New Britain herald., 1916-05-09
Peter the Kermit Born
 In Amiens Wear Veydun

Washington, D. C., May 8.-The Ma tiOnal Geographic society has issued from it's headquarters in Washington an interesting bulletin on the area pop ulation and noteworthy features of the territory which lies between the present battle line on the western front and the line marking the crest of the Teutonic invasion which swept down through Northern France tow ard Paris. The bulletin says:
 "A survey of the trench lines in Northern France, while the opposing armies spend their strength in a ti- tanic struggle around the fortress l-s Verdun, affords an opportunity to compare their location with the line which the onsweeping Germans gained in their farthest south and farthest west marches toward Paris and Ca lais, during the early months of the war.
 "The present line of contact conn pared with the old shows it's first var iation in a small loop at Arras. In the first rush the Germans overrun this thriving capital of the province of Artois, but subsequently, they were pushed back, just beyond the city.
 "Moving due south in the survey, the next divergence of old and new lines embraces a large triangle of which the ancient city of Amiens is the western apex. A few miles west of the River Disc the two lines again converge and coincide until Soissons is passed, then there is a long deflectlOn to the wet, showing that the Germans at one time reached Crei, prosper ous town of 10000 inhabitants on the oe hn tn he Compiegne. This is the section where the Germans have lost the greatest amount of territory which they held in France during the early stages of the war, for it was in this drive down the Marne valley that the point nearest Paris was reached. Among the re- gained cities in this region the most important. of course, is Rheims.
 ."The old line and the new coincide again some fifty miles due east of Rheims and a few miles west of Ver- dun The final bulge of the old line over the present trenches occurs at point almost directly east of Bar le Due and takes in a thin slice of the Meurth- -Moselle valley, including the important town of Luneville, the birthplace of Francis of Lorraine, who became Emperor Francis I of Aus tria and the founder of the present reigning family of the dual monarchy bv marrying the Archduchess Maria Theresa early in the eighteenth cen- tury.
 'Roughly measured, the territory regained from the Germans in France exceeds 2,5OO square miles, or consid- erably more than the area of the state of Delaware. It's population before the war was in the neighbour ood of half a, million.
 within the redeemed area are some of the most interesting places Ill France, notably Rheims, the place of coronation for most of the kings of France since the beginning of the Capetian dynasty. The most famous ceremony of this character to take place here was, of course, the anOlnt- ing of Charles VII, after Joan of Arc had driven the English from the city walls. It was here, too, that ClONlS was baptised on Christmas day in 496. Before the devastation wrought by the most beautiful structure produced during the middle ages.
 "Amiens with a population of 9O,- 900 before the war, is next Tn import ance among the salVagcd cities. It's cathedral, one of the most imposing niles of 18th century architecture in T,uroDe was scarcely less famous than the one at Rheims. It was in this city 1 that Peter the Hermit, the great | 7,roacheT of the t7irSt Crusade, was born. Since the war Amiens' noted