Evening star., 1916-04-30
In Three Parts-Part I.

C0pyrlGht, 1915, the Tribune Association Nlhe
New York Tribunel
In Three Parts-Part 1.
My road to verdun ran through the
Eiysee Palace, and it was to the cour-
tesy and interest of the president OF
the French republic that owed my op-
portunity to see the battle for the
Meuse city at close range. Already
through the kindness of the French
general staff / had seen the Lorraine
and Marine backgrounds and had been
guided over these fields by officers who
had shared in the opening battles that
saved France. But Verduh was more
difficult; there is little time for caring
for the wandering correspondent when
decisive contest is going forward.
and quite naturally the general stan
turned a deaf ear to my request.
Through the kindness of one OF the
many Frenchmen who gave time and
effort to make my pilgrimage a success
j was at last able to see NJ. Polncare.
Like our own American President, the
French chief magistrate is never inter-
viewed. and 1 mention this audience
simply because ii was one more ana
in sense the final proof for me OF the
friendlinesS, the courtesy. the interest
that the American will find today in
France. 1 had gone to Paris, my ears
filed with the warnings OF those VINO
told me that it hard to be an
American in Europe, in France, in the
present hour. l had gone expecting, or
at least fearing, that / should hnd II
SO.
Friendship for Americans.
Instead. from peasant to president l
found only kindness. only gratitude
only a profound appreciation for all
that Americans had individually done
for France in the hour of her great
trial. These things and one thing more
] found: very intense desire that
Americans should be able to see for
themselves; the Frenchman will not
talk to you of what France has done.
Is doing; he shrnks from anything
that might suggest the imitation of the
German method of propaganda. In SO
far as it is humanity possible he would
have you see the thing for yourself and
testify out of your own mouth.
Thus IL came about that all my dill
ficulties vanished when / had been per-
mitted to express to the president my
desire to see Verdun and to go back to
America was sailing within the
week-able to report what l had seen
with my own eyes of the decisive bat
tie still going forward around the Lor-
raine city. Without further delay, dis
cussion. it was promised that l shouio
go to verdun by motor; that I should
go cared for by the French military au-
ted to see all that one could see at the
moment of the contest.
Of for Battle Front.
We left Paris in the early afternoon
Ny companions were NJ. Henri Ponsot,
chief Of the press service of the minis
try of foreign affairs. and NJ. Hughes
lie Roux. a distinguished Frenchman of
VII
To start for the battlefield from a busy.
peaceful city: to run for miles through
suburbs as quiet and lacking in martial
aspect as the regions beyond Harlem
at home was a thing that seemed al
most unreal; but only for brief mo-
ment, for war has come very near to
Paris. and one may not travel far in
eastern France without seeing its
signs.
In less than an hour we were passing
the rear of the line held by the British
at the battle of the Marine. and barely
sixty minutes after we had passed out
through the Vincennes gate we met at
Courtacon the first of the ruined viii
lages that for 200 miles line the road
ways that lead from the capital to Lor-
raine and Champagne. Suddenly, in the
passing a score of undisturbed villages.
villages so like one to another you
come to one upon which the storm mas
burst. and instead of snug houses. smil-
happiness that was France, there is
only a heap of ruins. houses with their
roofs gone, their walls torn by shell
fire, villages abandoned partially or
wholly. cotemporary Pompeiis. over
taken by the Vesuvius of krupp-
Graves by the Roadside.
Coincidentally there appear along the
roadside, in the fields. among the plow
burrows on every side. the crosses that
mark the graves of those who died Tor
France or for Germany. Along the
slope you may mark the passage OF
charge by these crosses: those who fell
were buried as they lay, French and
Germans with equal care Indeed. there
IL a certain pride visible in all that the
French do for their dead foes Along
side hamlet wAntonly burned, burned
by careful labor and with German thor
oughness: in villages where you VIII be
told of nameless atrocities and shame
full killings, you will see the German
graves, marked by neat crosses, sur
rounded by sod entertainments. marked
with plaques of black and white: the
French are marked by PLAQUES or req.
white and blue, and the latter inVaria-
bly, decorated with n flag and flowers
Once YOU have seen these graves by
the roadside going east you VIII nara
Iy go a mile In two hundred which has
rot it's graves. From the environs or
Meaux. a scant twenty miles from
Paris to the frontier at the Se!lle be-
graves now scattered now crowded to-
gether where men fought hard to hand
Buried in Common Graves.
Passing them in a swift-moving auto
they seem to march by you. there is
the Illusion Of an army advancing on
the hillside, until at last. beyond Nancy.
where the fighting was SO terrible.
about little villages such as Corbes-
xaux, you come to the great common
graves where a hundred or two hun
dred men have been gathered where
the trenches, row leveled. are but long
graves, and you read. Here rest l79
French soldiers. or across the road
Here 1876 Germans.
Take a map of France and from a
point just south of Paris draw a
straight line TO the Vosges: twenty or
thirty miles to the north draw another.
Between the two is the black district
of the Marne and Nancy battles. II is
the district of ruined villages. destroy
ed farms; II is the region where every
hiilside-so il will seem to the traveller
is marked by these pathetic crosses.
II IS region in which the sense of
death and destruction is abroad. Go
forty miles north again and draw two
more lines. and this 10 the region not
OF the death and destruction of yester-
day. but of today: this is the front,
where the graves are still in the max
ing. the region of the Disc to the