The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-10-09
DesOlate Waste of Shell Holes
Succeed Beautiful Farms.
Not Even SembIance OF a Build
ing in Some Villages.
STREWA WITH GERMAN DEAD
Correspondent Describes Grue-
some Toll OF British Artillery.
Shell Holes ChOked With Dead,
Lying as They Fell.

British Front in France and Bel
gium. Oct S-CBy the Associated
Press A prosperous farming coun-
try before the war. the region Of beau
hful Ypres IS now a des0late waste
of large and deep shell craters. It
has been the scene of much bitter
anG sanguinary fighting and the ar
Nllery fire has done its work
Few sectors of the western front
have been laid waste as has this one
Farm buildings and villages nave been
swept away by the shells. Bat a
few pieces of wall mark where build
fngs once stood. Grass and other
green things have disappeared in the
turning up of the earth by the m
Vulnerable exploding shells.
From Ypres out across the West
IioeK bridge and over the site of what
once was Zonuebeke from which the
Germans were pushed last Thursday,
the scene of demolition recalls the
days of the battle of the Somme. The
Unprecedented havoc wrought on the
81 mime front hardly surpassed that
which exists along the Ypres front
Death Scenes Everywhere.
More striking than all the rest were
the scenes of death on every hand
German dead lay in large numbers
over this ground which had not yet
been cleared. At many places groups
Of Germans had been killed as they
fought together and they rested as
they fell. shell holes at some places
We're choked with bodies.
The village Of Zonnebeke is but a
memory. Some sheltered walls remain
OF the big church and in very few
places there are marks Of other pub
lie buildings but the village as a
whole has disappeared. The railway
station of the Ypres- Roulers line
where for days the British and Ger
mans battled fiercely at close quart
ers is gone and there remains only
small concrete redoubt about which
the Germans made their last stand.
RailrOad~Uttcr Ruins
The Ypres- Roulers railway which
for SO long was under British gun fire
and is now being hammered by the
Germans in nothing but broken
mound of earth The rails have been
twisted into knots and hauled here
and there.
All the highways here and on other
parts of the battlefield have been Sc
verely damaged. They are pitted here
md there with she'll holes. a thou
and yards in front Of Zonnebeke was
Broodseinde ridge and the village
with its famous crossroads where
many Germans were killed recently by
the British artillery fire. The British
line is over the crest Of this ridge or
the eastern side Broodseinde has
EtIlE tlit way Oh ZoHutpeke. lteutel
Grafenstaefel, Passchandaele and
many other hamlets
Pill Boxes Blown Up.
The German redoubts and pill boxes
in the Zonnebeke region mostly had
been smashed by shell fire, altho many
of them put up a stout resistance.
There was one great concrete and steel
redoubt which had withstood the ter
rifle fire to which it had been sub
jected.
Its defenders had been driven out
by the infantry in a pitched battle
The redoubt was eighty yards Ions
and about forty yards wide. The wal 5
which were OF concrete reinforced
with steel rails We're about five feet
thick. The roof was made OF sheet
steel. The building contained six
large rooms which would hold several
hundred men. The whole country
hereabout was covered with similarly
/ built defenses of varying sizes.