses. pro- claim the marked contrast. The brick has given way to matched huts, low, | one-story affairs that fairly reek with filth and grime.
 In the doorways stood, as an Asso- ciated Press correspondent made the l trip recently, smirking, grovelling peasants, who bowed almost to the | ground again and again, as long as the automobile was in sight. They | showed the same servility to the miii- | tary everywhere in command of the situation, and were quite obHvious of the scornful reception of their abject salutations.
 As quickly as the character of the houses had changed, so had the trees vanished. and for thousands of yards stretched a bare, black road, cozy and treacherous over which the automo- piles made their way with difficulty. | Lyck, Maggrabova and other little | towns on the German side of the | border but near the Russian line had left much to be desired in the way of | cleanliness and general attractiyeness, but as compared to Grajevo, when it finally was reached, they were models of beauty and sanitation.
 The nearest approach to similarity was the inevitable market square, all most as big in size as all the rest of the town together. But in place of the familiar brick buildings, often of handsome construction, there lined the market nothing more pretentious than | dirty novels.
 The desperateness with which the Russians had combatted the Germans | for every foot of the territory was plainly evident in rows upon rows of trenches, always when possible built at the top of rising ground, covered over | with evergreen or other branches and made with cunningly constructed loop holes. Rarely one saw a trench facing the other way-one that the Germans had had time to build hastily in the night. For the most part the advance had been possible only by stormine each separate height and by driving the Russians out of their strongholds