Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1917-12-20
THANKFUL TO CURIO
HUNTER NEAR VERDUN
BY ED. l.. KEEN,
General European Manager, United
DrocaA

BY Ed. l.. KEEN,
General European Manager, United
Presa.)
With the French Armies In the Field,
Nov. IL (by mail)-If n Of the party
hadn't stopped to dig up a Boche bayo-
net from the roadside, this piece
would not nave been written.
The French off1cer-chaperon and his
charges had tarried or the way back to
Verdun from one Of the outlying forts
to chat will a bunch Of Red Cross men.
n incidentally to watch the antics OF
a flock of German airplanes as they
lodged in and out among the feathery
/ puffs of French shrapnel. h usual
daily artillery strafe had been on for
some hours. Hundreds of tons OF metal
had been bowling above u heads,
from both sides, far up and down the
every second. But SO far the Boche
targets had been located a comfortable
! distance away. Our officer had given
the word to resume the journey, and
the chauffeurs were cranking up. when
the opportunity of gathering in another
| battle field souvenir interviewed. 1t is
still there.
Nature Given No Chance.
Careful figuring, conducted very
shortly thereafter in one Of the Red
Cross dugouts nearby, convinced the
whole party that if it hadn't been for
I the bayonet episode our cars would
have collided with the big Boche shell
just at the moment of it's explosion
about a block down the road. For half
an hour the German artillerymen ralSeo
the nelghborhood, and then during a
lull we beat it back to the underground
shelters of the safest citadel in Eu-
rope.
The experience had merely supplied a
vivid tina ouch to impressions already
| acquired-of what the soldiers of Ver-
u have been undergoing in the past
Is months. In this region Nature has
been given no opportunity, as she has,
for example. on the battle field Of. the
Somme to repair as best She cam; the
ravages of war. From. the top Of one
of the battered forts that now FORMS an
unbreakable ring about VerdunIrre-
captured from the Germans with a
valor and a sacrifice of life that will
make its name immortal in history
stretches out, as far as lO-paV, made
tn-Germany binoculars Gan roach, d
vista of utter devastation.
Once thickly forested hills n richly
cultivated valleys, speckled with happy
villages; now a sodden, grayish, monot-
onous panorama of churned-up soil,
criss-crossed here and there with
trenches, and only an occasional stump
or pile of crumbled stones to evidence
Its former beauty. It's like Notre Dame
de Lorette, Vimy, Wytschaete, Messines
NAhS l. " Oil
together.
No 'frespassers Allowed.
All the forces Of Nature-fre, flood,
hurricane, and earthquake-could not
have wrought such havoc. Only man
could do it. Ever looking backward,
the only observable color is the green
Of the distant fields. the shattered red
tiled roofs Of the fortress city, and the
clusters of purple-wreathed graves
where sleep the men who made the
motto of Verdun-"On ne. passe pas
(No ~trespassers acknowledgements.
The Germans now occupy Very much
the same line as that FROM Which the
crown prince launched his cdstly- but
futile attack upon this stronghold. Pre-
Vlously we had traVerSed':the valley OF
the Marine whose almost acar-less land
scape bears ample testimony Of the
characteristic French traits Of dash.
mobility, and resourcefulness; just as
Verdun's pitifully narrowed hillsides
will always be a to the
hitherto less Familiarity known French
qualities of t%ireless energy and logged
st~ubbornness.
Vosges~ down to where France in the
early days Of the war plucked.. and
still tightly clutches, a bit of what used
to be hers. It's only a few square miles
just about equal In area to the plot
of ground that Belgium now holds of
her own ravished country-but entire
ly sufficient to exemplify and justify
another fine French trait, intense pride
of accomplishment.
German Diplomats Deceived.
"Alsace Reconquise!" proudly reads
the sign over a, little shop fronting the
badly SCARED old church in the public
square of Thanh. Nearly all the old
signs rave been changed from Ger
man. but some nave been retained lust
for souvenirs. In this corner Of the
lost provinces there is no doubt how
the people stand. A good many German
statesmen profess to believe that the
population of Alsace-Lorraine has been
SO thoroughly kultured in the past
generation and a half that a plebiscite
now would show a ~epondering vote
in favor OF Hohenzollernism. But Ger
mans on the ground are far less con-
fident.
The. French-Alsatian Lieutenant who
plloted us to the brow of a nearby
the French-German ines in the valley
below to Mulhouse. told us about the
factory he owned there before the
war. The seized it," he said,
but my title is still good. They tried
to sell it the other day, after an ex-
tensive advertising campaign. at a very
low price. But nobody would buy. not
even loyal German subjects"
From another eminence we could see
the Rhine and beyond-''the promised
land" as the lieutenant confidently re-
marked-while in the immediate fore
ground rose the devastated Hartmans-
WellerEopf, once the scene Of the most
desperate fighting of the war in this
section, now comparatively quiet, with
the German n French lines running
across the top, in places only six yards
apart.
Are thep people OF France war weary?
Yes; so are those of all Europe. But
they. are not weary to the point of even
thinking of giving up the struggle, de-
spite, or rather because of. he fact
Una OF all the allies Frances burden
and her sacrifice in blood and desolat-
ed homes has been the greatest. In a
tour OF the war zone and of the pro-
vlncial towns behind the lines. from
the channel to Switzerland, one may
lind everywhere abundant evidence of
a relentless determination, among both
soldiers and homefolks, to see the thing
through.
But the r%redominant sentiment in
france today is n OF intense graft
tude that America has come in to helm.