The Washington herald., 1916-06-11
Dead City" Of Loos Too
Lively to Stay Long Mar
velous View Of Belgian
and French Positions OBJ
tainable from Height.

/ factory visit and explained modestly
that he has been in and around Ypres so
often that he can feel" when the place
is fairly safe and when unhealthy" This
morning, he said, came in the latter cat
egory. / said l was glad to get out with
a whole skin, reflecting that this man IL
| any Is entitled to rank as an expert in
Ypres bombardments. He landed at
zeebrugge in october, 1914 with the i'm
mortal Seventh division, which met the
full shock of the German assault on
| Ypres. Protecting the city from the west,
tnls division went into action with 400 Of
| ficers and 1900 men, and fought con-
tinuously without being relieved for three
| weeks, during time when there were
no reserves to support II and IL II had
given way the Kaiser would have march,
ed into the city and probably on to Cal
ais. The Germans did not break through:
but when the Seventh division went into
reserve, after twenty-one days, forty-four
| officers and 2.346 men were left All
things considered. British staff officers
incline to rank this performance as the
most brilliant in the history of the Brit
ish army.
View of Whole Battlefield.
Later in the day. from a hill some dis
tahce IN the rear of Ypres, a glorious
view OF the whole Flanders battlefield
was spread before me, a panorama which
can be matched on this front only by
the view from the spur of Notre Dame
de Lorette, north of Arras The fat
plains in front Of US were bathed In warm
sunshine: beside us was a little thatched
cottage, and as We lay on the grass a
kitten romped around us and a lordly
COCK promenaded among the hens, The
lar-aWay noises OF battle and the sight
| OF exploding shells along a front OF fifteen
miles, the sight of half a. dozen fires in
villages before US and behind the Ger
man lines could not prevent the scene
from appearing peaceful and calm to one
recently immersed in the clatter OF Lon
don. 1t seemed utterly incredible that
the queer white puffs that suddenly an
peared straight ahead. the black things
mat were bursting above them and the
queer greenish and yellow blossoms that
sometimes varied the predominant white
and black were the most deadly kinds of
obstruction being used in a desperate
oattle for mine craters I'm the railway
cutting, now completely blown away at
St Elol
Far to the left, on the horizon. were
the Belgian lines along the User canal
although could not trace the position
exactly through my glasses as the water
coulo not De seen at this point. Then
| came a French sector, and next the lit
tie hamlet of Boesinghe on the canal
Where the British front begins and the
arc OF the Ypres salient commences The
whole present line of the salient was
spread before US, and from the stafr man
on the grass could see where the lines
ran even though in some places the
trehch lines were themselves invisible
Tho ruins of Ypres occupied the middle
foreground. The white satin ribbon Of
the Menin road, down which the Prus-
sian guard goose-stepped to destruction.
was plainly visible, as were the brick
buildings of the chateau and its stables
at hooge, where few yards now separ-
ate British and German lines which run
through the chateau grounds. Hooge ia
the farthest point west that the lines ex-
teno; from here we could see the line
sweeping to the southwest along the
Klein Zillebeke ridge, past St Eloi where
the heaviest fighting was raging, and
turning again just south of St Eloi. run
nins southwest along the western sIope
OF the ridge crowned by the ruins of the
large towns of Wytscheate and Messines
ST. Eloi, the southern terminus of the
curve around Ypres. is called in military
parlancc the southern re-entrant of the
salient.
Sees Dead Between Trenches.
The trenches below st. Eloi are close
together and 1 could see with the glasses
the dead lying in the No Mans land
between the clusters of houses on the
crest or the ridge and the little woods
part way down the slope This country
before US. from Boesinghe to Messines.
was the scene of fighting in October and
November. 1914, and April, 1915, that cost
England. France and Germany more than
the North in the four years Of the civil
war. Germany alone. in her first great
enort for Calais, lost 100000 men, and
every day since then serious fighting has
taken place In the salient, fighting which
mas no military importance and does not
hgure In the communicates, but costs
men. The conditions OF fighting, the i'm
possibility of constructing proper shelter
trenches because of the soil, the lack of
shelter for batteries and the fact that
many parts of the British lines are partly
enfiladed by the German guns make the
holding of the Ypres region about the
toughest job along the British front,
On this afternoon, for instance, the only
action of importance enough to get a
few lines in the British bulletin was the
tight around st. Eloi, where clouds of ex-
plosives which would have meant a big
battle in former days could be SEEN The
bulletin next day mentioned, also, "ar-
tillery activity" around Ypres and Mes
sines. During the two hours I watched
the lines, 1 saw shells bursting on several
roads behind the British lines, saw fires
started in several places and watched
the demolition of ruined houses In the
towns on the Messines ridge which the
British gunners thought occupied by Ger
mans. Far beyond Messines rose on the
horizon group of chimneys which rep
resent, for the British, the promised
land. They are in Lille. and when Ellie
Is taken, the men on the front believe.
the beginning of the end will be in sight.
Woman Ignores Shells.
The lighting at St. EIoi became more
active, and a mine was exploded, a great
sheet of flame leaping up. The front
window of the little cottage beside us
opened, and an old Flemish woman lean
ed out, busily polishing a boot with a
cloth. She never So much as glanced
at the fighting for which she had a re-
served seat, nor at us, but called sharply
to the kitten, which. as cats will, paid
no attention. We walked over and talked
to her, the officer acting as Interpreter
Her husband. she said, is in the Bel
gian army: times are hard, because she
cannot herself do all the work needed en-
the little garden on the slope. She gets
good prices for her eggs and poultry
however. from the soldiers, and she re-
turned a surprised negative when asked
whether the troops stole any. Her at
titude toward the war is one of extreme