The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1918-01-31
~ FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE
of the ViQiIantes.

BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE
of the Vigilantes.
"Somewhere in France"-I never
Imagined in the widest flights OF fan
cy about war that to gain an objective
under modern battle conditions an
army has not to lay waste position
or village but practically country
side. You can motor nowadays 1or
hours in the region generally known
as the British front, sweep the land
scape for miles in every direction, and
see nothing but ruins of what used to
be human habitations. Your guides
point to a scattered dump Of brick.
mortar, twisted timbers, indiscrimi-
nate rubbish of all sorts, lining either
side of the roadway along which you
are spinning. Here and there at IT.
regular intervals the bare, charred re-
mains of what once were trees suck
up from amid the debris and the
chaos. There is not suggestion OF q
standing wall anywhere, nor even OF Q
door or window-frame, and, OF course,
no semblance of roof. There are
only cellars into which houses, shopA
churches, stores, schOols-everything
have been thrown into crazy hold
all of town-wide grave.
1--WE are now going through -,"
remarks our military chaperone, Ia
conically, and we recognize the name
of place prominent in the lighting
during some important push weeks
or months ago-nOw wiped from the
face of the earth as effectually as II
honest French peasants and villagers
had never striven through the genera
lions to make comfortable abode for
themselves and theirs. One hopes that
the ministering angels permitted them
to evacuate the town before their
homes were splintered and crushed by
15-inch death-dealers. One wonders
how many human remains may still lie
buried beneath the Wreckage OF beams
and sandstone. One speculates
whether men, women and children who
contrived to escape the shells Will
ever again be able to start life with
their dwellings, places of business and
cultivated fields mangled and devas-
tated. One is persuaded that stupen-
dious as is the work of destruction
wrought by twentieth century warfare,
the task of reconstruction will be
enormously more gigantic still. Towns
that took years to make have been
shot to pieces in an hour. rs
NNorl -, Derfora&ion
/ have heard of towns in our own
wild and woody West that have been
s'shot-up.' But -- Is surely the
last word in complete and scientific
perforation. In July, 1914, 1t was
happy, thriving community of $4,000
or 10000 inhabitants, q smiling town,
with wonderful Grand place and a
picturesque Petit place, a noble Gothic
cathedral and splendid town hall.
Round the Grand place ran quad
Eangle Of colonnaded houses of sur
passing architectural beauty. For the
cest, the town was typically French,
by which l mean Il complex of neat
stores and dwelling houses, churches
and factories, schools and eStaminets
fcafes). Today there is not a solitary
Building of any kind in the whole town
shat is not entirely Or partially wreck
ed. There is not Il single thing Of
wood, brick or stone that is intact.
Not more than 1,5OU or 1000 people
Awe there now, and they must hide in
cellars most of the time, lest Boche
shells search them out. Death turks
Sn every street, even though the Brit
Ash have held it for more than two
years and have extended their lines
Beyond it considerably during the past
View months. Though they have long
Gince turned the town into scraps Of
its former self, the Germans seem filed
with an Unsuitable lust to tlatten out
!eyen the scraps. You walk through
the Grand place, hugging close to the
walls by order Of your army guide, in
perpetual danger that souvenir from
krupps will land at your feet and send
fragments OF you flying into the
ethereal eternal. But you are only
living the life that the British garrison
and indomitable little civilian rear.
guard of 1,5C0 or 1000 people-mostly
old men and women too fragile to seek
d safer abode further behind the lines
ARE living day in and day out.
Museum Of German savagery.
!. This thought occurred to me while
surveying the tumbled-down cathedral
and mipce.meated town hall and the
fimitless field of desolation and devas.
cation lying all around them at every
turning: Why not keep 1t just as it Ia
Today, a pile of glorious ruins, as q
world museum Of German savagery1
sWhy not leave it, stricken, battered
end manned in it's every structural
limb, just as we saw it this day three
Years after, for the admonition, horror
and instruction of universe which
has rushed to arms for the overthrow
'Df uberty's foe? There will be vast