Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-07-19

PARIS, June 25
IF YOU have not read an ancient book
L by Viollet-le-Duc entitled THE History Of
a Fortress" buy g. / pray you, in its Eng
hsh translation. or better still IL you can
SO read, In its original French It's a clear
cut, interesting and well-baanced little story
teiIing the siege tale upon a Middle Age
The attacking force begins by making
breach with powerful battering rams in the
heaVy, high thick outer walls. The moment
atter prodigious effort their ram has pierced
mole, they find semicircular barrcades Of
wood confronting them, barricades the de-
renders know will III resist the ram, yet
with the III resisting, gain time. And when
these are demolished and the moat crossed,
and there still other barricades found, with
beyond more still to the castle itself they
hammer away and force the garrison to take
final refuge in the dungeons underneath,
where they fight to the last having sue
ceeded only in postponng the inevitable;
and dying in the vain hope OF re-enforce-
ments from without For without them they
sense their end.
Things have changed since the Middle
Ages; but methods are in substance the
same
That famous Hndenburg line is broken
But behind II the Boche has constructed
a second defense that can well be COM
pared to the first barricade within the
castle walls of Viollet-le-Duc. Like it, 1t is
semicircular in form, but instead of being
900 feet long 1t extends for kilometers. Il
is as sure TO fall as the barricade Of wood,
for it is as hastily constructed and as i'll
prepared to stand the battering ram Of
Anglo-French artillery as its ancient prede-
cessor was to stand the battering ram
manipulated by human strength. Behind it
another will be found And behind that
still another These will have to be de-
stroyed, will be destroyed. And so it will
be all the way to the dungeon.
Where Will the Dungeon Be?
Where will that dungeon be? In Belgium
or in Bocheland? Wherever it is, it's day
is coming, the day when the Boche the
Hun, the Barbarian makes his last stand
before the armies of right And l am not
the only man in France who ferventy
wishes 10 see the Stars and Stripes at the
finish.
In the sealed book Of time its date is
written. For the re-enforcements the pow
ers Of evil are looking for won't come from
submarine murderings.
I have just walked through and about |
and within that Hindenburg line at two |
distant points within the French and Eng
lish fronts AS / said, it is broken, and |
soidlv broken. But behind it is another |
line Of defense welded in sections to the !
line where unbroken. comparing exactly TO |
the wooden barricades within the fortressed |
walls of Volet-le-Duc And like il, too, !
1t takes the outline of a circles segment. |
It's made or earth and barbed wire. II |
an evident hasty makeshift
It was the wall / am about to describe, |
constructed with painstaking care before |
trees were murdered and villages razed, |
that was the most difficult to demolish, TO |
break through with batterlng ram of mod |
ern gun fire and the ardor of France and |
England, II is pierced fair in several |
places. 7 saw two I have examined their |
newly demolished state ! have seen the |
logical result of constant hammer Of lead |
and steel upon the line of Siegfried until it |
crumbled. | can only speak of that por-
tlon which I have seen. But | do not |
doubt It is constructed in the same way |
all along the line.
The principle of its building was that OF |
concealing, as much as Boche ingenuity |
could the position Of batteries and obser
walton posts, and at the same time giving |
these batteries and observation posts a |
clear field upon four distances series |
Of hills, leveled 70 an equal height, with |
lesser hills, also OF equal height, between.
They were in part natures architecture |
and in part Boche. That an unobstruCted |
view might be. had from any Of them, every |
village, house, church, tree, elevation be-
fore them for a given distance was razed |
to an approximate level, save here and |
there a tree or a bit of natural land that |
could serve so to speak, as a lighthouse.
Imagine a great wave, with lot Of lesser |
waves behind IT.
What the Trenches Are Like
First a series Of trenches marvelously |
constructed which is saying something, for
the Boche has trench building down to |