The Wheeling intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1903-1961, 1916-01-15
Pierre Lott Visits the Silent Army of the Dead
1 Do Not Think That Any Human Imagination Can Ever Conceive Anything as Sad as This Va
Cemetery of Young Soldiers in the Desert in the Silence WhchOne Yet Knows Be WachfuL Host
and Techaous and with These Terrible Neghbon Whose Menace One Feels Hanging Over All

'O-DA1. Which was one or comparative
calm. the general had authorized me to
take an auto for three or four hours and
GO in search OF the grave OF one of my nephews
who had been killed by a shell during our
offensive in September.
Incomplete information had apprised me that
he might be in a soldiers cemetery improvised
the day after a battle FIVE or six hundred yards
away from the small town of r. whose
ruins, still bombarded every day and growing
more and more Shameless, lie at the limit OF
the French zone. quite near the German
trenches. ! did not know how he had been
buried. Did he lie in a common trench or per.
haps under a little cross bearing his name.
which would permit us to come later to carry
him away
T go TO tt" the general told me. make
a detour through the village of B.: that is
the way you will run The least risk OF being
marked by the German artillery. AT HI
the conditions OF your journey appear danger.
Gus, a sentinel viii stop you there according to
rule. Then you will hide your auto behind a
wall anu you may continue your Journey ON
Ioot-with the customary precautions. it is
My faithful servant. Osman. who had shared
my adventures in every country for twenty
years and who is a soldier now. like everybody
else. a territorial soldier. had had A CONSTR
killed in the same battle as my nephew. and
buried. they told him. in the same cemetery:
ne therefore obtained the authorization 10
accompany ut III NY pluuS search.
To-day everything Is powdered with boar.
frost IN the sinister countryside. over which
hangs an Icy FOG: at sixty yards in front one
can distinguish nothing. and the trees which
une the roadsides fade away. lost in the i'm.
meuse white slrouds.
After a run Of half an hour we enter com.
pletely into the gohenna Of the front. 10 which
WHeh one mas grown accustomed 10 10 one no
longer pays any attention. but which on the
earlier occasions was so impressive and which
later VIII seem so strange 10 look back on.
All the fWuraG that rfFn al, FI.-. ------
tolling machines breathe health and decision.
We see among them our own soldiers now
wearing the helmet Of blush steel which recalls
the ancient bOurguignotte" and takes MS back
10 the Middle Ages; there are yeuow-bearded
Russians. dark-skinncd Hindoos and BedouiYs.
AL these men march and march. carrying piles
OF fantastic objects. and there are also horses
by tho thousands threading their way between
the innumerable big wheels. Indeed one might
believe oneself AZ the epoch Of a general migra.
lion OF humanity, after some cataclysm that
had changed the surface OF the earth. But IL
Is not that, IL IL simply the work OF the great
hccurscd one who has Embossed German bar
barism. he had spent forty Yeas IN preparing
the monstrous stroke which. according 10 mis-
calculations, was 10 lead % the apofheosis Of
lN n01 pride. but which VIII only lead 10
his iall IN a sea Of blood amid universal loath-
ting.
A moment OF hesitation. do not see any
Of the signs which are customary az the points
where one must stop. nor the usual little red
nag. nor the tree branch stuck iu the earth. nor
the warning sentinel raising his rifle with both
hands above his head. the road .s therefore
considered 90 be passab.e today. and when /
ask IL 10 leads all the way 20 T. the sous
OFFICERS. who are about, simply answer. with
the military salute. Yes. commandment" and
Go not appear surprised that q am going there.
Then We have only to keep on our way. sim
ply taking the precauucn not 90 go too quickly.
In order 60 avoid making much noise.
Simply from the silence n which we are
plum rf nov. simply from the solitude. should
recognize that We are on the extreme front.
Tor u is one az the strange features OF the new
"ar flH. always the tragic zone BORDERING on
the burrows of the barbariaus has the aspect
Of a desert, one sees no one there. everything