New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-14

\ AS we ate our dinner in the cafe facing
the beautiful Place Stanislas we were dis
turbed by a strange and curious drumming
sound Going out into the square, we saw
an acroplane or rather its lights. red and
green, like those of a ship. II was the
! first of several, the night patrol, rising
slowly and steadily, and then sweeping off
in a wide curve toward the enemy's line.
! They were the sentries Of the air which
we're to guard us while we slept, for men
do sentry-go in the air as well as on the
earth about the capital of Lorraine. Then
the searchlights on the hills began TO play,
sweeping the horizon toward that same
mysterious region where beyond the dark
ness there is war.
Only Taube.
The next morning | woke with the sense
Of Fourth Of July. Bang! Bang! Bang
Such a barking of cannon crackers ] had
never heard. Still drowsy, pushed open
the French windows and looked down on
the square There beheld hundred OF
more men, women and children, their eyes
fixed on something in the air above and
behind the hotel. Still the incessant bark
ing of guns, with the occasional boom of
something more impressive With diff
Guilty I grasped the fact. was In the
midst of Taube raid. Somewhere over
my head. invisible to me because of the
wall Of my hotel, German aeroplane was
fving, and all the anti-air craft guns were
/, shooting at it. Was it carrying bombs?
Should I presently see or feel the destruc
ton following the descent Of these?
But the Taube turned away, the guns
fired less and less frequently the people in
the streets drifted away, the children to
school, the men to work, the women to-
wait Ii was Just a detail in their lives,
as familiar as the incoming steamer to
the commuters on the North River ferry
boats. Some portion of war has been the
days history of Nancy for nearly two
years now. The children do not carry gas
masks to school with them as they do at
Pont-a- Mousson, a dozen miles to the north,
but women and children have been killed
by German shells, by bombs, brought by
.Zeppelins and by aeroplanes. There is al
, WAYS excitement of sorts in the district of
: Nancy.
Where German Violence Broke.
After a breakfast broken by the return
Of the aeroplanes we had seen departing
the night before for the patrol we en-
tered our cars and set out for the front,
for the near-front, for the lines fe'V
miles behind the present trenches, where
Nancy was saved but two years ago Our
route lay north along the valley Of the
Meurthe, smiling, broad valley, march
ing north and south and meeting in few
e miles that of the Moselle coming east. l.
D was easy to believe that one was riding
, through the valley Of the Susquehanna,
! with spring and peace in the air. Toward
the east a wall of hills shut out the view.
This was the shoulder Of the Grand Cou
rome, the wall against which German vio-
lence burst and broke in September, 1914.
Presently we came to long stretch IF
road walled in on the river side by brown
canvas. exactly the sort Of thing that is
used at football games to shut cut the
Inon-paying public. But it had another
PURPOSE here. We were within the vision
of the Germans. across the river, on the
heights, behind the forest, which outlined
itself at the skyline; there were the
Kaiser's troops and that forest was the
Bois-le-Pretre, the familiar incident in so
many communicates since the war began.
Thanks to the canvas, it was possible fc-I
the French to move troops along this road
without inviting German shells. Yet 1t
was impossible to derive any large feeling
of security from a canvas wall, which
alone interposed between you and German
heavy artillery.
"War-Do Not Trespan.
We passed through several villages, and
each was crowded with troops; cavalry,
infantry. all the branches were represei,-
ed; it was still early and the soldiers were
Just beginning their days work; war is s.
completely a business here. Transport
wagons marched along the roads; com
panies of soldiers filed by. lnterSpersed
with the soldiers were the civilians, the
women and children, for none Of the VII
lagos is evacuated Not even the occa-
sional boom of a gun far off could give to
this thing the character Of real war. 1t
recalled the days of my soldering in IN"
militia camp at birmingham in Massac1u-
sets. 1t was simply impossible to believe
that it was real. Even the faces of tie
soldiers were smiling. There was no such
sense of terribleness, of strain and weari-
ness as later found about Verdun. The
Lorraine front is now inactive, tranquil; 1t
has been quiet so long that men have fol-
gotten all the carnage and horror OF the
earlier time.