New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1916-04-12
DESCRIBES HAVOC
WROUGHT BY WAR
VAST SEA OF GRAVES SIGHT ON
BATTLEFIELDS NEVER TO BE
FORGOTTEN.
HATE GIVES WAY TO RESPECT
AND ADMIRATION ON BOTH
/
SIDES.

That the present great war of Europe
will be the last in the civilized world is
the opinion of E. J. D. Larson, war
correspondent, who last summer visited
the war zone and spent several months
with the men in the trenches and as long
period with the French people, making
an investigation of the conditions now
prevalent in that country. He gave an
Illustrated lecture at the Armory last
Thursday evening and brought the
horrors of the war to the audience for
inspection.
One would imagine from the news
stories sent out by the several news
agencies that. the entire section of the
country from Switzerland to Holland
isSa seething mass of soldiery; continu-
GUS: turmoil of battle; staff officers gallop-
ing along the lines, urging on the men to
greater efforts, and the shrill notes of
the bugle, giving the signal to retreat,
to advance or to charge. Nothing of
the kind is the case and were it not for
the boom of the cannon in the distance
and the bursting of shells with their
trail of smoke, there would be a perfect
calm, yes, even an ominous stiffness.
such as precedes the breaking of the day,
Nothing is seen of the millions of soldiers
who are participating in this great con-
f1ict, all have burrowed into the earth
until even the change of reliefs is not
seen by the observer. Trenches zigzap
the entire length of the five hundred
miles of front and back of these are other
lines of trenches, in some instances as
the terrain and the probability of attack
in. Tn r~f In
fields of barbed wire entanglements and
hardly stones throw to the front is a
little ridge marking the line of the
doubt similar conditions obtain.
Bat the. evidence that fierce battles
hauzs been fought along that line is not
stzkssss- vsritta HE eas5:e,fss az ssrs
marks the place where the charges have
been made. Where the name of the
dead can be obtained, it is inscribed
upon rude headstone, otherwise only a
colored tablet is placed to designate the
nationality of the fallen soldier. This
sea Of graves is everywhere and because
OF the fact that the bodies are buried
in the exact position in which they were
found it is possible to re-enact the battle
and its results. Here and there is found
a huge mound of earth, wherein fifty to a
hundred Germans and French are buried.
There shell took it's toll of death and the
bodies were buried where they fell. The
advance of infantry is clearly defined, by
intervals of open spaces where the men
rested one brief moment-then another
irregular line of graves.
Mr.. Larson made a trip of several
hundred miles behind the lines. Village
after village was passed where not a sign
OF living thing appeared. Ruins and
desolation as far as the eye could reach
toward the battle line. The dull roll of
distant artillery fire is never absent
and even twenty and thirty miles to the
rear it reverberates incessantly.
The war had been in progress over a
year when Mr.. Larson first arrived and
even then he found that the feeling of
hatred against the enemy was giving
way to feeling of respect and admira-
ton. The naen themselves are sick of
the conflict and while now they are
taking things as a matter of course, Mr..
Larson is of the opinion that after peace
is declared there will be such revulsion
OF feeling against everything military
that no nation will ever be able again to
establish a military or even a semi
military government.
The widest dreams of the war fanatic
have come to realization in thousand
told worse form and no matter which
nation or set of nations is victorious,
they all will be losers and it will take
them years and many generations to
recuperate from the losses they have
sustained.