The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1918-03-21
BAYONET SAVES
AMERICAN LIVES
Escape German Shell When One
Of Party Stops to Dig Up
Relic.
SEE SCENES OF DEsolATIoN
Once Richly Cultivated Valleys
SpeckIed With Happy Villages,
Now But Sodden Panorama
Of churned-Up Soil.

With the French Armies in the Field.
If one of the party hadn't stopped to
dig up Boche bayonet from the road
side, this piece wouldn't have been
written.
The French officer.chaperone and his
charges had tarried on the way back
to Verdun from one Of the outlying
forts to chat with bunch of Red
Cross men, and incidentally to watch
the antics of flock Of German air.
planes as they lodged in and out
among the feathery puGs of shrapnel.
The usual daily artillery strafe had
been on for some hours. Hundreds Of
tons of metal had been bowling above
cur heads from both sides, far up and
down the line. At times there was q
shot for every second. But so far the
Boche targets had been located COM
Portable distance away.
Our officer had given the word to re-
sumo the journey, and the chauffeurs
We're cranlIing up, when the oppor-
tunity of gathering in another battle
field souvenir interviewed. 1t is still
there.
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
the bayonet episode our cars would
have colided with the big Boche shell
just at the moment of its explosion
about a block down the road.
The experience had merely supplied
vivid final touch to impressions al
ready acquired--of what the soldiers
Of Verdun have been undergoing in
the last eighteen months. In this re-
gion Nature has been given no oppor-
tunity, as she has, for example, on
the battlefield of the Somme, to repair
as best she can the ravages of war.
From the top of one of the battered
forts that now forms an unbreakable
ring about Nerdun-recaptured from
the Germans with valOr and at
sacrifice of life that will make its name
immortal in history-stretches out, as
far as ten-ply, made-in- Germany binoc-
a
tation.
Scene Of Deso!ation.
Once thickly forested hills and rich
~ cultivated valleys speclled with
happy villages; now sodden. grayish,
monotonous panorama of churned-up
soil, criss-crossed here and there with
trenches, and only an occasional stump
or pile of crumpled stones to evidence
Its former beauty. It's like Notre
Dame de Lorette, Vimy, Wytschete,
Messines and Passchendaele Ridge all
scrambled together.
All the forces of nature-fire, FOOD
hurricane and earthquake-could not
have wrought such havoc. Only man
could do it. Even looking backward,
the only discernible color is the green
of the distant hills, 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 allowed "a reality.
The Germans now occupy much the
same line as that from which the
crown prince launched his costly but
futile attack upon this stronghold. Pre-
viously we had traversed the valley OF
the Marine whose landscape bears am
pie testimony to the characteristic
French traits of dash, mobility and re.
sourcefulness just as Verdun's pftl'
fully narrowed hillsides will always be
a monument to the hitherto less fa1nfl-
iarly known French qualities Of tire
less energy and logged stubbornness.
Land GrimIy Held by French.
Then on through the forest Of the
Vosges down to where France in the
early days of the war plucked, and still
tightly clutches q bit Of what used to
be hers. It's only q few square miles
Just about equal to the plot Of
ground that Belgium now holds of her
own ravished country-but entirely
sufficient to exemplify and justify an
other fine French trait, intense pride
of accomplishment.
"Alsace Reconquisel proudly reads
the sign over little shop fronting the
badly SCARED old church in the public
square of Thanh. Nearly all the old
signs have been changed from German,
but some have been retained just for
souvenirs. In this corner of the lost
provinces" there is no doubt how the
people stand.
Are the people of France war-wearyi
Yes; so are those of all Europe. But
they are not weary to the point OF
even thinking Of giving up the strug'
gle, despite or, rather, because Of the
fact that Of all the allies Frances bur
dens and her sacrifice in blood and des
olated homes has been the greatest.
In a tour of the war zone and of the
provincial towns behind the lines, from
the channel to Switzerland, one may
find everywhere abundant evidence OF
a relentless determination, among both
soldiers and homefolks, to see the
thing through.
But the predominant sentiment In
France today is one CT intense graft
tude that America has come In to help.
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