The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-23
EVACUATED LAND FRENCH FIND AS
 BARE AS DESERT
Germans Stripped Homes of Women and Children and Then Burned Them Down Thousands Without Food Or Shelter.

With the French Armies Advanc- ing from Noyon, Chauny and Sergin- fer, Paris, March 23.-Retreating Ger man troops sacked even supply houses of the American Relief Commission to leave the French civilian inhabitants utterly without food. They took every scrap of metal in the French villages and their policy of insensate destruc- tion marked practically every house : in the territory which they evacuated.
 The French advance has been so rapid that in many cases they have arrived at towns and villages hours before the Germans had planned to evacuate them.
 Nor is the French advance lacking in methodical system. Behind the screen of fast moving cavalry and in- fantry come the engineers and road builders And behind them the ar tillery awaits only the construction of highways.
 A few miles beyond Noyon I wit messed the rapidity with which the French are overcoming every effort of the enemy to check their advance. There the French columns encounter ed a fifty foot hole-a crater on the Noyon-Chauny road-exactly at tine spot best calculated to impede the advance.
 The French infantry and cavalry immediately detoured to adjoining fields and continued their forward movement without Interruption. At the same moment engineers began fili- ing the crater and bridging 1t. An other detachment started at work on a road winding around the place.
 Almost before the last shovel of dirt was thrown and the last nail driven batteries of the famous "75" guns went careening across, while, to one side, munitions and supply trains dashed forward likewise. The entire advance was resumed. \.
 Pushing forward with the army to- ward Chauny and Tergnier one saw the entire horizon clouded with the smoke of burning farms and villages. was traceable for fifteen miles by such palls of smoke.
 Along the road back from Tergnier and Noyon poured an intending stream of refugees from theoe blazing farms and villages. Nearly all were women -pitiful in their Restitution, few scant pieces of clothing saved and strapped on their backs, or pushing baby carriages, or wheelbarrows with tiny tots tucked therein. Younger children clung to their skirts or them selves toddled along under the weight of bundles.
 This was pitiful appearing stream. Pushing afoot along a road stretching eighteen miles and constantly under bombardm dment. the refugees faced a driving winter rain. Although they were homeless and hunger-stricken, with only the clothing on their backs or few small belongings to call their own-despite all this they were supremely, radiantly happy. They were returning to France.
 They declared the happiest moment of their lives was when French cavalry dashed into their village and chased out the Germans.
 Their stories were all alike. For weeks before the retreat started the Germans herded all inhabitants be- fore them from village to village. When the final moment came for the Germans to leave they sacked the houses. The soldiers carried off ev- erything eatable and burned the vil- lages before the eyes of the refugees. They then departed, leaving the vil- lagers homeless and foodless. T A few hours later, when the eGr- mans believed the French troops had arrived, they began smelling the vil- lages they had pillaged and left, de- spite their knowledge of thousands of innocent civil inhabitants still there.
 Seven thousand women and chil- dren suffered this experience at Chau- ny alone. The village was under bombardment at the moment I arriv- ed The French Red Cross crews with their filters. who had pushed for ward afoot, were carrying of women and children wounded .--fing the shell fire.